David Penberthy: We should be ashamed of ourselves

The treatment of adult virgin Matt on Married at First Sight is an absolute indictment on the leering blokes who mocked him, and viewers who used him as a punchline, writes David Penberthy.

Maybe I’m getting old but I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand life in the modern world.

This week the following news items were the two biggest stories in Australia.

The banking industry, almost in its entirety, was found guilty of the widespread and systemic abuse of its customers.

And, more importantly, there’s a bloke called Matt on the Sunshine Coast who is 29, and HE’S NEVER HAD SEX IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE.

Even if, like me, you spend your life trying to avoid the mountain of rubbish on television, you would have to be living in a cave to avoid the apparently seismic news that there is a guy on Australian TV whose real name is Matthew Bennett but is known nationally as “The Virgin”.

Poor Matt has earned this cruel nickname for the obvious reason that, despite almost three decades on this earth, he is yet to get off the duck and trouble the scorer.

The treatment meted out to Matt has demonstrated an interesting and rather sad truth about our society.

With respect to our LGBTIQ friends, it seems that in 2019 the only form of sexual identity that demands an orchestrated campaign of nationwide, televised ridicule is virginity.

Married at First Sight contestant Matthew Bennett committed the twin sins of being a non-drinker and a reader. Cue jokes. Picture: Toby Zerna

If Matt had gone on this absurd TV show and announced to the world that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body and wanted to change his name to Betty and run away with the man of his (her) dreams, he (she) would have been applauded on social media for his bravery. Instead, he sheepishly admitted that he’d never actually done the deed with anyone, and it was on for young and old.

What? Never? At 29? What a weirdo!

RELATED: How do the Married at First Sight ‘experts’ get it so wrong

The ratings were through the roof, the digital mentions uncountable.

If Matt had been possessed by any other form of uncommon sexual appetite or identity, and subjected to this same level of ridicule on television and across social media, the network would have been shut down by the Human Rights Commission and thousands of tweeters and Facebook enthusiasts shamed into closing their accounts.

Instead it has been open season on the bloke, so much so that his highly personal story ended up with a comic public denouement, when he came down with an attack of the vapours and had to be hospitalised when he finally did end up in bed with a woman, no doubt as toey as a Roman sandal after so long in the sexual wilderness.

Despite my Methodist upbringing, I would not be so quaintly old-fashioned as to assert that everyone’s first time with another person should only ever involve their future life partner.

I mean, some of us can’t even remember doing it.

But this program confirms the extent to which sex has now been debased into little more than a carnal act, and an essential one that must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

The jaw-agape hoopla around Matt’s sexual circumstances show the extent to which many people clearly now believe there is something weird and even wrong about never having gone there.

Matthew “married” Lauren on Married at First Sight, and had an anxiety attack on their “wedding” night. Picture: Channel Nine

For a program that has a young audience, the treatment of Matt can have the effect of creating an arbitrary target in people’s minds, where they almost feel fretful and insecure about the fact that they find themselves in the same circumstances.

There’s a homophobic view among some straight people that there is something weird about the gay and lesbian lifestyle in that these people define themselves to an inordinate and showy degree through their sexual identity.

RELATED: James Weir recaps MAFS

If you want to challenge that assertion, I would point you to the scene on Married at First Sight where Matt was confronted by the leering gang comprising every other male contestants to grill him about his sexual past.

Having already established that Matt was a bit of an oddball because he committed the twin cardinal Australian sins of being a non-drinker and a keen reader, they then asked him if he’d ever been married, ever had a girlfriend, ever, you know, I mean mate, come on, surely, don’t tell us…

The manner in which these blokes sniggered, raised eyebrows, and winked at each other as they kept necking their Hahn Super Drys said nothing about Matt, and everything about them.

Subliminally, the manner in which they queued up either to tease the guy or subject him to confected sympathy had one intended message. That message was: “You’ve never done it? Far out. I’ve had sex with heaps of women.”

This program has achieved three things. It has given millions of us the cheapest of cheap laughs. It’s taken the piss out of a nice guy. And in an already hyper-sexualised society, it has helped cement the concept of an arbitrary deadline in young people’s minds, where you scull the West Coast Cooler and grab whoever is still standing and head to the nearest motel, park or car to rid yourself of the apparent curse that is virginity.

Perhaps in hindsight it should have been on the Discovery Channel, although I’m not sure if animals act this way.

@penbo