The Britsh press, and especially the comments sections, were full of people rushing to her defence (she's an adult so she can do what she wants, it was only a bit of fun), people claiming she's a victim (she only did it because she was told she could win a holiday, she was coerced, she was too drunk to know what she was doing) and then you get those who say she's just a slut and deserves the backlash. Everyone chipped in on it. Even Nicole Scherzinger advised the girl to "get down on her knees and repent".
Everyone's got an opinion on this. Everyone except for the Spanish media. It made the news in Spain. But ONLY because it made the news in the UK.
People here in Spain were not really that shocked. No newspaper rushed to criticise her or defend her. No Spanish celebrities gave her her advice. Why? Because they know what we're like...
This is not a new phenomenon. This is not a one off. It has a name. Which means it's a pretty well established occurrence. Spanish people call it "mamading"; mamar is Spanish for "to suck" and they added 'ing' on the end of it because that's an English suffix. And it's only Brits that do mamading.
Brits have always done stupid, drunk things in Spain. A couple of years ago the craze was "balconing" - jumping from the hotel balcony into the pool. Now it's "mamading". In general Spaniards, and in particular the Spanish press, look the other way when we do idiotic things on holiday. Why? Because it brings them money. Spain is in economic crisis and the large majority of their income comes from us idiots holidaying abroad.
They accept that we do disgusting, horrific and risky things because, well, why not? It's pretty much supporting the economy and quite frankly, they've got enough problems to deal with without worrying about what we're getting up to. They're used to British girls flashing their tits for a free drink, to people having sex on sun loungers on the beach, to people drinking so much they have to get their stomach pumped. They're happy to let Brits do what they want until it comes to the point when they can't ignore it any more. Until it starts getting dangerous. Until it's time for an intervention.
Balconing (Spanish word 'balcon' + English suffix 'ing' - see the pattern?) got so bad in 2010 that the hospital Son Dureta in Mallorca released statistics saying that 33% of all cases admitted to A+E as "serious" or "critical" condition were a result of a drunken idiot jumping from a balcony. 33%. It was then, and only then, that Spain decided to clamp down on Brits and their balconing.
The same is now happening with the drunken sexcapades. Now that the British media have picked up on it, the Mayor of Mallorca has promised to "clamp down on" this behaviour and has launched an "investigation" into what is going on in the Mamading bars. The Tourism Minister, Jaime Martinez, has also said he wishes to introduce tighter controls to restrict businesses that "don't fit with their tourism model". But all these controls and investigations are only happening because of the viral outrage it caused in the UK and online. If it hadn't been for that, I doubt Spain would have done anything. I doubt it would have even been on the news.
But what about the moral judgement? Is she being slut-shamed in Spain? Is she being defended? Neither. All the Spanish media are reporting is that Mayor Manuel Onieva and Tourism Minister Jaime Martinez are going to try and tighten security and not let this happen again.
Some papers aren't even covering the story. EL Pais, the right-wing broadsheet hasn't got one mention of it anywhere on its website. And all of the comment sections of the newspapers are pretty bare.
No one is interested in the 'why?' The 'how on earth was this allowed to happen?' The 'what was she thinking?' Not like us Brits.
It's not part of their culture. Spaniards get rat-arsed like the best of us but they just don't do what we do on holiday. And they don't understand it. They don't get the appeal. Their philosophy is to leave the crazy, disgusting Brits to do what they want, as long as they're bringing in the money and not doing too much damage. They're not interested in analysing the moral degradation of society that this represents.
The Spanish media could very easily have turned this around, got on the moral high ground, and wrote stories about how "disgusting" Brits are and how shockingly awful we behave and how we're an absolute disgrace. But they didn't. Because Spanish people already know how bad we are. Sadly, that's not news. The news here is that it looks like they're finally going to have to do something about it.