Sex and the superathlete

by Herman Silochan

So, last week, if you had tuned into any of the major networks you would have seen and heard world Number One golfer Tiger Woods apologizing about his infidelity and betrayal of his marriage

to his wife and children.

Was he sincere or was he going through the motions expected of him as a distinguished celebrity?

Frankly I don’t care one way of the other. Should he have made such a public appearance? Or should it have been a private matter between him and his wife? After all, she was the one betrayed, not us.

Tiger Woods never made a pact with the public about the conduct of his personal life. Nor does he have to. He is not an elected official with expected family values to carry into office. Politics is littered with sexually bold wayward men and women too.

Tiger Woods just happens to be an exceptional young athlete in the game of golf. I, like most of you, enjoy watching him whenever the opportunity arises. Indeed we all know that when he appears on screen interest in the game of golf rises. As soon as he finishes his rounds, interest drops off.

This singular fact did not go un-noticed by big and rich advertisers who poured millions and millions of dollars in sponsorship ultimately making Tiger a billionaire. He deserved it, and if he makes another billion in the coming years, more glory to him! Advertisers are not naïve when signing sponsorship deals, especially with sports personalities; they know the risks, and hope for the best.

All the more power to this athlete, Tiger Woods who broke down so many social and economic barriers in the very conservative game of golf, But it is way beyond conservative, it is hypocritical, because all through out the history of golf, there were and still are class distinctions, and in many parts of the world, there were strict racial and social barriers to the game.

Until two decades ago, on many exclusive US and Canadian golf courses, the only people of colour allowed on the links were caddies and water boys. No US or Canadian golf course today will dare attempt racial exclusivity, and let us thank Tiger Woods for doing his part.

Now we all know that athletes are basically young men and women in their prime. This means hormones in overdrive. Add celebrity status, new found fame, large instant fortunes, and the huge assembly of groupies after any game, and this will mean sexual adventures. This is human nature plain and simple. You don’t believe me? Then go down to any pro basketball centre and look at the crowd assembling to meet those larger than life players after the game. You will find a lopsided number of pretty young women waiting to touch the flesh, so to speak. Same for football, soccer, hockey and general pro sports. Think those league cricketers in Mumbai are nice chaste boys? Think again.

Tiger Woods is an athletic young man, obviously virile, handsome, and enormously wealthy, traveling the world over to tournaments. Surely we do not expect him to be a saint night after night with so much nubile temptation around.

Just think of other sports personalities over your life time, and the amorous escapades to which they are connected. Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain comes to mind, and more so, when he claimed he slept with 20,000 women, which would mean 8 sexual acts a week from the age of fifteen, until his death in 1999 of heart failure. Even the revered Michael Jordan has had his knuckles rapped for his extra marital shindigs. There’s so much more. All this too has become part of the sporting scene and I dare say it will continue as along as there is physical competition of some sort.

Athletes are not robots, but physical human beings in their prime, and sex is integral to all this. Go to any Olympic Games venue, and you will find that condoms and anti-bacterial creams are readily made available to every athlete and supporting cast. This is commonsense plain and simple.

But I will venture there is a responsibility that comes with fame, that many young men and women look up to athletes as role models. But are they role models for a good and productive lifestyle, or role models for making big bucks and celebrity, out of middle class homes and ghettoes?

Maybe youths should look elsewhere, to people like doctors, lawyers, writers, artists, nurses and those who slug it out day after day truly helping others, and whose sexual escapades largely go unnoticed by the public.

All the same, I look forward to seeing Tiger Woods on the sports circuit very soon; the game is boring as it is. I hope he works out all his private arrangements with his wife Elin, although it is none of our business how and what they do.

Go for it Tiger!