The 2024 Olympics are going to be held in Paris, and someone has decided that they must find a way to stop healthy young athletes from having sex while they are there. Why, I don’t know. Isn’t that what people do all the time? Of course, because only stupid people would think that would be a good idea, they’ve come up with stupid solutions: anti-sex beds.
They’re narrow and flimsy, so they’re cheap, at least. But you know, I’m not young or athletic, and I look at that and see a floor, and a wall, and they’ve probably got showers, and there’s grass outside, and as a muscular young person I could probably get to the roof. Do the prudes behind this idea have absolutely no imagination?
Leave it to the Parisiens to put a damper on romance is something I’d have never thought I’d write unironically.
That said, years ago, during the Rio games, I did hear something about athletes spreading STIs around so maybe that’s the reasoning behind this decision.
It may not be quite as prudish on the part of the Parisian officials as it seems up front. Even in the linked article, they stress that they used these beds (and other furnishings) because they’re completely recyclable. That is actually a good reason for them. I doubt that the officials really think this will stop people from having sex, even in their rooms. All they’d have to do is pull the mattresses off and onto the floor and…voila, no collapsing bed while they get it on. The whole story has the air of sensationalism on the part of the journalists more than anything else.
Since the source is Murdoch’s tabloid New York Post, you should first ask “who says these are ‘anti-sex’ beds?”. It is “people who want to get clicks on New York Post articles”?
That is not a “narrow” bed. It does look pretty short, though. I’d guess the basketball teams (and quite a few other athletes) would need a longer version, for sleep.
These were first used in Tokyo in 2020 (well 2021). They’re made from cardboard, are only meant to last for the few weeks of the Games and are recyclable.
They’re not anti-sex beds: some idiot journalist heard that they were cardboard and temporary, assumed they weren’t very strong (they have to be strong enough that they won’t collapse under a weightlifter or a heavyweight boxer, so they’re not exactly going to collapse under two average Olympians having sex) and decided that announcing that they were designed to stop people having sex would be a better story than the truth.
Sadly, the debunking story isn’t nearly as viral as the original nonsense.
Oh, and I found a debunking article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/the-olympic-anti-sex-beds-myth-was-debunked-in-tokyo-so-lets-do-it-again-in-paris/ar-BB1mvL3J
So it was just sensationalist, Murdoch trash “journalism” after all.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19882-2
Yes?
Either no imagination or an overheated and very warped imagination a la the Q cultists, Conspeiracy theorists and repressed hypersexed everything is dirty so can’t let people do anything impure as we deem it..
I’m surpised they’re not all frothy & aeriated about the trans flag coloured purpley-pink – or is it pinkish purple(?) – colours on those bedsheets complete with pink triangle which we all know symbolises teh Ghey!!1ty!
(Horrifically from the Shoah among other instances.)
Give the Q anon idiots more time and they will come up with something even dumber.
The new idea will quickly get piced up by Sean Hannity and the hundred thousand internuts who think shoolchildren who ‘identify as cats’ are provided with kitty litter.
Pfft, that looks better than my first girlfriends old bed.
Didn’t stop us.
Except for that day when the spring poked through the mattress. That kinda killed my mood.
The Olympics have always been a hotbed of sexy times, though not everyone is willing to admit it.
Observe how a boring, heterosexual Greek painter depicts Olympic athletes. Tedious in the extreme, eh?
https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00192463001
And here is a much more fun one by a normal artist, capturing the inevitable locker room horseplay that precedes the sex:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1843-1103-87
I think I have a new favourite Greek pot. Look at those cheeky faces and knowing eyes!
stwriley @ # 2: … they’re completely recyclable.
po8crg @ # 4: … only meant to last for the few weeks of the Games and are recyclable.
I’m not in any business related to this, but I would expect that built-to-last “Olympic Beds!!1!” would sell easily and profitably after the Games – with a premium for those labelled as assigned to medal-winners.
What, they think the pink and light blue is going to kill the mood somehow?
(“They” meaning the Murdoch press, of course.)
@13: Aren’t Real Men ™ supposed to dislike pink?
I used to play a lot of Saturday volleyball tournaments in my youth (and relative youth). I noticed that I couldn’t jump as high on Saturday if I had sexyfuntimes on Friday night. Your mileage may vary.
Just put up signs in the dorms in the 5 languages recognized by the Olympic Committee stating that all sexual activity will result in automatic deductions from your scores or penalty seconds added to your times. That’ll work just about as well as this.
@7 submoron:
But more importantly, what effect does it have on sponsor revenue, which is after all what the Olympics are all about!
Young, fit, good looking people together? Believe me, they will find a way!
@18 xohjoh2n
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Sex_Olympics
What po8crg wrote, above.
(Remarkable the nonsense some people buy into)
I guess 300,000 condoms are going to go to waste.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2024/03/19/olympics-2024-paris-sex-condoms/
1st- It is the NY Post, so it’s full of American-Nazi shit only American Nazis pretend to believe and pretend to enjoy.
2nd- No, when it comes to pleasure or creativity, prudes generally and Xians especially have no imagination at all.
3rd- Yes they have a vivid yet exceptionally boring imagination about everyone else’s actually enjoying life, which they do not, even when they watch porn and pay sex workers and imitate people who actually enjoy life.
When they aren’t trying to cause suffering and generally destroy things, they’re quite nice people. They should take some classes and stop being self-pityingly ashamed of being ignorant, since we all are.
Music Video: Hot Chip – Spell
Human nature, combined with the competitive nature of athletes, guarantees that there will be bragging rights, if not an actual cardboard trophy made from the crushed remains of a bed, for whoever breaks the most beds…
Jerry Coyne’s reaction to the ICC arrest warrant:
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/05/21/tuesday-hili-dialogue-479/
Thornapple, not the ICC, the IOC. :)
Right. The IOC.
https://olympics.com/en/news/four-ageless-olympians-eyeing-paris-2024
The obvious question still remains, though.
Why are they using “completely recyclable” cardboard beds, as opposed to metal ones that could just be reused indefinitely?
@29 blueriz
Because they need a massive amount of beds for a short amount of time, and capitalism. There were 11K Olympians in Tokyo.
There will be no market for the beds after the Olympics because the demand for twin beds is not large. Even if the beds were super-duper nice as if Paris could afford to buy that many in cost terms or make that many in resource terms skewing the demand for all the things including energy needed to make them, that many beds all at once would depress the cost of beds. Beds are big and storing that many beds until they sell is also problematic.
This would be causing vendors who need to sell beds to make a living to go out of business due to an oversupply that is no doing of their own.
@seachange, #30: They will be needing the same number of beds all over again in 2028, though.
@ ^ bluerizlagirl : Except they usually add a couple of new events each Olympics don’t they? Meaning they’ll need more beds than that – unless they actually enourage athletes to share them?
(Are there many married or otherwise conjugally partnered Olympians competing?)
StevoR, here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1090581/olympics-number-athletes-by-gender-since-1896/