Poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh has criticised the controversial documentary Fairytale of Kathmanduwhich portrayed his relationships with young men in Nepal.
The film by Neasa Ní Chianáin documents the poet on a trip to Nepal and raises concern about his relationships with young men there.
In his first media interview since the controversy broke, the poet told Radio na Gaeltachta’s Áine Ní Churráin that his true relationship with the people of Nepal was misrepresented by the film-makers.
Mr Ó Searcaigh said the way he had been portrayed in the film had deeply affected him and that he has always been open about his sexuality but that the film led viewers to believe that he was a sex tourist - something he vehemently denied.
He said he had not exploited the people in the film and if anything that he himself had been exploited by the content of the film.
However, Mr Ó Searcaigh said that he took hope from a quotation of Oscar Wilde’s when he said "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
The poet insisted that he had a healthy relationship with the individuals featured in the film and denied that he had done anything illegal.
The men featured in the film were over the age of consent he insisted and he added that he had helped the people of Nepal through financial means over the years.
The poet said he was shocked when he learned the rape crisis centre was involved in the case and likened the controversy to a circus.
Mr Ó Searcaigh claimed the film-makers had not honoured their promise to one of the young men who had had sought to have his contribution removed from the film and asked whether the men’s faces would have been revealed had they been of Irish nationality.
Regarding calls to have his poetry removed from the educational syllabus, Mr Ó Searcaigh said this had not surprised him in the least and that it was symptomatic of a medieval mindset.
An advisory body to Minister for Education Mary Hanafin decided this month not to remove the poetry from the leaving certificate curriculum.
The Rape Crisis Network today accused the poet of nit-picking over certain shots in the film whilst completely avoiding the main issues.
Fiona Neary, Director of RCNI, said: “He fails to recognise that having sex with very poor teenagers that you are giving charity to, and who have relatively very little sexual knowledge, is sexual exploitation.
“Citing the age of consent as a defence is very neat, but Ó Searcaigh is unable to recognise that he exploited a situation where others were very vulnerable and where he had great power over them.
“The teenage boys that he waited for outside their school, having given enormous contributions towards their education and having invited them to his hotel room to improve their English, were not in a position to give fully informed and freely given consent. “Consent is not just about age.”