Professional Cricketer Gets Multi-Year Ban for Porn Twitter Pic

UNITED KINGDOM—Professional athletes are often subject to fines or temporary bans for behavior that their respective leagues find inappropriate, but the penalty levied against a professional cricketer for having posted one alleged porn photo to Twitter takes the cake.

"Gareth Young revealed via Twitter that he had been banned for four years in total, with two of those suspended, following a Derbyshire Premier League disciplinary committee hearing," reported the Burton Mail. "The punishment was doled out after Mr Young posted a message via Twitter that appeared to poke fun at new Derbyshire Premier League champions Swarkestone, through the use of an explicit image."

A perusal of Young's Twitter account reveals no such image, which means it was likely removed, but his current selection of photos still contains a few shots of the male anatomy in its natural state, though whether they are pornographic or not remains in the eye of the beholder.

The League, on the other hand, did not hesitate to levy the extreme ban against Young, who indicated in a tweet this morning that he intends to appeal. "I was expecting about 5 games which I would of accepted," he wrote, responding to tweets by supporters. "Yeah am appealing."

Young may not be the only athlete disciplined, according to the Mail, which reported that "seven people in total are facing disciplinary proceedings following an investigation that was launched into the origin of several Twitter messages.”

This is just another indication that, generally speaking, the British have become (always were?) an insufferably prudish people whose shame regarding natural functions reveals the superficial roots of their highfalutin culture. It's not as if they don't fuck like the rest of us; they just appear to be terrified of admitting it. Luckily, there is a United States, where Brits often retreat in order to live without fear of constant sexual censure. On the downside, at least for Young, we don't embrace (i.e. tolerate) professional cricket on this side of the Pond. But we do have baseball!