My thoughts on the Roast Busters
In case you have been living under a rock in the middle of nowhere with no access to any form of technology or media at all, Roast Busters is a group of young men (and I use the term men very very loosely) who claim to have filmed themselves having underage sex with very drunk young woman, then publicly naming and shaming them on Facebook.
It is all over the media here in NZ, and from what I could see on Breakfast TV this morning, its disgusting communities the world over. Its so outrageous that when I initially heard about it, I had to shake myself to believe it was actually real, and that it was happening here in NZ. It has left me with a number of wonderings…
My Wonderings:
The police have known about it for over 2 years.
I wonder why it’s taken the media so long to find out. It’s such an appalling thing to have on a social media site that it surprises me that no ones spilled the beans sooner.
I wonder why we as a society tolerate such appalling bullying processes on social media. Take ask.fm – which is another disgusting bullying tool. Ask.fm is a social networking site where anonymous users ask anonymous personal questions and get anonymous answers. How could that possibly go wrong in the hands of a young person…yes…that was tinged with sarcasm.
The ask.fm site has led to a number of young people committing suicide after months of bullying. Yet, it still operates, and plenty of young people are subscribed to it. I wonder, do parents even know what this site is, let alone what harm it can cause? I suspect not. The Roast Busters site is no different, and I hear today that there are copy cat Facebook pages being set up by other young ‘men’.
I wonder, what happened to us? How do we blindly go about our business each day, oblivious to the antics of our youth, and indifferent to the harm these sites are causing.
The police say they can’t do anything about these boys bragging about taking advantage of drunk underage girls because none of the girls have come forward… Hmmm.
I wonder, and correct me if I am wrong, but is it not illegal to have sex with an underage minor? And, does bragging about it on social media and naming and shaming the girls involved not amount to a confession? Is this not evidence? I find this of great concern…
I wonder what is happening in the minds of the young woman who quickly came to the rescue of the boys behaviour and called it ‘normal teen antics’? I have to say that the fact these young woman think what the boys have done is ‘normal’ is just appalling. I wonder, where are their parents and what do they think?
I wonder, what kind of young woman thinks this is ‘normal West Auckland’ behaviour? How do our young woman even get that impression, and
I wonder what is missing in our society for them to think group sex is a typical thing you do? I am almost lost for words. (read more and watch what these girls think as they defend the boys at the heart of this scandal)
Roast-Busters-actions-defended
It defies logic to me that this kind of behaviour exists and I wonder what the parents of all these young ‘men’ think of the actions of their sons. I would be disgusted, and I would be deeply ashamed. Recent revelations that one of them is the son of a police man and the other a high profile entertainer seems to be like rubbing salt into the psychological wounds of these young girls.
I wonder why (as I am sure their own parents are right now also wondering) they didn’t know better. The arrogance of them, to think their actions were normal, sane and those of a real man. I wonder if they realise the harm they have caused and that what they did was rape.
This will be an unpopular wondering, but I am pretty confident it is a wondering shared by many around the world. I wonder why those young underage girls, some barely in their teens, were out and about unsupervised, and very very drunk. They are still children. I am trying hard to not judge – kids find themselves in messy situations all the time – and I am hopeful that the parents thought their daughters were safe. I appreciate that this may be naive but I remain hopeful. To believe otherwise would be too alarming and raise the question of child protection and safety to the forefront.
I wonder why the police did not act on the young 13 year old that went to them with her parents to lay a complaint of rape 2 years ago. It is all very well to say they will now ‘relook’ at it now – but it seems a little too late, and I wonder if the media attention this issue has, is now the catalyst.
I am a Mum. I wonder what I would do if something this disgusting and despicable happened to my girl. I don’t want my daughter or any other parents daughter to ever have to experience this loss of innocence and disgusting violation. As far as I am concerned, these boys knew full well the girls were drunk, underage and they took advantage. I despise their behaviour, and I am ashamed that there are young ‘men’ in our country like them. They make a mockery of all the hard working, fabulous kiwi men in our country. They do not deserve the label ‘men’.
Finally, I wonder if the young woman who were named and shamed are ok. I worry for them, both now and in the future. My heart aches for the hurt, humiliation and loss they have suffered.
And so, the ‘Despicable, Disgusting Dregs of Humanity Award’ goes to the all those ‘young men’ who are involved with Roast Busters. Watch out for Karma boys, she has one heck of a kick.
Sources:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11152592
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11152416
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11152447
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11152052
