Sex before or after sport?
Paddy Upton's dossier in which he encouraged Indian players to indulge in sex before matches has become a hot topic for debate in the sporting world
Nishi Narayanan
25-Feb-2013
Paddy Upton's dossier in which he encouraged Indian players to indulge in sex before matches has become a hot topic for debate in the sporting world. But should we be asking the question, 'Is sex good for sports?' or should be inverted to 'Is sports good for sex?'? In the Times Matthew Syed writes that sex is surely the end and not the means.
Countless PhD theses have been written detailing the allegorical significance of sporting conquest: how triumphing in these contrived duels is a demonstration of alpha qualities — virility, strength and the like; attributes that are deeply implicated in what biologists call “reproductive value”. Some may even argue that sport’s entire appeal is metaphorical; that it is an invented world in which the Darwinian struggle is played out graphically before our eyes, wrapped in a veneer (often wafer-thin) of civility. It is, if you like, the human equivalent of peacocks strutting or deer rutting.
Nishi Narayanan is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo