Isn't everyone getting a bit tired of these articles every 4 years about how much sex takes place in Olympic villages? Or maybe everyone would be happier if they did away with the sports and just ran the 10 or so days as a giant version of Big Brother* with a camera in every building?
I can't remember if the ancient Greek Olympics were known for debauchery too. Let's see - yes, it appears they were:
It was the sheer spectacle of it. Sports [were] one part of a grand, all-consuming extravaganza. It was first and foremost a religious event, held on the most sacred spot in the ancient world. It had this incredible aura of tradition and sanctity.
Today's Olympics is a vast, secular event, but it doesn't have the religious element of the ancient Olympics, where sacrifices and rituals would take up as much time as the sports. And there were all these peripheral things that came with the festival: the artistic happenings, new writers, new painters, new sculptors. There were fire-eaters, palm readers, and prostitutes.
This was the total pagan entertainment package.The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess. (Although it sounds as if the ancient version may have had more attraction for me.)
Update: I see the WSJ recently had a brief article on the old Olympics too:
...the menfolk left their respectable women at home and headed off for the festival with fathers, brothers, sons, friends, neighbors and (male) lovers. Fringe events might include philosophy lectures, poetry readings and sundry charlatans and cranks offering to predict the future, but the real added attraction of the games wasn't the cultural Olympiad but the sexual one. At the Olympics, parties went on through the wee hours, and hundreds of prostitutes, both women and boys, touted their services until dawn.
* this reminds me, I see that Big Brother has switched networks and is due to return to Australian television later this year. The traditional response is appropriate: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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