Did You Catch The Aerial Fisting Finals?
Here’s Dr. Marty Klein on Those Beautiful Olympic Bodies. And he’s right — it’s astonishing how professional commentators can blather for hours about the virtues of the athletes without ever once seeming to notice their beauty:
Yes, their commitment to excellence is inspiring, their tenacity is beyond comprehension, their personal stories are (occasionally) fascinating. And there’s that whole agony-of-defeat thing from which we seemingly just cannot turn away.
With all the statistics, superlatives, and medals, does nobody notice–these men and women are good-looking!
Viewing this fortnight’s competition out of Vancouver, there are bodies for every taste–short and tall, wide and narrow, Nordic, African, Asian. We even have competitors from the planet’s genetic melting pots, such as Mongolia, Nepal, Montenegro, and Israel.
But with all the enthusiastic commentary (and equally enthusiastic blather) coming at me in High Def, I’ve yet to hear, “Now that is a gorgeous young man,” or “Wow, she is a really attractive young woman,” or “Oh my, I think I’m in love!”
True, many competitors are bundled up in snowsuits. But those tights are so tight that you can tell which of the men are circumcised. Besides, what about the figure skaters? A small army of designers makes a fortune imagining outfits that will be very, very sexy–while judges, commentators, and audience deny that that’s the intent.
Yes, yes, of course we’re admiring these people for their performance, not their eroticism. But are they really so separate? Surely, health, talent, youth, and performance under pressure are erotic. And just as surely, any emotionally healthy athlete relates to his or her body erotically, just as non-athletes do.
It wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it weren’t so blatantly absent.
It’s worth mentioning that they used to conduct the Olympics naked. (The chair will entertain a motion at this time all in favor say “aye” any objections hearing none motion carried.)
I do wonder, though, whether some of the blindness to Olympic hotness isn’t informed by the media-culture obsession with thinness. A lot of Olympians are muscular to the point of being “thick-bodied” from the perspective of the people that think they need to airbrush away the hips of already-skinny models. I’m old enough to remember when Mary Lou Retton went bouncy-bouncy-bounce through all of our lives (and through a great many adolescent fantasies; I could, but won’t, provide detailed anecdotal testimony). You could tell, even then, that the media-culture gatekeepers thought her legs were too big; they didn’t think she was pretty enough to brighten our boxes of Wheaties, and they were — as any rational man of the right age can tell you — fucking insane.
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The ancient Olympics were all male. I’ll vote “aye” if you make it co-ed and add mixed wrestling as a sport
There was an entertaining interview on Canadian radio with the silver medal snowboarder about their Olympic ‘tight’ gear which no self-respecting out of Olympics snowboarder would be seen dead in – baggy pants being de rigueur.
The female interviewer and male boarder hovered around what ‘tight’ or close-fitting might reveal. Delicious embarrassment!
Aye! Just an all-around aye. Particularly for men’s events =).
Sport is, in part, competition to look good for potential mates. Somewhere, buried in the back parts of our brains, is the desire to flaunt our talents, and to be the best possible, fittest-for-survival mates.
The Olympic Games are, in some measure, showing us the best of the best at being physically perfect mates.
The TV commentators and audience may not be paying attention, but the athletes certainly do. I understand that the Olympic Village is a regular ongoing orgy, especially once your event is over.
Here here.. I agree with both points made, and I had often wondered this very thing myself. Since coming to the realization that by some miracle others tend to see past the very sexy build of many of these athletes, it has become a private joke of sorts.
I am often laughed at for watching such things, but it is they who are missing out. If they only knew. lol, I mean, while they scoff, I am watching a very interesting human form gracefully pull off feats they could never dream of trying. These figures look good, they perform well, and they even do it to music. It is a sensory buffet.
Much like dancers, they are refined, in good health, and able to put out a great deal more. It makes little sense to me how so many miss this. They know these ice skaters are fit. Ask anyone.. they know being kicked by an ice skater would hurt a lot more than usual, and wish to avoid it, however they never seem to connect this amplified ability to other things.
By all logic, people should understand and respect ice skaters for both their talent and there potential. They know they can’t do such feats, and also know that a fit person is not only better formed, but has more stamina for “other things.” Yet, somehow, the two rarely connect in their minds and the beauty of it is lost. So I sit and laugh as they scorn, knowing full well who is the fool.
The commentators may not make note of it, but you can bet the spectators do, and the advertisers know it — why else would there have been SO MUCH coverage of women’s beach volleyball in the Summer Olympics?
My friend and I sum up our attraction to the Olympics in three words: Twinks In Spandex.