If someone portrays you as a homosexual, you cannot sue them for defamation. But if they portray you as a sexual being, you may well make a quick defamation buck.
That is exactly what our part-time liberal friends at Constitutional Hill have now established. The constitutional court has undone an already patchy commitment to liberalism by showing a prudish, conservative attitude towards sex.
This odd attitude towards sex is poorly masked by a more sensible attitude towards sexual orientation. Apparently the ‘sex' in ‘sexual orientation' should remain in the closet. Here is what went down (so to speak).
The court wants kudos for denying a deputy headmaster (in the case of Le Roux and Others vs. Dey) damages when the deputy headmaster, one Dr Dey, told the court, "These damn kids suggest I'm gay! Punish them!" The learned' jurists response? "So what dude?! It's ok to be gay. Be reasonable, man."
But when the deputy head used a different line, "They suggest I wank!" he immediately succeeded in pricking (no pun intended) their collective conservative moral conscience. Even Justice Edwin Cameron (way too sensible to be a prude) found himself, torturously, in a schizophrenic minority judgment penned with Justice Froneman, agreeing with the masturbation damages claim on the spurious analysis that, while being called gay should make you smile, being depicted as a sexual being is a heinous act of dignity-obliterating proportions, fit for civil punishment.
So what was the court's response to the deputy head's second line of attack? "NOW we feel you Sir. We, too, would not be amused. We hereby mandate a return to Victorian mores! Take some of the money we're awarding you and go forth and set an example to your school by covering even the legs of your school piano. No to nudity! No to sex!"