Risky Business
On the recent Four Corners episode about the (then) latest rugby league sex scandal, an interesting proposition was put forward by one of the clubs’ administrators. He was making the point that the game attracts an aggressive, young, risk-taking male and that it’s not necessarily easy for them to leave these attributes on the field: ‘We give him a shower, put a suit on him and then say now we want you to be … a submissive male.’
Ignoring for a moment the surprising revelation that the players are unable to wash or dress themselves, the argument – that it’s difficult to expect these men suddenly to modify their behaviour when out in the community – is mildly alarming.
Because if this inability to ‘switch off’, to discern that behaviour which is appropriate in one context is inappropriate in another, is common to most men, then, logically, can’t we expect butchers to be out at night slaughtering animals (or people) at random? Granted, the victims may be arranged in the traditional cuts and dressed with a reassuring sprig of parsley, but you have to put the cat out at some stage to do its business and you don’t want to bring it back in with a serving suggestion stuck to it.
Similarly, the prospect of an evening with a taxidermist (something we would all otherwise look forward to) now has a feeling of unease about it. The night would, presumably, be ruined by the ever-present concern that he was, at any moment, about to stuff wool and rags down your throat and up your arse. Assuming that’s a sensation that you don’t crave.
But in trying to find some explanation for players’ off-field behaviour in the aggressive nature of the game they play and the risks required to play it, what connection is being drawn between this and group sex? Body contact is the only common ground that comes to mind. It is curious, though, that the more controversial sexual behaviour reported involving sportsmen seems to be confined to the body contact sports. It’s hard to imagine America’s Ryder Cup team of Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson standing around masturbating in front of each other while captain Raymond Floyd has sex with a star-struck young woman. The first part is conceivable obviously, particularly if some product endorsement were involved, but not the second.
And the observation that these players are ‘risk-takers’ on the field and therefore find it hard not to be ‘risk-takers’ off it, seems to be of questionable relevance. What risks half a dozen large men take in having group sex with a young woman is a little unclear. Logic would suggest the young woman would be the biggest risk-taker. Presumably, such women must also find it hard to ‘switch off’ after spending their afternoons skydiving, boxing and bungee jumping.
These behavioural issues are clearly not unique to sportsmen but, in the short term, the next time a rugby player is taping his ears down so they don’t get ripped off in a tackle, perhaps he should consider whether he might not be taping down the wrong organs.
Gary McCaffrie is a Melbourne-based writer. ‘Very Small Business’, the TV series he wrote with Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler, is available on DVD with a generous selection of extras.
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