Word: tyson
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...future heavyweight champion of the world, whose conquests included 40 professional boxers and countless women. She was (we now suppose) the last innocent child in America, an 18-year-old Sunday School teacher fresh from high school graduation in a tiny Rhode Island town. When Desiree Washington met Mike Tyson at a beauty pageant last July, she saw not the pug and thug of tabloid legend but a young man wearing a TOGETHER WITH CHRIST button who was praying with Jesse Jackson. Tyson, it appears, saw a late-night snack...
When an Indianapolis jury found Tyson guilty of rape and two counts of criminal sexual-deviate conduct last week, the verdict packed a wallop. For boxing, it meant that the sport would lose its top attraction for the next few years; a Tyson fight with the current champ, Evander Holyfield, could have grossed $100 million. On more profound and intimate levels, the conviction brought hope of legal redress to sexual victims. Says Lynn Hecht Schafran, a New York City attorney with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund: "The case provides a basis for people to go to the police...
Oddly, there was some sympathy for the devil. Many African Americans, including many women, thought Tyson was a scapegoat for white fears in a white town (the original jury was one-quarter black, about the percentage in Marion County, Ind.) and Washington was either gold-digging or criminally naive. If she wasn't "asking for it" by joining Tyson in his hotel bedroom, she was at least asking for trouble. Even in Indianapolis, the judgment got mixed reviews. A local TV station asked viewers whether they agreed with the verdict; 60% said...
...Tyson got into this mess -- scarred his career and a young woman's life -- because he was not "the Greatest," like Muhammad Ali, but the baddest. The concept of bad, in its seductive and destructive meanings, has defined his life, job, behavior -- and conviction. Count the ways...
...Attitude. Tyson was one athlete (there are others) with the outlaw allure of rap and heavy-metal musicians, for whom trashed hotel rooms and paternity suits are the currency of fame. Leave the gentlemanly demeanor to Julio Iglesias -- these guys are selling sexual danger. They know there are enough women who find the musk of celebrity irresistible, who are thrilled by both the opportunity and the risk in spending the night with a star...