I didn’t feel too inclined to comment on the Max Mosely affair when it first surfaced. Partly, I think, because I really don’t care what his predilections are and I have no pressing desire to make a judgement. However, the more I ponder, the more I feel the need to point out something that is pretty obvious to any objective observer.
Before I continue, though, a couple of lines in the sand. I am not going to get into the relative merits or otherwise of whether he should resign. Quite possibly the revelations have damaged his credibility to the point where his continuance in post becomes untenable. So be it. I care not. Nor am I concerned about “damage to F1”. Formula 1 racing is, as far as I am concerned, just another pompous, overblown, self-important professional sport that is mildly less tedious than football. I couldn’t give a flying fuck whether the incident has damaged it or not. It isn’t important.
Nor am I going to be dragged into the multifarious issues of prostitution. As far as the facts have been presented, the five women involved accepted payment. That makes the activity consensual. Unless you have verifiable evidence that these specific women were forced into prostitution and were therefore not willing participants, please do not regale me with any “prostitution is abusing women” arguments – I’m not interested. That is not what this discussion is about.
The scandal here, is not what Mosely did with five prostitutes; it is the prurient, foaming at the mouth, salacious voyeurism of the News of the World. This despicable little rag – I won’t demean the word by calling it a newspaper, because it isn’t – claims the high moral ground from its natural home at the bottom of a mile-deep cesspit with vertical sides. Spying on people to create a story is not by any remote stretch of the imagination or perversion of the English language; journalism, and it certainly isn’t investigative journalism. Any suggestion that this is in the public interest is pure fantasy. It is not. What a public figure does in the privacy of their own home – or bordello – is no one’s business but theirs and the other participants; providing those activities take place between consenting adults. The wheeling out of the professional victim brigade to claim that Mosely’s “disgusting” and “perverted” activities were offensive to them would be laughable if so many stupid people didn’t take it so seriously.
This man was acting out a kinky sex fantasy. So what? Fantasies are just that. Role playing doesn’t make it real. It does not mean that he is an anti-Semite. The assumption that I have seen proffered in the interminable, self-righteous condemnations of the man since the revelations last weekend; that private fantasies reveal what one really thinks about others is to over-simplify the human psyche. We are complex beings and all of us have hidden depths. Before you leap to judge another, what lurks in yours? And, importantly, how would you like it splashed across the front pages of the News of the World? And, if you do like a bit of the kinky stuff, does this mean that you plan to abuse others, or that you regard, say, women, as lesser beings because you like to put one across your lap occasionally? Of course not – one assumes you wouldn’t be doing it if she didn’t enjoy it.
The News of the World’s editorial team and its reporters claim in print that such kinks are perverted and disgusting. If you can stomach it, you will see these terms cropping up on a regular basis. Well, if that is so, no one has forced them to watch, have they? No, they chose to watch in the name of salacious gossip. I cannot believe for one moment that the organisation is staffed by dedicated martyrs. I can only conclude therefore, that they get off on it. That, frankly, is far more perverted and disgusting than anything Max Mosely has done.
Valid points, however, the things that bother me about the whole affair are –
– he is married (all be it seemingly estranged), so this is extra-marital, hardly something a head of such an organisation should be seen doing, especially given the circles he has to do business in.
– he has already waged war on anyone that puts the sport in a bad light or brings the sport into disrepute (anyone remember Sheckter and the kerb crawling affair?) which smacks of hypocrisy.
While I agree with you on the loathing of NOTW, I cannot see how someone in his position can possibly continue to represent 100s of motoring organistations.
That this being extra-marital may offend peoples’ sensibilities is a fair point; however, it is a matter between him and his wife; no one else. If they are estranged then it is a moot point anyway.
Hypocrisy is a matter for him and those who employ him. I don’t care over much for the obsession that professional sports bodies have about being brought into disrepute – all professional sport is disreputable in that they are so far up their own arses they cannot see just how ridiculous they look to outsiders. That said, there is nothing in this that brings the sport into disrepute as it is nothing to do with the sport. It is a private matter and should have remained as such.
Actually, I don’t – which just goes to show how much notice I take… That said; kerb crawling is both illegal and public. A private party is just that; private. Mosely did not publicise his peccadillos, the News of the World did – and that is the scandal.
I suspect, as I intimated at the beginning of my post, that credibility will do for him. That’s just too bad.