Brothel-running Olympic dreamer sparks debate

A lot of women will have to have a lot of sex with a lot of men to get Logan Campbell to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Yes,you read that right. Campbell,to cut a long story short,is a New Zealand taekwondo athlete who has opened a brothel to finance his ambition of lifting an Olympic medal in London.

At the last Games,in Beijing,Campbell competed in the 68-kilogram category only to be swept aside in the first round. To do better in London,Campbell figures he needs roughly 200,000 so that he,a doctor and a coach can travel,train and compete beforehand in Europe and Asia. Unlike last time,he doesnt want his parents to foot most of the bill. My mother has wanted a new kitchen for the past 10 years but hasnt been able to do that because she has spent all her money on my taekwondo, he says.

Hence his conversion to brothel-keeping. He has more than a dozen women handing over half their earnings to him. It is,in his words,a good moneymaking industry.

Campbell sees himself as nothing more than a businessman,able thanks to the law to sell sex as others would kebabs or cars,without an ounce of shame. Id feel worse selling cigarettes than doing what Im doing, he said in a phone interview this week. What Im doing is safe and healthy. I run a real classy place,its not a third-world country. All the girls are over 20 years old,they are here of their own free will,and they make more money than I do.

However,New Zealand Olympic officials are making it clear that Campbell is unlikely to be selected for London as long as he stays in his current line of work. The International Olympic Committee seemingly agrees. In a statement for this article,it said it generally does not comment on individual athletes whose actions are within the law. However,as a general rule,the IOC would expect athletes to be strong role models for the rest of society and for youth in particular.

The one thing he and his Olympic Committee agree on is that athletes from New Zealand suffer a natural disadvantage: being on the bottom of the world puts them a long way from anywhere other than Australia,and that translates into extra costs.

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This situation is a tricky one because,legally,Campbell is doing nothing wrong. New Zealand decriminalised prostitution six years ago. The parliamentary vote 60-59,with one lawmaker abstaining could not have been closer a measure of how sensitive this was.

The result according to government-appointed experts has been more positive than negative. In a review last year,they concluded that the Prostitution Reform Act has not,as some feared,led to a surge in prostitution and that the vast majority of people involved in the sex industry are better off 8230; than they were previously.