Point-shaving

Between unequivocal perverty behavior and, say, the light fevered brush-up against somebody's arm on a divan lay a multitude of point-shaving.

In point-shaving, the classic form of corruption in college basketball, a player or team controls by how many points it wins so gamblers can collect on bets.

By making it possible to manipulate game scores while preserving the thrills of victory, point-shaving deliberately severed links between the game itself and any broader moral meanings it might have offered, suggesting that the implicated athletes had already abandoned their belief in such connections.

In athletics, this may take the form of point-shaving, college recruiting scandals, performance drugs — all of which are quickly becoming as commonplace as sixand seven-figure salaries for sports stars.