Canada has a Sex-Scandal

So for those of you who haven’t heard… it seems that Canada has a sex scandal!  After so many years of being known only for our social politeness and the invention of poutine, our country has finally become a bit player on the stage of perversion.  Finally, we have something to talk about besides the weather and whatever new donut is being added to the Tim Horton’s menu.

Our sordid tale centers around a Canadian CBC radio celebrity (Is this even a thing?!?)  who has turned out to be a bit of a sadist.  His name is Jian Ghomeshi. (I wonder how many Canadians could even spell his name before this scandal hit the internet?)  Mr. Ghomeshi recently found himself sans employment as rumours mounted about his bedroom preferences.  He promptly launched a lawsuit against the CBC, hired a team of professional image consultants, and issued a public assurance that his affairs, while violent and possibly disturbing to the average Canadian, were always based on mutual consent.

For a nano-second, the public rushed to his defense. Where is the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, we asked?  And how bad could it really be?  (I mean… he’s a Canadian after all).  Facebook and twitter were filled with posts by folks who felt badly for poor Jian (despite not knowing him from a can of beans).  But in the days since, his previously faceless “consenting partners” have been popping up all over the place, and it turns out that Jian was right about at least one thing… his sexual behaviours are definitely violent and disturbing.

So violent and disturbing in fact, that his PR professionals have abandoned ship, and the majority of his Facebook and twitter pals have done a quick 180.  They now post their undying support for a Canadian actress named Lucy DeCoutere (despite not knowing her from a can of beans).  Ms DeCoutere, along with several other women, have spoken out about experiences in which Jian turned quickly from dream date to rapist.

Across the country, people are gob-smacked by what they are hearing.  How can this be possible?  He’s so good-looking… so smiley… such a warm voice to listen to in the morning.  He promotes indie music and wears Chuck Taylor sneakers, for God’s sake!  He’s the guy women want to have sex with, isn’t he?  I guess the answer to that question is “yes” but wanting to have sex should not be confused with consenting to be slapped, beaten, tied up, choked, or otherwise assaulted.

So here we are, with a genuine sex scandal.  Everybody’s talking about it (while pretending that we actually listened to him on the radio, or even knew who he was at this time last week).  We all want the details… give us more details… because our ever-so-exciting scandal requires a constant flow of details in order to survive.  And without the details, how can we possibly know who to defend in our next facebook post?  And we want to hear from “experts” because obviously, only a person with a PhD in psychology could deduce that Jian’s behaviour towards women is “predatory” and only a Professor of Law could conclude that choking a woman until she blacked out could be considered “assault”.

The whole date rape “thing” is suddenly so worthy of conversation, now that there is a sort-of-famous face attached to it.  Maybe with all this attention focused on violence against women, we will be able to improve our attitudes and our laws and our ways of addressing so many things… the sky’s the limit I say!

Alas, it seems that our home-grown sex scandal is already losing the attention of the all-important 18-35 demographic.  Yesterday “Jian Ghomeshi” was trending at #1 on Yahoo Canada but today he has been replaced by Iggy Azalea (I hear that there is a HUGE scandal over some photo-shopped images that removed her facial moles without her consent!)…

And there was a snowstorm in Eastern Canada over the weekend which has understandably caused us all to revert to default and start fixating on the weather again…

And I hear that Tim Horton’s is on the brink of successfully creating a donut-croissant-bagel-toaster strudel hybrid…

And there are kittens doing incredibly cute things on youtube…