One status granted to most male professional athletes is that of a “playboy”. Whether it is the money, the fame, the houses, the cars, or whatever, male athletes appear to have very few problems attracting members of the opposite sex. Wilt Chamberlain went of record saying that he had sex with over 10,000 women, yet remained one of the NBA’s most prolific

and admired players until his death. Certainly a female athlete with such a past would not be judged as mildly, and would most likely never publicly disclose such information in the first place. Such sexual promiscuity leads to the related issue of monogamy. Male athletes are notorious for being unfaithful to their wives and girlfriends, engaging in acts of infidelity. Magic Johnson spoke out to Barbara Walters shortly after the world learned of his contraction of the HIV virus in 1990, saying that he has had sex with up to 8 women at once on occasion, which is why he cannot be certain exactly where, when, or from whom he got the disease. Examples such as these are tragically all too prominent in the world of sports, yet, as more cases abound and number of illegitimate children rise, our admiration for these athletes remains. If a female athlete replicated such exploits, the public would swiftly chastise her, making her into a “slut” and anything but someone to be looked up to and admired. Not surprisingly, male athletes have even begun pitching today’s latest sexual innovations, which further perpetuates perception. Multiple time MLB baseball All-Star, Rafael Palmeiro became the first athlete to begin endorsing Viagra starting in February of last year.

Lastly, one final aspect of sports that is of interest in terms of sexism is the jargon of many sports and their relation to sexual acts. First of all, in nearly every sport the objective is very obviously to “score”, which in our society has become synonymous with “hooking up” with a female. More specifically, in baseball there are the bases. We all know that men relate “how far” they get with women by referring to these bases, and if they get all the way, they say they hit a “home run” or a “grand slam”. On the other hand, if an encounter with a woman goes nowhere, men tend to say they “struck out”. And when a single man is looking to get with as many women as he can he calls it “playing the field”. In golf, the terms “threesome” and “foursome” are used to identify playing groups, however, these words also have a connotative meaning that refers to having sex with more than one partner at a time. Another word in the golf vocabulary is “stroke” which slowly has evolved into a word men use when talking about masturbating. In addition to all of this, a statement that men have started use more and more is “I hit that”, when referring to having sexual intercourse with a woman. This is very easily equated with any and all sports where a stick, bat, or club is used almost in a phallic fashion to strike a ball or puck or whatever else.

In conclusion, sports have many similarities to, and influence on gender relations in our society. Sports are rarely “just a game,” instead they are inundated with multiple meanings and have a profound effect on the behavior of millions of Americans. Unfortunately, as this paper hopefully has proven, this effect severely impacts the lives and perceptions of women and gay athletes to a far greater extent than their male counterparts.

Looking at women’s sports as a whole, they have begun progressing, but at a much slower rate than men’s. Probably not all too ironic, the reason for

Some topics in this essay:
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