by Serena Murphy
In today’s chronically online media environment, an event as global as the Olympic Games is bound to generate a few viral meme-worthy moments.
The 2024 Olympics has been no different.
From an obsession with Turkey’s cool and collected silver medal winning shooter Yusuf Dikec, to Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen’s love for the Olympic village muffins, many viral moments from the 2024 Olympic Games have been nothing but heartwarming moments or celebrations of the Olympian’s talents.
However, one viral moment exposes the seldom discussed yet pervasive issue of male sexualisation.
On August 3rd, 21-year-old French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati fell short of achieving his dream of an Olympic medal, finishing 12th with a height of 5.60 in the Men’s Pole Vault Qualification.
It was not Ammirati’s skill or talent that prevented him from qualifying, but his genitals, which caught on the pole, causing it to fall to the floor.
Though Ammirati himself was able to find the funny side, posting a TikTok captioned “Tu fais plus de buzz pour ton paquet que pour tes perfs,” (you get more buzz for your package than your performances), online content sexualising his body soon spiralled out of control.
Reposts of his performance on TikTok and X are awash with comments like “wish I was the bar” and “I paused it at the right time,” alongside further comments scrutinising the size of his penis and even likening it to a baguette.
This uncomfortable fixation on Ammirati’s penis is
not only rampant on social media, but has been fuelled by professional news outlets, who repeatedly refer to Ammirati’s “viral bulge.”
The use of such language by professional media
exemplifies just how the sexualisation of male bodies seems to go widely unchecked and uncriticised.
Now, it appears that Ammirati, or rather his body, has caught the attention of members of the pornography industry, who aim to cash in on his popularity following the viral video.
Only days after his performance, Ammirati was offered a $250,000 pornography deal from popular pornography website CamSoda. The company’s Vice President, Daryn Parker, commented “If it was up to me, I’d award you for what everyone else saw, your talent below the belt.”
Parker went on to propose a deal with Ammirati, suggesting that “…I’d love to offer you up to $250,000 for a 60-minute webcam show, in which you show off your goods…”
Undoubtedly, such discussions of “talent below the belt” and showing off “goods” would evoke a different reaction on social media had these comments been made towards a female athlete.
Such comments would be labelled disrespectful when made towards a woman and are surely also disrespectful when made towards a man. Instead, the angle that both mainstream news platforms and social media commentators have taken on Parker’s offer seems mostly to be one of humour.
News reports consistently appear to approach it
with a ‘good for him’ attitude which serves to normalise the absurd fact that Ammirati’s professional career, skills, and talent have been overshadowed by an uncomfortably large internet obsession with his penis.
Within the world of sport, and indeed in everyday life, discourse criticising the objectification of women is prevalent. In a poll taken by BT Sport, 67% of Britain’s elite female athletes discussed fears that their appearance was more valuable to the media than their sporting achievements.
Female Olympians have been explicitly calling out
sexualisation and finding measures to combat it for years. In a stance against sexualisation, Germany’s female gymnastics team opted to wear full-length unitards at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, gaining much praise for doing so.
However, discussions of male athletes’ experiences of sexualisation, or any proactive efforts to tackle it, appear to be scarce. The media discourse surrounding Ammirati’s performance has demonstrated how online
objectification and sexualisation is not only aimed at women.
Criticising the online sexualisation of male athletes (and men in general) should not take away from the understanding that female sexualisation is an endemic issue with a deep-rooted misogynistic history. Rather, it is part of a wider conversation regarding how the internet has become a breeding ground for bodily scrutiny and objectification, with commenters hiding behind the anonymity that social media provides.
Evidently, it is easier to objectify those we only ever see on a screen, or those whose lifestyles feel so far removed from our own that we seem unable to recognise their humanity. On social media, attractiveness has become one of the most important forms of currency, with the worth and popularity of users often largely based upon what they look like.
This has created a culture in which the objectified body is separated from the person themselves, their talents and their beliefs. This is the type of culture in which it is acceptable to reduce a person’s skill, hard work, dedication and career to an obsession with a sexualised body part.
There is no denying that we live in a world where sex-and-scandal-related content sells and where social media commentators will sexualise just about anything. Both individual online commenters and professional news channels have a responsibility to approach situations like this with respect, compassion and decency.
Perhaps we should take inspiration from Ammirati’s own approach to his newfound virality: have a quick smile at an evidently funny situation, then simply move on.
Edited by Emily Duff