“As a podiatrist, specializing in sports sociology, I never thought that I would spend so much time talking about penis size, the role of the penis, and how penis size can shape a sports team’s understanding of masculinity,” writes Dr Chris Morriss-Roberts. As a blogger with little to no interest in sports, I can sympathize.
Really, anything that gets me interested in sports is worth celebrating, so it’s noteworthy that I was as enthralled with Morriss-Roberts’s Outsports writings about “cock supremacy” in the locker room as guys are with . . . well . . . checking out each others’ cock supremacy in the locker room.
Morriss-Roberts is a University of East London PhD student whose thesis may be a “well duh” moment for some, especially because of the internet’s fascination with athletes and their equipment. What I found totally incredible about the piece is the amount of detail and analysis given to the interviews he did with eight athletes, four straight and four gay, revealing gendered locker-room dynamics that are both fascinating and sexy:
“This knowing of who has a large cock and who didn’t within a homosocial environment helped individual sporting males climb up a social hierarchy of importance. Those with the larger penises were revered and idolized by their teammates as a symbol of masculinity. These ‘large-cocked’ individuals became a focus of camaraderie and team building within their sports environments. The cock became a focus on which to banter, create nicknames, and enjoy the fundamental basics of being a man.”
Morriss-Roberts also describes how the locker-room cock talk continues beyond the shower stalls, when teams go out to bars and clubs. He says that one athlete explained that if a big-dicked teammate was chatting with a girl, the others would jump on him and brag about his size. “The rugby player telling this particular story seemed to suggest that women weren’t really impressed with this banter; ‘they often just rolled their eyes,’ he said.”
Again, I can sympathize.
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