my view is an integral part of sex. The distance itself, though, should not be viewed as confirmation of coitus.
“There are these stories about you and Courtney Love,” said Nik. The tabloids were now ever-present in my life providing salacious commentary, and wilfully misunderstanding everything I did. Initially it was a laugh, even when they said hurtful things; me, Matt and Trev would dissect it on the wireless – they’d torment me and I could defend myself. Sometimes we’d call the papers up and give them false stories, live on air. Everything could be fed into the whirring comedy buzzsaw.
I didn’t care if the papers wrote that I slept with Courtney. “That’s OK,” I said to Nik. “She’s cool, Kurt Cobain and all that – I’m not bothered.”
I was less nonchalant, however, when I received a call informing me that one of the girls at the “party” on the final night in Edinburgh had said she’d been drugged and coerced into sex by one of the men present. OK. Drugged and coerced. That sounds bad. “One of the men” – why didn’t I invite more men? The thing is I distinctly remember not drugging or coercing anyone into sex that night. Or ever, actually. I don’t expect praise for that – I’m not saying, “Hey, I’ve never drugged or coerced anyone into sex – where’s my effing medal? Where’s my ticker-tape parade?” I’m just saying I’m opposed to drugging and raping. Except when the victim and perpetrator are both me.
The nature of such a terrible slur is that the accusation is itself a condemnation. Also I’m not impervious to the moral codes of the civilisation of which I’m part, so it’s difficult not to have, if not a visceral sense of guilt, certainly an ethereal awareness of that guilt. Occasionally you feel the ghost of that guilt passing through you. My mum is an ordinary person who’s probably had three or four partners in her life, while my grandmother on one side is very Catholic and family orientated, and on the other side Protestant and quite staunch, so it’s not as if I grew up in a kibbutz or some sort of commune utterly free from restrictive sexual morality. I’m subject to it, and in fact it’s only my habit of defining myself as external to any culture that I’m ostensibly part of, that makes me distance myself from it. By existing in opposition to it I’m subject to its influence … it is influential.
That sense of guilt was similar to when at school in assembly they say, “Somebody here has done something terrible.” I’d think, “Oh God, it’s probably me.” Sometimes I’d almost go, “Yeah, I did that,” almost admit to it because of a sense of guilt. Enough people in my life have told me, “You are bad, you’re a bad person, what you’ve done is bad” – in the end you start thinking, “I am a bit bad.” So you are awaiting judgement, awaiting the Sword of Damocles or some guillotine swipe. Like in assembly when they said, “We’ll find out who it is anyway.” On the rare occasions when it hadn’t been me, I would still nearly put up my hand.
We travelled back from Morocco and I saw newspapers in the airport – it was in all the daily papers. Some had been moderate, but the Daily Star ran on the front page “Russell Brand Rape Quiz” and I thought, well, this is going to be a tough show to pitch at Channel 4. “It’s an interesting concept, Russell, but some of our female viewers might find it offensive.”
Quiz is such a light word to use in conjunction with Rape. “A Rape Quiz”, these two words don’t belong together. Enquiry, search, quest, I don’t know ... there was no quiz and there was no rape. The only words that are indisputable are “Russell Brand”, and whilst I agree that is a headline, I refute the other two words, rape and quiz. If I had to choose one word to go it would be rape, making it “Russell Brand Quiz”. I think that could be fun – every week Tuesday seven o’clock ask questions
“There are these stories about you and Courtney Love,” said Nik. The tabloids were now ever-present in my life providing salacious commentary, and wilfully misunderstanding everything I did. Initially it was a laugh, even when they said hurtful things; me, Matt and Trev would dissect it on the wireless – they’d torment me and I could defend myself. Sometimes we’d call the papers up and give them false stories, live on air. Everything could be fed into the whirring comedy buzzsaw.
I didn’t care if the papers wrote that I slept with Courtney. “That’s OK,” I said to Nik. “She’s cool, Kurt Cobain and all that – I’m not bothered.”
I was less nonchalant, however, when I received a call informing me that one of the girls at the “party” on the final night in Edinburgh had said she’d been drugged and coerced into sex by one of the men present. OK. Drugged and coerced. That sounds bad. “One of the men” – why didn’t I invite more men? The thing is I distinctly remember not drugging or coercing anyone into sex that night. Or ever, actually. I don’t expect praise for that – I’m not saying, “Hey, I’ve never drugged or coerced anyone into sex – where’s my effing medal? Where’s my ticker-tape parade?” I’m just saying I’m opposed to drugging and raping. Except when the victim and perpetrator are both me.
The nature of such a terrible slur is that the accusation is itself a condemnation. Also I’m not impervious to the moral codes of the civilisation of which I’m part, so it’s difficult not to have, if not a visceral sense of guilt, certainly an ethereal awareness of that guilt. Occasionally you feel the ghost of that guilt passing through you. My mum is an ordinary person who’s probably had three or four partners in her life, while my grandmother on one side is very Catholic and family orientated, and on the other side Protestant and quite staunch, so it’s not as if I grew up in a kibbutz or some sort of commune utterly free from restrictive sexual morality. I’m subject to it, and in fact it’s only my habit of defining myself as external to any culture that I’m ostensibly part of, that makes me distance myself from it. By existing in opposition to it I’m subject to its influence … it is influential.
That sense of guilt was similar to when at school in assembly they say, “Somebody here has done something terrible.” I’d think, “Oh God, it’s probably me.” Sometimes I’d almost go, “Yeah, I did that,” almost admit to it because of a sense of guilt. Enough people in my life have told me, “You are bad, you’re a bad person, what you’ve done is bad” – in the end you start thinking, “I am a bit bad.” So you are awaiting judgement, awaiting the Sword of Damocles or some guillotine swipe. Like in assembly when they said, “We’ll find out who it is anyway.” On the rare occasions when it hadn’t been me, I would still nearly put up my hand.
We travelled back from Morocco and I saw newspapers in the airport – it was in all the daily papers. Some had been moderate, but the Daily Star ran on the front page “Russell Brand Rape Quiz” and I thought, well, this is going to be a tough show to pitch at Channel 4. “It’s an interesting concept, Russell, but some of our female viewers might find it offensive.”
Quiz is such a light word to use in conjunction with Rape. “A Rape Quiz”, these two words don’t belong together. Enquiry, search, quest, I don’t know ... there was no quiz and there was no rape. The only words that are indisputable are “Russell Brand”, and whilst I agree that is a headline, I refute the other two words, rape and quiz. If I had to choose one word to go it would be rape, making it “Russell Brand Quiz”. I think that could be fun – every week Tuesday seven o’clock ask questions
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