I thought I would share a recent experience I had on a Virgin flight from Sydney to Brisbane. The incident left me angry, embarrassed and acutely aware of how society has become fearful of everyone. To the point that we are all presumed guilty and treated appropriately.
Is it media, the Internet or is society beginning to crumble away as human contact becomes lessened and we retreat into a cyber world of posts tweets and blogs?
But I digress,
It was a Sunday afternoon when I boarded the plane. I came to a row of three seats and there were two young boys ( about 10 years old) seated in the window and middle seat. I was allocated the window but knowing how much fun it was looking out the window as a child, I let the little bloke sit in my seat. I sat on the aisle seat and started to read a magazine as the pre-flight checks were being completed. After about 10 minutes, a stewardess approached me and asked whether I was in the correct seat. I explained how the child was technically in my seat but it was fine and he could have it. She quizzically acknowledged this and walked away. Although this seemed weird I didn’t think much of it and went back to my magazine.
The fasten seat belt sign was illuminated and we were clear for takeoff. Then the stewardess approached me again.
‘Sir we are going have to ask you to move’
‘Why’, I said.
‘Well, because you are male, you can’t be seated next to two unaccompanied minors’.
Shocked, I replied, ‘ Isn’t this sexist and discriminatory?’
She replied, ‘I am sorry, but that is our policy’.
By this stage a few people from the surrounding rows had started to look around and wonder what the problem was. The stewardess walked two rows up to the aisle seat across from me. She spoke to a 20 year old women and asked if she would mind swapping seats because I wasn’t allowed to sit next to the children. That was the explanation given.
The girl obliged . As I collected my things from the seat pocket I could see people looking at me and wondering why I was being moved. I was red from embarrassment. I felt like I was being judged and found guilty of a crime I hadn’t committed. It was an uncomfortable situation and I felt ashamed which was a weird feeling because I hadn’t done anything wrong.
As I sat in my seat for the 1 hour flight I started to get quite angry at the treatment I had suffered and couldn’t help but feel like I was being held accountable for all the paedophilic scum bags on the planet.
The irony of the situation is that I am a emergency service worker and if the children were in trouble I would be given the responsibility of protecting them. Men are policemen, doctors, social workers, teachers… people who are entrusted to the care of children but according to Virgin once you step on one of their planes you are a pedophile or a potential pedophile.
So being the narc I am I wrote to Virgin complaining of the treatment that I had been subjected to. I had stated in my email that women can also be predators . In response I was quoted their policy.
“Unaccompanied children will have spare seats allocated next to them when they are flying. In the case of a full plane then a female will be sat next to the children”.
Further to this I was told that they had incidents of children being interfered with before and they were all men.
So my suspicions were confirmed. Because I am a man I am presumed to be a predator and because Virgin were chasing the almighty dollar they overbooked their plane and allocated the spare seat next to children. It seems Virgin has the children’s best interests at heart until money is involved.
Shouldn’t the spare seat be deemed occupied if this is their policy. NO individual male or female should be allocated this seat. By allowing women to sit there and not men is blatant discrimination. BLATANT. I guarantee if this policy was reversed and women were not allowed to sit there and men were it wouldn’t last for too long.
This has inspired me to send another letter to Virgin and suggest some amendments to their seating policies.
Amendment 1# Men should only be allowed to sit next to other men.
Because after all the majority of individuals who commit rape are men. Shouldn’t we then presume that we are all rapists and cant be trusted to sit next to any female. Actually that discounts male to male rape. Sorry.
Amendment 2# No male should sit next to anyone.
A spare seat will be allocated next to any male at any time to ensure the safety of women and children.
What we all need to realize is that as soon as we step into the outside world we are potentially vulnerable. There are dangers every where. In our attempts to lessen the danger we must be aware that we are not projecting our insecurities onto innocent parties. Not all men are pedophiles or rapists and we shouldn’t be made to feel this way.
I would like to finish by saying that if we didn’t work so hard on protecting pedophiles and giving them new identities it may be a little easier to identify these scumbags rather than being mistaken for one.
Rant on,
Johnny
Hello, your articles here My Virgin experience as a Paedophile! | THE RANT NATION to write well, thanks for sharing!
As much as I’m pretty sure you’re trolling for the most part, I’ll answer the question. A ‘potential pedophile’ is someone who is not proven to be otherwise, so could very well be one for all anyone knows. And yes, its a rather paranoid way of viewing the people around you.
Obviously, one is or isn’t a pedophile. What we have here is people viewing others in the way of their likelihood to be a pedophile, as I’ve just explained.
You seem like troll by putting forth an opinion that is bound to shock and/or offend most readers. Considering how beside the point it is, one may even thinking that getting a reaction was the only purpose.
Anyways, yes ‘pedophile’ and ‘child molester’ are often used interchangeably. No child can give consent, so it would only follow that having sexual desire for children would go hand in hand with desiring to molest/rape children according to the law. It may be more accurate to say that a pedophile is a potential child molester..
mmm maybe if the police see a woman or women dressed in sexy attire standing on a corner of a street they should go to them and ask them to move on as they “could” be a prostitute, since “most prostitutes are female…im sure the women would not be offended by that.. (just to protect any kids that may be in the street)
Just to clarify, my last two responses are to posts that were removed, not the article directly
The moment we accept one policy justifying discrimination on the basis of gender is the moment we accept all policies justifying discrimination on the basis of gender. If these airlines are permitted to cite an infinitesimal statistic and/or a parental complaint to establish a policy legitimizing bigotry and fear then they create a precedent encouraging future gender discrimination. How could anyone criticize them if they used a similar tactic to hire only female stewards or male pilots?
This policy also marks a trend that is particularly insidious and foreboding. We’re witnessing a steady institutionalizing of a culture of fear of strange men which has materialized in separating men from women and men from children. Nobody benefits from this. Women and children are afraid to seek assistance from strange men even if in desperate need, men are afraid and discouraged to intervene in the life of a child, and boys in particular have no sense of what it means to grow into a positive and respected individual.
Unless we all want to take a giant step backwards, then these policies cannot stand!
clap clap clap clap!
My parents went to gender segregated schools. My father was learning math and physics while my mother was learning sawing and how to keep the house clean.
Do I want to come back to that stuation? Sure no.