Of morality and brains

Just read some headlines… it seems as though 40 000 prostitutes will be entering SA for the World Cup in June this year. Let me assure you, the first thing that hit my mind after I read the title was not “I wonder why prostitutes like football so much?” No it was something else…

…more along the lines of “wait, hold on, this is South Africa, HIV/AIDS capital of the world. Why, oh why, do analysts predict such a great surge in the sexworker industry? Surely a wealthy man, rich enough to afford a lengthy stay in SA to watch his beloved home team kick a bouncy thing on a field for 80 minutes, would have a vague idea of what could happen if he… made rude with a prostitute here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning prostitution in countries with lower HIV prevalence. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I guess it’s because of my assumption that people with material wealth are also in possession of intellect (how would they accumulate said wealth without more than a handful of functioning brain-cells otherwise?). Anyone with an ounce of intellect should know that one needs to behave when one visits the HIV/Aids capital of the world.

There is a reason SA is Toxic green with a skull and crossbones on this HIV prevalence chart…

The more I think about this the less it makes sense, unless of course, these individuals had acquired riches the easy way (gambling, or selling some oil they siphoned from their back yards perhaps…). Let us do some math together to try clarifying the situation.

(EXITEMENT!).

We assume that 90% of 2010 World Cup tourists manage to get here by saving up hard earned cash (as opposed to dumb luck and easy earnings). The World Cup is predicted to bring in about 4.5 million soccer tourists. So roughly 450 000 of our soccer tourists got here the easy way (i.e. probably don’t have the intellect to realise how much at risk they are of contracting a deadly virus by using local sexworkers). Assuming one third of those are married/in a relationship and have come with their spouses (eliminating 2/3 of our 450 000 leaves us with around 150 000). I’m guessing that single men would make up about 2/3rds of what is left (call it the hypothetical football fanatic sex ratio…). So we are down to 100 000 potentials.

In terms of sexworkers (or steelworkers as spellcheck prefers to see it…): Offshore sexworkers wouldn’t bother coming here if the local sexworker industry was enough to cater for the event (so let’s say that the local prostitutes …’servicing’ tourists, number around 50 000). Media reports that the 2010 WC will also create a large amount of opportunistic sexworkers (let’s say 10 000). This leaves us with 100 000 sexworkers…

OH MY GAS! Do you realise what this means?!

If my estimations are correct, EVERY male soccer tourist (or female with a strange soccer fetish) that gets here the easy way will have an enormous horn and a teeny brain. I would steer well clear of these immoral fornicating baboons if I came across them come June.