My book review on David Coad's The Metrosexual: Gender, Sexuality, and Sport appeared this month in print in Sport History Review. The book looked at changing gender roles in sports such that the rugged, masculine athlete of the past has now become a perfume and underwear model/passive object of sexual desire. Undergarments have become accessories themselves; nakedness has become mainstream (something Coad calls "spornography"). The "nakedness" of athletes today is not replicating the gendered, ritual sport roles of ancient Greece; it is subverting them. However, Coad focuses much more heavily on changes in gender roles that allowed this phenomenon to take place. He focuses less on economic changes in the world of sport. Athletes may be advertising their new wealth as much as they are advertising their bodies and accessories. Coad's theory may even be becoming outdated: I argue that sport is becoming post-metrosexual very rapidly; openly gay star Matthew Mitcham now has an underwear modeling deal with aussieBum, a gay "sex object" marketed toward straight men.
The article is available by subscription only, but I have posted a copy in my Slidespace. My review starts on page 6.
Friday, November 13, 2009
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