It is an expression as familiar to stag weekend revellers as to international
sportsmen: what goes on tour stays on tour. The phrase is said to have
originated on an overseas rugby trip circa 1970, but has morphed into a code
of honour adopted by just about any group of blokes travelling abroad,
whether for sport, business or straightforward hedonism.
There are two rules embedded in the code. The first and most important is that
being in foreign climes, thousands of miles from home, frees one from the
usual constraints of acceptable behaviour and etiquette, particularly in
regard to sexual fidelity. The second is that all exploits must be kept
strictly confidential, never to be discussed with anyone outside the group,
particularly wives and girlfriends.
The moral relativism implicit in the code has been responsible for a catalogue
of misdemeanours, yet no amount of team discipline seems able to thwart the
problem. The tabloids have become accustomed to scooping a story or three
whenever a party of touring sportsmen leaves these shores, from Ian Botham's
various romps to Paul Gascoigne's infamous “dentist's chair”.
Of course, it is important to distinguish between consenting revelry and the
allegations that have been levelled against four members of the England
rugby union team that recently toured New Zealand. Even the most fevered
party animal would concede that things have gone too far when the police are
called in. It is also worth remembering that, like many allegations levelled
against football players in recent years, the scandal in Auckland may amount
to nothing.
All the same, it's quite true that many (though not all) men behave
differently when they are away from home in groups. This can often amount to
little more than the usual male bonding activities of mild drunkenness and a
lot of football banter, followed by retrospectively embarrassing group hugs.
Yet, if we are being honest, it often goes a lot farther. I was in the
England table tennis team for 15 years and could count on the fingers of one
hand the number of players who remained, throughout that period, faithful to
their girlfriends or partners.
Me? I was different. That is not to say that I had higher moral standards than
the rest of the international ping-pong community, but rather that my
debauchery was consistent across time zones. I just couldn't get my head
around the idea that shagging a local floosie was acceptable only if the
locality was a few thousand miles from the marital home.
“If we're not in the same country, I'm not cheating” was the explanation given
to me by one married player (from France, as it happens) after he had
conspicuously departed from the last-night party at the world championships
in Japan in 1991 with the stunning Lithuanian whom I had tried and failed to
pull. His assertion can be dismissed as a load of self-serving hypocrisy
(which, of course, it is) but it also has considerable prevalence.
There is probably a bit of Darwinism involved here (there usually is).
Scientists have measured, for example, how male fertility varies with
distance from one's habitual partner. And guess what? According to the
report in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, a man's sperm
count doubles when he spends a lot of time on the road - up from 389 million
sperm per ejaculation to 712 million. Which, I am sure you will agree, is a
lot of extra sperm.
I would suggest, though, that the central plank of the phenomenon is the idea
that ethical rules change when you travel. The ramifications of this can be
seen as easily in politics and anthropology as on stag weekends in Prague.
How often have you heard a politician arguing that the moral imperative for
humanitarian intervention is strengthened when a tragedy is happening “on
our doorstep”? Chamberlain evoked the same sentiment in a different way when
he said that Britain should not get involved in a quarrel “in a faraway
country between people of whom we know nothing”.
We seem to believe that our moral responsibilities - to ourselves, our wives
and our fellow man - diminish the farther we are from Blighty. Sure, it may
be stretching things a little to get Hitler into a piece about lads abroad,
but you see what I am driving at? The international sex industry is
predicated on this moral obfuscation. Visitors to Eastern European cities
may suppose that the prevalence of strip clubs reflects an indigenous
curiosity with the female form, but in reality they cater almost exclusively
for foreigners. Similarly, if you go to Soho after dark, the seedier
establishments are haunted not by the residents of nearby St James's but by
foreign businessmen looking for a bit of light relief.
Sex tourism is the sex industry. Without cheap foreign travel, the income of
your average prostitute would tumble.
I would be willing to bet (£100 to anyone who can prove me wrong) that if you
contacted every company involved in organising stag weekends, you would find
that the number of clients booking lap-dancing clubs was proportionate to
the distance of those clubs from their local postcode; that the number of
adulterous affairs carried on by businessmen correlated with the number of
long-haul (as opposed to short-haul) air trips, and that the number of
tabloid scoops on the sexual antics of touring British sportsmen rose by
half when they travelled outside Europe, and by half again if they crossed
at least four time zones.
Does this moral myopia matter? From a political and philosophical perspective,
certainly. But from a stag weekend and touring sportsmen's perspective, the
usual answer is: “what her indoors doesn't know won't hurt her”. It is a
position with many an intellectual hole, but it does explain why groups of
men travelling abroad are automatically “under suspicion”, despite their
individual protestations of fidelity and drunken phone calls home at 2am.
The promiscuity and rowdiness of the travelling male is not going to go away
any time soon, because it has its roots in an idea that is all-too seductive
and all-too universal: that when you are far away, the rules no longer
apply.
Paul Gasgoigne in the “dentist's chair incident”, Euro 96
The England team were training in Hong Kong in preparation for the tournament.
When they went out to celebrate Gazza's 29th birthday, players took turns to
sit in “the dentist's chair”. Teddy Sheringham was pictured with neat
tequila being poured down his neck. The tabloids had a field day, running
the pictures on their front pages and hitting the team with scathing
editorials. Gascoigne got his revenge, though, with a glorious goal against
Scotland. Lying on the Wembley turf (right), he allowed the England team to
mockingly re-create the episode.
Andrew Flintoff's pedalo
After the opening match against New Zealand in the cricket World Cup last
year, Flintoff, who had been dismissed first ball and taken no wickets,
visited a nightclub with five other players. He then took a pedalo out in
the Caribbean and had to be helped from the sea in the early hours. Duncan
Fletcher, the England head coach, compounded his embarrassment by saying
that Flintoff had received previous warnings for indiscretions during
England's tour of Australia the previous winter.
The All Blacks sex scandal allegations
After an international in New Zealand in 2007, two women apparently offered to
sell photographs of an All Black player involved in a threesome. The papers
decided not to buy the picture but one of the team was, it is said, clearly
visible. The women in question spoke of having sex for up to seven hours,
with only short breaks. The story broke after Graham Henry, the head coach,
had described his players as “marvellous role models for the country”.
Wallabies 2006 European tour
An Australian TV network named Stirling Mortlock, the rugby union tour
captain, as one of a group of players who had apparently been out until the
early hours after Australia's 25-18 win over Italy in Rome. Mortlock said
later that there was nothing to the incident. “A few guys came home later
than we should have and I was one of them,” he explained. The Wallabies had
an eight-day turnaround between the match in Rome and their next match, in
Dublin.
