Mud wrestling is pornography

There probably arn't that many Methodist Preachers who will admit to knowing anything about mud wrestling.

My eye was drawn to this story in the Daily Mail:

A job centre is advertising a post for female mud wrestlers to wear bikinis and grapple with other women in a rubber ring for £10-an-hour.


Employers insist that the job is 'not porn' or 'adult work', but involves 'light-hearted mud-wrestling' for a pay-per-view site.

The job, advertised on the DirectGov website, states that only women are allowed to apply for the £10-£15-an-hour job.

The claim that this is "not porn" is simply not true. Mud wrestling shows, often above pubs, are just sheer pornography and it is outrageous that a government Jobs Agency is encouraging, indeed in some cases may be compelling, young women to apply for this work.

Now how do I know so much about mud-wrestling?

Nearly 30 years ago I was working for a pottery supplies company. They suddenly found a massive spurt in demand for their bags of clay. No one could quite understand it. Who was buying the clay?

It transpired that the clay was being bought by promoters of mud wrestling. My first thought as a PR person was that this could be a "good story", something to promote my client.

I couldn't get to see a mud wrestling show, but asked to see a video - apparently the recent invention of video had stimulated this particular trade. 

It was shocking to see what transpired. Gradually the women (they were always women, no men) lost their clothing as the clay and the water worked to let the clothing slip off. There were shots of the audience (all men) who sat around ogling with the lower parts of their bodies conveniently covered by a plastic sheet. I shall not go further.

We stopped the video after a few minutes and realised that my family firm client would certainly not want to be associated with such pornography and immediately dropped the idea of running a press story. That decision probably cost me about three days work.

Despite what the Job Centre says, mud wrestling is a form of pornography and a publicly funded service should not be associated with it in anyway. This verges on trafficking.