Listen to “S02E30: Sex and the Race” on Spreaker.
Sex and sports have long been considered irreconcilable. The memory of the last century’s World Cup (it always makes an impression to call it that, but such it is) is still sharp: we were small and still did not quite understand what the commentators and journalists were referring to who said between the embarrassed and the winking that the national team players were not accompanied by their wives and girlfriends “to avoid distractions.” What distractions they were talking about we understood years later: the belief never questioned until relatively recently was that sex before a competition worsened performance. A wide variety of explanations were given: from an equally blinkered “exhaustion” to an over-relaxation that would not guarantee an adequate dose of competitive aggression.
Nothing could be more wrong: sex helps your sports life tremendously, both with respect to the psychological condition with which you approach it and the awareness of your body that it gives you. Having a healthy sex life also helps one to be more empathetic and to “understand” other people, having a more harmonious and understanding attitude toward them. How can you then think that something that makes you feel good is not also reflected in the relationships you have with others?
Yet this belief has had a very long life and a perpetrator: in fact, the 1st-century A.D. Greek physician and philosopher Areteus of Cappadocia is credited with the first attention to it. To keep one’s physical prowess intact,” Areteo suggested, “the athlete should always abstain from sexual activity before a competition. And even Plato had put his own spin on it, wanting to look for all those responsible for this false belief.
Fortunately, things have changed: at the last Rio Olympics in 2016, for example, as many as 500,000 condoms were distributed to the 12,000 athletes. I did the math for you: that’s about 42 each. Provident and generous these Brazilians!
Have you sent your Lovers Mail yet?
In recent weeks we launched the second season of Lovers Mail. Participate and tell your story in our Outlaw podcast-just write it down and send it to info@runlovers.it.
It is so easy and once a month we will collect the best ones and read and comment on them during a special episode. We are not interested in the chronicles of the races but in the flow of thoughts and reflections that accompany us when, one step after another, we run.
What are you waiting for to send it to us?
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