Here’s What We Should Actually Pay Olympians To Do

Compensate them for conceiving children

Do Olympians need money? I mean, do they really? They’re Olympians, after all. They are living embodiments of the dream, the best of the best, the fittest, the fastest. Monetary compensation would cheapen them.

What would they even need money for? All they do is work out. Did you see what happened when we gave Ryan Lochte, America’s most handsome idiot, money? He started a reality show that even people who like reality shows thought was dumb.

Of course, technically they all should be paid. The Olympians are the reason we watch. Their hard work is primarily responsible for the billions of dollars in revenue from broadcasting and sponsorship deals, and as such they deserve compensation. It’s unfair that the Olympic committees reap all the benefits of the Games while, aside from endorsements for a select few and medal prizes from certain countries, the Olympians themselves don’t make anything.

Alas, this is old news. From the Wall Street occupiers and their complaints of the 1 percent, to Karl Marx and the bourgeoisie profiteering off of the proletariats, to the plebeian campaign for economic equitability in Ancient Rome, all the way back to the Hebrews escaping bondage in Egypt, exploitation of others for personal benefit is human nature. And I don’t know about you, reader, but I’m tired of it. Talking about it, that is. So no, because that’s the way it goes and the way it always has gone, and for the aforementioned reasons (i.e., Ryan Lochte), Olympians shouldn’t get paid.

Here is, however, the one scenario where it might make sense to compensate them financially: if, and only if, they conceive a child in the Olympic Village with another Olympian.

This year, the 10,500 competing athletes were provided with 450,000 condoms and 100,000 packets of lubricant — that’s about 42 condoms and 9 packs of lube per person — which contributes to an extraordinarily promiscuous year for Olympians. And considering the notorious stinginess of the International Olympics Committee, the investment is likely a necessary one. It’s safe to say the Olympians are having a lot of sex. They’re penned up in gated facilities hopping from bar to club with the other best looking, most athletic people in the world. There’s arrogance and estrogen wafting through the air, and no televisions in the bedrooms. Even the archers are attractive. If you squint they look kind of like Orlando Bloom with long-flowing blond hair.

And what is nature’s greatest aphrodisiac? Being a winner, of course.

Imagine, just imagine, the effect of mass Olympian conception. Imagine the superhuman circus society invigorated with Olympian offspring. We’d have pole-vaulters hurtling traffic, commuters climbing the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. No corner of society would be left unrefined. Letter carriers would swing form skyscraper to skyscraper; trash men would tumble and twirl down Broadway, cartwheel into a somersault, round the street corner with a Tong Fei and stick the landing after an Arabian double front.

The most ordinary tasks would become elegant. A waiter refills your water glass from the second level with the silence and precision of Jian Yang. He does not spill. Two brothers bicker over the remote. They step into the backyard and Judo chop one another until the matter is resolved. Imagine — people wake up in the morning. They sit up. Their backs, straight as an arrow, are painless.

The problems of modern society would vanish. Health care costs? Everyone’s too goddamn fit to be unhealthy. And if someone does get sick they’ll just cup it out of there system. Carbon emission? The L train shutdown? Everyone would swim or cycle or run to work. ISIS? Can you imagine an army of Simone Biles? The rise of fascism in Europe? Putin? There could be nothing more demoralizing, especially considering how much the Olympics apparently mean to Russia, than a society of Olympians.

So, instead of putting Federer in Gillette commercials, or having Michael Phelps “landswim” right into a Subway sandwich, the athletes should be sponsored in abstinence campaigns so the rest of us don’t pollute society with our averageness. And medal prizes? Instead of offering $10,000 for a bronze, the United States Olympic Committee could provide that amount for anyone who conceives a child. If you’re able to manage twins, $15,000. And as the true achievers, those who conceive triplets in the Olympic Village receive the current gold medal prize, a whopping $25,000.

This year, of course, is too late to enact such a plan. The condoms have already been handed out. Also, microcephaly is a real threat in Rio so using that protection is necessary. But come two winters from now in PyeongChang, the United States needs to start incentivizing our athletes to procreate. And when they do, the Olympics will no longer simply be a biennial opportunity to watch the world compete for glory; the events will kickstart the dawn of our own spectacular, restless utopia.

Though it goes without saying that Lochte still has to use condoms. Not only is he an idiot, but he’s evolving with alarming efficiency.

Yoni Blumberg is an Awl network intern this summer, and a senior at the University of Delaware

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