easlgrundle
Jockstrap Artist
An interesting article/ book snippet on running anthropology and physiology, including this copy paste below pondering the pendulous male bits and how they relate to the activity. Do your balls retract like this? I don't think mine retract like that, maybe shorten a bit? I don't think i have running stamina to duplicate his test.
www.smh.com.au
"Some of the earliest recorded instances of running are found in Egyptian wall reliefs dating as far back as 1500BC, long before the first Olympic Games were held. These runners were invariably depicted wearing the equivalent of shorts or a loincloth. Not so the Greeks, as is well documented. That male athletes competed in the nude is something we accept today without question, more as historical fact than as anomalous behaviour. On Greek vases and amphorae, we see them running, wrestling and boxing, their genitals exposed. In these depictions, it’s as if these tender parts of the body were not tender in the least, but tough enough to be knocked around, crushed, jostled, boxed, hit. Or that whatever damage was done was worth it for the sake of the physical performance – or the sheer beauty of it.
All of this raises a question: can one actually run a race without athletic support? I had to find out for myself. My partner, Oliver [Sacks, the late neurologist], had a home in the country on a large piece of land. The driveway alone was a quarter of a mile long – perfect for putting my question to the test. One day I shucked shorts, underwear and shirt. I kept my shoes on, the supposed advantages of barefoot running notwithstanding, and took off. There was some jostling down below, some definite – what’s the right word? – bouncing. But within seconds, my testicles retracted and scrotum followed, as if shrink-wrapping my balls, the two now vacuum-packed within the lower abdomen. My penis contracted to a fraction of its normal size. It was as if a message had been sent to the nervous system by wire: pack it up quickly, boys. I found myself sporting nature’s own jockstrap.
I ran to the end of the drive and turned around. The sun warmed my whole body and into my insides. I ran my hands over my skin and slopped up the sweat: a manual strigil. Jogging had passed the test, but what about sprinting? I did a 100-yard dash back to the top of the drive, unbothered by the slight flopping. If anything, I found it comical, how my genitals now resembled a bell, a very small bell. Beyond this, what I felt deeply was something vital, wild, powerful – more hunted than hunter: I felt, in a word, like an animal. I turned and sprinted back down the drive as fast as I could."
Sprinting, sweating and ‘nature’s jockstrap’: How we are born to run
As early hominids, we ran to stay alive. Millennia later, feeling exhilarated by the need for speed, we just can’t stop.
Sydney Morning Herald --
Sprinting, sweating and ‘nature’s jockstrap’: How we are born to run
By Bill Hayes
February 4, 2022 — 12.06pm"Some of the earliest recorded instances of running are found in Egyptian wall reliefs dating as far back as 1500BC, long before the first Olympic Games were held. These runners were invariably depicted wearing the equivalent of shorts or a loincloth. Not so the Greeks, as is well documented. That male athletes competed in the nude is something we accept today without question, more as historical fact than as anomalous behaviour. On Greek vases and amphorae, we see them running, wrestling and boxing, their genitals exposed. In these depictions, it’s as if these tender parts of the body were not tender in the least, but tough enough to be knocked around, crushed, jostled, boxed, hit. Or that whatever damage was done was worth it for the sake of the physical performance – or the sheer beauty of it.
All of this raises a question: can one actually run a race without athletic support? I had to find out for myself. My partner, Oliver [Sacks, the late neurologist], had a home in the country on a large piece of land. The driveway alone was a quarter of a mile long – perfect for putting my question to the test. One day I shucked shorts, underwear and shirt. I kept my shoes on, the supposed advantages of barefoot running notwithstanding, and took off. There was some jostling down below, some definite – what’s the right word? – bouncing. But within seconds, my testicles retracted and scrotum followed, as if shrink-wrapping my balls, the two now vacuum-packed within the lower abdomen. My penis contracted to a fraction of its normal size. It was as if a message had been sent to the nervous system by wire: pack it up quickly, boys. I found myself sporting nature’s own jockstrap.
I ran to the end of the drive and turned around. The sun warmed my whole body and into my insides. I ran my hands over my skin and slopped up the sweat: a manual strigil. Jogging had passed the test, but what about sprinting? I did a 100-yard dash back to the top of the drive, unbothered by the slight flopping. If anything, I found it comical, how my genitals now resembled a bell, a very small bell. Beyond this, what I felt deeply was something vital, wild, powerful – more hunted than hunter: I felt, in a word, like an animal. I turned and sprinted back down the drive as fast as I could."
