Nickie Muir: Getting to the naked truth

Why do the Silver Ferns never get caught up in stripper scandals? Photo / David Rowland/www.photosport.nz

I've been wondering why the Silver Ferns never get caught up in stripper scandals and I think it's something Janine Southby should really work on.

This would engender real soul-searching around what our netball culture says about our gender relations and about our national identity. In the interests of equality therefore I'll outline exactly how this could work.

Is there even a CEO of our new national sport? Yes!

Jennie Wylie appears to be taking that role so here's some tips from the manual according to Mr Tew.

Firstly turn a blind eye to an any excuses free for all and call it Mad Monday or F&*&*_d Up Friday or Wacky Wednesday.

If you name it then it helps to understand the boundaries for behaviour. There are none.

Allow the girls to hire a dancer with an unlikely name preferably with a single syllable and with vague reference to something phallic. Rod. Shaft. Woody - you know the sort of thing.

When the girls are beyond legless and have to be removed from the public bar, sigh indulgently and smile - after all, girls will be girls.

When Woody - let's call him Woody - arrives and notes with some trepidation that the girls are in fact fully grown women who are removing their underwear and shouting obscenities at him, he should refrain from pointing out that he is not a gigolo, or saying: "I don't do that."

He should just harden up and get on with the job.

After all - he's being paid.

As he stumbles around on wet gravel and decides it's probably safer to just try and work the situation without further angering the mob, who seem to be intent on touching him in inappropriate places, he should try to smile.

No one likes a sour stripper.

If there is a dispute over pay and what actually happened Netball NZ should do everything in their power to make it go away. An internal inquiry would be good.

After all - who would you believe? The guy whose interests it is to just get on with his job and not have to lay any complaints in a business that depends on discretion, or the bunch of rolling drunk madwomen who have had to be turned away from a public drinking space?

I know who I'd be listening to - these women are legends and household names, and he's well, just a stripper.

If Steve Tew is "the man" - it's just as important to know who is "the woman" and Janine should really make that clear.

When a group of prominent men (and the odd brave woman) lay a letter of formal complaint at her doorstep she should prevaricate. Use the phrases "transparency" and "moving forward".

This will give the impression this was all an unfortunate mistake rather than a symptom of an entrenched culture.

When the Prime Minister comments that there are "lessons to be learned" from all of this, be sure to know that young boys and young girls everywhere already have.