Spring seems to be the time of the year when all the notorious sex scandals come to light. It only takes one name - "Eliot Spitzer" - to remind you all of a recent such political and social storm, which effectively ended the career of the former New York Governor, who, it turns out, had been receiving sexual favors from a high-priced 22-year-old prostitute. This time, the scandal involves another top-ranking sports official. Oxford-educated attorney Max Mosley, head of Formula One's governing body, was allegedly caught on video taking part in a sadomasochistic sex orgy that took place in an underground "torture chamber", in the company of five prostitutes. Just when you think you've heard it all...
The story was broken by British tabloid News of the World yesterday, which claims to be in possession of a compromising, five-hour long videotape of an orgy attended by Mosley. The tabloid gives a blow-by-blow description of the whole sordid affair: the 67-year-old F1 boss is joined by five prostitutes in a rigged-up basement torture dungeon resembling a Nazi concentration camp and reenacts a scene in which he speaks German and takes it in turn to play both the helpless victim and the ruthless Nazi killers. Mosley's antics are even more sinister, as throughout his life, he has had to deal with his father reputation, who was leader of the British Union of Fascists and friend of Adolf Hitler.
And while it may be argued that what Mosley does inside his bedroom is his own private business, let me remind you that the same argument didn't work too well in Spitzer's case - and now that the whole thing is out in the open, it's already causing a huge scandal. Several Jewish leaders have called for Mosley's resignation and have expressed their disgust at the F1 boss' antics. "As Mr. Mosley has condemned racism in motor sport, he should live up to the standards he sets. This is an insult to millions of victims, survivors and their families. He should apologize. He should resign from the sport," came a statement from Stephen Smith, director of London's Holocaust Center. However, a spokesman for the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) stated that "this is a private problem between Mosley and the News of the World. We are not concerned with it" and added that there would be no internal inquiry into Mosley's behavior.
