Sporting sex

BUSINESS DAY, 27 JANUARY 2000

ALAS, IT IS the way of the world that with each fresh advance of science, there must follow a wave of ethical quibbles hard upon it. So it is with the latest development in sport. Sex before the big match, announced New Scientist magazine late last year, is a good idea.

Of course, that was not news to me – I always recommend getting sex out of the way before the game starts. Bitter experience has taught me that it is no use trying to squeeze it in, if you will pardon the expression, during the slow-mo replays and beer ads. For that to work, you need a very understanding partner or at least a hand that has not just been holding an icy cold lager. You also need the ability to accelerate from a standing start to the finish line in less time than it takes an Aussie referee to blow a penalty against the Springboks.

In any case, for the sake of your performance as well as your peace of mind, it is best to discharge your, well, your romantic responsibilities before Hugh Bladen or Trevor Quirk start speaking. Believe me, you do not want to be startled mid-innings by Trevor’s dulcet tones. That way impotence lies.

Apparently, though, if New Scientist is to be believed, it is also a good idea for the athletes to have an early kick-off. One Emmanuele Jannini of the University of L’Aquilla has released findings that confirm what Ian Botham, James Small and the entire French rugby team have been trying to tell us for years: pre-match sex enhances on-field performance. Evidently orgasm stimulates the production of testosterone, which gives athletes the edge in sports requiring the controlled exercise of aggression.

There are few players who can have failed to notice that playing well in the match increases your chance of getting lucky afterwards, but having the converse scientifically proven is a startling breakthrough.

Knowing how scientifically minded the SA cricket team is, it is surely only a matter of time before each player has his own individualised data base, plotting the nookie/runs-scored ratio, or the heavy petting/dot balls coefficient. Just as important as fitness training will be lessons in pick-up lines and attractive hairstyles – once Mornantau Hayward has lost that seven-rand-rentboy puff-and-peroxide look, his strike rate on and off the field can only improve. Derek Crookes? Well, perhaps it would be kinder not to mention Derek Crookes.

And this is where the question of ethics creeps in. It is one thing knowing how to improve your team’s performance, but quite another to implement official policies. At what stage will local rugby teams be justified in sending out a nationwide call for patriotic lasses and – do not kid yourself – lads to lend a Vaselined hand in preparing the squads for competition? (“Do you give a toss for your country? Come prove it at Newlands, Saturday 2.30pm.”)

And at what stage will testosterone production become a mandatory training measure? After a slump in form will the management take a player aside, press upon him a stack of saucy magazines and a box of Kleenex and frogmarch him to the nearest empty cubicle? Will wives have to co-sign contracts, guaranteeing their availability and co-operation during the season? Will they submit themselves to refresher courses, fitness training and technique workshops? It is an uncertain future into which science is leading us.

Finally, and most worrying, if sex before the game is so advantageous, what about sex during the game? I am quite sure that team physiotherapists, currently in charge of rub-downs and heat treatments, will not take kindly to any untoward enlargement of their job descriptions, but the possibilities are distinctly unsettling. I do not care to think too deeply on the prospect of the Springboks trooping off at half-time, 20 points down against the All Blacks, to be greeted by an irate Nick Mallett and Alan Solomons: “Boys, you’re lacking aggression out there. Split up into pairs and do that exercise we demonstrated last week!”