Let's Talk About Sex - Ireland's long, unfinished journey from sexual conservatism to liberalism

In 1977, when the first issue of Hot Press hit the shelves, Ireland was one of the most sexually conservative places in the modern world. Contraception was illegal, as was divorce; and anyone caught engaging in a homosexual act could face a jail sentence.

This wasn’t bad news for everyone. In truth, Ireland in the 1970s and the 1980s was a great place to be a violent abuser. It was a god-soaked paradise for domestic tyrants, sexual predators, thuggish homophobes, vicious nuns and paedophile priests.

You think I am exaggerating?

By law, a woman could not refuse to have sex with her husband. Marital rape was legal. Women were property, not people. This also meant that if a wife was unfaithful, her husband could sue her partner for compensation. Really.

In case anyone was in any doubt, women’s status as chattel was underlined by the 1983 Referendum on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. There had been a divisive and often bitter campaign in the run up to the vote, but in the end, 66.9% of the 53% who voted decided that a woman’s life was equal to that of an unborn foetus.

That remains the position to this day. In theory the constitutional provision gives “due regard” to the life of a woman; in practice, it operates to the detriment of women as we saw with Savita Halappanavar’s tragic death in 2012.

In 1976, the year before Hot Press was first published, Ireland’s first legislation on domestic violence, the Family Law Act, was introduced. But it was pretty toothless: it wasn’t until 1981 that protection orders were introduced. Even then, all the protection orders in the world didn’t change the fact that men and women with abusive partners were pretty much stuck with them. The 1986 divorce referendum turned into a resounding victory for the forces of conservatism. The voters rejected the idea of divorce by over 25 percent.

WINDS OF CHANGE

It gets bleaker. In September 1982, Declan Flynn was attacked and murdered in Dublin’s Fairview Park. At the time, Fairview Park was a popular cruising spot for gay men, but over the summer a number of homophobic beatings had taken place. Flynn’s murder was the worst attack that year. The Gardai arrested five young men, aged between 14 and 19 years old. Although one of the perpetrators admitted that they had been part of a “queer-bashing” gang, all five walked free with suspended sentences. It was as if the court did not really disapprove.

Gradually, the climate started to change. In 1990 – far too late by anyone’s standards – marital rape was deemed a crime. Two years later, in 1992, after a long campaign in which Hot Press played a prominent part, contraception was made freely available to anyone over 17 years old. Also in 1992, the X Case made it legal for women in Ireland to obtain information about abortion services and to travel outside the State to have one. But not before we had been made horribly aware of the extraordinary lengths to which the storm-troopers of the anti-choice movement were prepared to go, effectively arguing that a woman should be kept prisoner rather than being allowed to travel to have an abortion.

The following year, as a result of David Norris’ successful prosecution of his case in the European Court of Human rights, homosexuality was finally de-criminalised. In 1996, after another referendum the constitutional ban on divorce was lifted. In the same year, the final Magdalene Laundry in Ireland closed. At last the campaigning that had been done in Hot Press and elsewhere was taking effect.

It is tempting to look at just how much Ireland has changed over the intervening years and give ourselves a pat on the back. It has been momentous. In 2015, we became the first country to allow marriage equality by popular vote. 2015 was a good year for LGBT rights overall: the Gender Recognition Act, which allows any person over 18 to self-determine their gender, was also passed. Ireland is one of only four countries where self-determination is the bench-mark.

So, great progress has been made: Ireland is no longer a bastion of arch conservatism. But we are still a long way from full reproductive rights. While the momentum is in the direction of repealing the 8th Amendment, no date has been set for a referendum, and the government is doing what our government always does when it comes to potentially controversial social issues – as little as possible.

Of course, our glorious leaders thought the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act in 2013 would quell the call for repealing the 8th Amendment. It didn’t. Protests for repeal have swelled. The citizen’s assembly voted to legalise abortion: the winds of change are blowing. We were told that the 2013 law was a compassionate compromise between pro- and anti-choice positions. It was anything but.

Under this law, a woman can obtain an abortion only if there is an imminent risk to her life; her health doesn’t count. There are no exceptions – not for victims of rape or incest, nor for anyone carrying an unviable pregnancy. It is a law that is shockingly lacking in compassion. There is a suicide clause, but we saw what happened in the horrific 2014 Miss Y Case: our legislature (still) thinks it is more compassionate to stall, hospitalise and force a suicidal rape victim to have a caesarian section than to give her the abortion she needed and was legally entitled to.

It is also a law that – to the disgrace of the major political parties in Ireland, who passed the bill – carries a potential fourteen-year prison sentence for anyone inducing an abortion, or helping a woman to do so. Nobody knows exactly how many Irish women import abortifacient pills each year, but it is likely to be hundreds, if not thousands. After all, an average of 12 women a day travel outside Ireland for abortions. They are the lucky ones – they can access the money to do so. But not everyone can.

DIGNITY AND RESPECT

Then there is the issue of sexual assault. In 2015 Magnus Meyer Hustveit – who had repeatedly raped his partner – got off with a suspended sentence, in part, because he confessed. This should have made handing down a custodial sentence easy. Instead it meant that he was given a slap on the wrist.

In 2014, Anthony Lyons was given 18 months in prison for violently sexually assaulting a woman on Griffith Avenue in Dublin. Lyons was originally sentenced to six years, with five-and-a-half years suspended because of “mitigating circumstances”. Amongst those was Lyons’ offer to pay €75,000. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed. As well as jail time, Lyons paid the victim close to €200,000. The payment was partly why the sentence was so light. In Ireland, apparently, you can sexually assault a woman if you can afford to pay for it.

Rape is regarded as the second most serious crime after murder in Irish law, as it should be – but you wouldn’t think that from the sentences handed down.

There are other problems. Our sex education is woefully inadequate; contraception is stupidly expensive; there is lingering homophobia, as we saw with the recent defacing of The George; there is a lack of shelters for both female, but especially male, victims of domestic abuse.

I could go on and on. However, and it is a big however, as has become increasingly evident, Irish people are generally fair-minded; and, as a whole, we are a nation that believes in equality, generosity and treating others with dignity and respect. We still have many miles to travel, but I have faith that Irish people will get there.

Which is the spirit in which Hot Press started. For all the wrong turns along the way, the optimists have been proven right. Let’s keep on pushing…