{"id":423,"date":"2003-11-01T13:18:18","date_gmt":"2003-11-01T21:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/11\/01\/theres-something-about-miriam\/"},"modified":"2003-11-01T13:18:18","modified_gmt":"2003-11-01T21:18:18","slug":"theres-something-about-miriam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":""There's Something About Miriam""},"content":{"rendered":"

The story of how the male contestants on Sky’s reality show “There’s Something About Miriam” are suing Sky Broadcasting has been getting press on air, on the blogs, and in print, so you may have read about it already, but in case you haven’t here’s a recap: (via The Guardian<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Lawyers acting for the six men trying to stop Sky broadcasting a reality show in which they are seen unwittingly kissing and caressing a male transsexual are planning a litany of legal charges against the broadcaster, including conspiracy to commit sexual assault.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The firm has written to Sky and the show’s producer, independent company Brighter Pictures, telling them the six contestants have claims including conspiracy to commit a sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract and personal injury.<\/p>\n

The men claim they were tricked into kissing, cuddling and holding hands with Miriam and say it was only after three weeks of filming that they were told the beautiful woman was, in fact, a man.<\/p>\n

While viewers would know from the start that Miriam is a male-to-female transsexual, the contestants – who include a Royal Marine commando, a ski instructor and an ex-lifeguard – only discover the truth when Miriam picks the winner and then lifts up “her” skirt.<\/p>\n

One contestant was so furious he is said to have punched the show’s producer when he found out.<\/p>\n

The six contestants’ case against Sky and Brighter Pictures, which is a subsidiary of Big Brother producer Endemol, is expected to include the claim that the companies conspired to commit a sexual assault on the grounds the men did not consent to being fondled by a man.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, I’m not an expert on sexual assault laws, but it seems to me that the plaintiffs in this case don’t have a legal leg to stand on. Their kissing, cuddling, and fondling of Miriam (a pre-operative transsexual) was entirely consensual on their part (as near as I can tell) and is no more sexual assault against them than if they had picked up Miriam in a bar and taken her home with them.<\/p>\n

It sounds to me like these six men (I’m tempted to make insulting comments about them, but it seems that everyone involved in the show was acting in a reprehensible manner) were profoundly embarrassed by what happened and are trying to find some legal ground to keep themselves from being internationally shamed. (For some reason, I can’t shake the idea that these were all uber-masculine, manly-man types. I can’t imagine a show that played so much off of homophobia that didn’t have contestants of this type.) But really, how can they claim that Sky is responsible for any personal injury (what personal injury? Finding out that the super-model-type you thought you had free reign to grope was actually a preoperative transsexual?) when any sexual acts they may have committed with Miriam were entirely consensual.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen it argued that the men have a legal standing in their case because Sky may have told them that Miriam was a woman and therefore they were deceived into fooling about with a man who they had been told was a woman. Again, all the acts were entirely consensual, so as far as I’m concerned there was no sexual assault, but if Sky did refer to Miriam as a woman they weren’t really lying. Most preoperative transsexuals prefer to be referred to as members of the gender they wish to become (and already are, in my opinion; what’s an organ?) and so Sky may have been following the wishes of their employee, Miriam, or simply following what’s an established convention in the trans community.<\/p>\n

I guess the question remains: when writing legal contracts, are preoperative male-to-female transsexuals referred to as men or as women? I’m not sure how much this changes; for instance, the men may not have read the contracts, or Miriam may have been referred to with a gender-neutral term (e.g., “the contestant”) and it was only the Sky people who referred to Miriam as a woman.<\/p>\n

I’d be interested in the opinion of someone who is more familiar with sexual assault laws and laws with regard to preoperative transsexuals.<\/p>\n

[Edited for accuracy.]<\/i><\/p>\n

[The original form of this post referred to Sky Broadcasting as being owned by Fox. One of the commentators informs me that this is not true; in fact, Sky Broadcasting and Fox are both owned by News Corporation. I’ve corrected statements to the contrary in the post and have removed all references to Fox. Sorry for the inaccuracy.]<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of how the male contestants on Sky’s reality show “There’s Something About Miriam” are suing Sky Broadcasting has been getting press on air, on the blogs, and in print, so you may have read about it already, but … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues","category-transsexual-and-transgender-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}