Sex & Sports

Trends: Slaying While Pregnant

Beyonce’s performance at the 2017 Grammy Awards (The Fader)

It seems like almost every female celebrity is pregnant right now (and that almost all of them are pregnant with twins). But instead of lying low and taking it easy during their pregnancies, many of these women are stepping it up, and making pregnant and non-pregnant women alike look like slackers.

First case in point: Beyonce. Leave it to Queen Bey to put us all to shame. The superstar performed a set during this year’s Grammy Awards. One portion featured her leaning back in a chair perched at a very precarious angle. (I don’t know about you, but my heart was in my throat for that whole portion. And I audibly exhaled when she got off that chair.)

Beyonce had also been scheduled to perform at Coachella before withdrawing. But we can’t fault her for that, considering she’s done more while pregnant than many people do in their lives.

Serena Williams is widely acknowledged to be the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) tennis player in the world. Last month, she announced her pregnancy. When she announced the news, Williams was 20 weeks along. Someone very smart (and awesome) did the math and realized that Williams had recently played in a match while pregnant. And, as Laura Wagner at “Deadspin” put it, this wasn’t just any match:

Serena Williams won the 2017 Australian Open, her record-breaking 23rd major, without dropping a single set, while nine fucking weeks pregnant. She is the greatest of all time.

Elsewhere in entertainment, Gal Gadot has been preparing for her upcoming movie “Wonder Woman.” Last November, she shot reshoots for the movie…while also five months pregnant. And she was probably doing more than a few stunts. NBD.

It’s great that we’re seeing so many women dominate during a time in life when women traditionally have been relegated to the sidelines.

#ThrowbackThursday: Serena Williams Wins the Australian Open, 2017

Serena Williams at the 2017 Australian Open (Indian Express)

United States’ Serena Williams celebrates after winning the first set against Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

In January, tennis superstar Serena Williams beat her sister, fellow tennis star Venus Williams, in the final set of the Australian Open. The win was her seventh Australian Open title, and 23rd Grand Slam singles title. Williams is now back to being the #1-ranked tennis player in the world.

Williams was also in the early weeks of pregnancy during the Australian Open. So there’s that.

Condoms Provided during the Summer Olympics: By The Numbers

Rio Olympics 2016 (Indian Express)

By this point, it’s no secret that Olympic Village is famous for hook-ups. (Though whether athletes are partaking before or after their events, who can say?) It makes sense: Throw together thousands of elite athletes from all over the world who are in peak physical shape who’ve trained most, if not all, of their lives, for a sport with a laser focus that more than likely excludes almost everything else. And what better way to blow off some steam during this once-in-a-lifetime experience?

Officials at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) clearly had the same thought, because athletes at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics have been provided with a record number of condoms: 450K+ condoms were ordered for 10K athletes. This breaks down into 350K male condoms, 100K female condoms, and 175K packets of lube. This further breaks down into 42 condoms per athlete, assuming said athlete stays for the duration of the Games.

Providing condoms to the athletes isn’t a new phenomenon; the practice began during the 1988 Summer Olympics held in Seoul, South Korea. Only 8.5K condoms were provided that year. But that number has steadily grown over the years, and has grown exponentially in the recent past. During the last Summer Olympics held in London in 2012, 150K condoms were provided.

Here’s a data table that shows how the number of condoms has risen during the Summer Olympics:

Number of Condoms Provided During the Summer Olympics, 1988-2016

And a data table that shows the same data for the Winter Olympics:

Number of Condoms Provided During the Winter Olympics, 1992-2014

(Somehow, no data was available for Turin in 2006.)

This data table shows how the number of condoms provided has risen through both the Summer and Winter Olympics:

Number of Condoms Provided During the Summer and Winter Olympics, 1988-2016

There is one problem with these numbers: Aside from the data from Rio, we can’t tell how many, if any, condoms were female condoms, or if they were all male condoms.

It’ll be interesting to see how the number of condoms provided grows over the next few Olympic Games.

#ThrowbackThursday: London Olympics Condoms, 2012

London Summer Olympics Condoms, 2012 (Eikon)

Did you know the Olympics had their own branded condoms? I certainly didn’t, until I found this image. And this one isn’t repeated each time: Every Olympic Games receives their own specially-branded condoms.

If I was an Olympic athlete, I know I’d be pocketing these for souvenirs (no, really!).

Tinder Usage Up 129% Among Athletes at the Rio Summer Olympics

Rio Olympics 2016 (Indian Express)

By now, it’s common knowledge that Olympic athletes hook up during their time in the Olympic Village. And naturally, one way to facilitate this is via dating apps. Specifically, Tinder has proved to be the number one choice for Olympic athletes looking to get laid.

Over the first weekend of this year’s Olympics, Tinder usage spiked a whopping 129% amongst the athletes. Impressive, right? But the data is incomplete.

This is the second Olympics where Tinder has made a splash. During the Sochi Olympics in 2014, it was reported that mobile dating usage surged, and that Tinder was the app of choice. However, since this is solely anecdotal evidence, no numbers have been reported so that we can’t gauge the size of said surge. And we cannot make any year-over-year comparisons of the growth.

Another issue is that, yes, Tinder usage is up 129% among athletes, but to what are we comparing the activity? Are we comparing to the usage data to the previous Summer Olympics (which would be London in 2012) or the most recent Olympics (the aforementioned Sochi)?

Though the number raises a few questions, it’s pretty entertaining to realize that elite athletes are just like the rest of us.

#ThrowbackThursday: Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Performance, 2013

Beyonce’s Super Bowl performance, 2013 (Wired)

We all saw Beyoncé’s amazing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show last weekend. And heard her new song. (And have put it on repeat this week.)

I feel like Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance from 2013 really kicked off her current stratospheric level. And 10 months later, she released her self-titled visual album, and we all know how that went.

Jen Welter is the NFL’s First Female Coach

Jen Welter coaching the Arizona Cardinals (AZ Central)

Late last month, the Arizona Cardinals announced a new hire to the their coaching staff, someone that brings plenty of experience. Jen Welter has coached linebackers and special teams for the Texas Revolution of the Indoor Football League. She brings 14 years of professional football experience during her time in the Women’s Football Alliance, and holds advanced degrees in psychology and sports psychology. She also won two gold medals playing for the United States on two separate occasions during the International Federation of American Football Women’s World Championship within this decade.

Welter will be the first woman to coach on a National Football League (NFL) team.

But she’s used to blazing trails: She was the first female coach for the Indoor Football League, another men’s professional sports league. Welter was hired to that position this past February.

As for her day-to-day work, CNN reports:

Welter will work with the Cardinals’ inside linebackers and will coach throughout training camp and the preseason as a training camp/preseason intern.

It’s fantastic that the NFL is continuing to break barriers: Earlier this year, the league hired Sarah Thomas, its first female official. The two actually met during a recent preseason game.

Caitlyn Jenner Receives the ESPYs’ Arthur Ashe Courage Award

Caitlyn Jenner, 2015 ESPYs (JustJared)

Happy Friday! The ESPYs aired last night, and all anyone can talk about is Caitlyn Jenner receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. Named for tennis great/AIDS victim Ashe, the award is given to individuals whose actions “transcend sports,” and has been awarded since 1993.

It was her first public appearance at a major awards event, and she killed. Jenner gave a speech that highlighted her personal journey to self-acceptance as a transwoman. She also talked about her fellow athletes’ responsibility to crew the change:

How do we start? We start with education. I was fortunate to meet Arthur Ashe a few times, and I know how important education was to him. Learn as much as you can about another person to understand them better.

Jenner later spoke about how her transition felt, and what the trans community needs from larger society:

But this transition has been harder on me than anything I could imagine. And that’s the case for so many others besides me. For that reason alone, trans people deserve something vital. They deserve your respect. And from that respect comes a more compassionate community, a more empathetic society and a better world for all of us.

Jenner is the first transwoman to receive the award.

Brittney Griner/Glory Johnson Annulment: How Many Same-Sex Marriages End?

Glory Johnson and Brittney Griner (Forward Times Online)

Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner filed for an annulment from her wife Glory Johnson, who plays for the Tulsa Shock. The two WNBA stars married May 8th, and Johnson announced her pregnancy June 4th.

With acceptance of same-sex marriage gaining ground, divorce will naturally follow. But how many same-sex marriages end?

It’s hard, and probably too early, to find concrete and up-to-date statistics on this. In 2011, UCLA’s Williams Institute found that same-sex couples who’ve formalized their commitment had a divorce rate of 1%+. This is lower than the annual divorce rate of heterosexual married couples, which is 2%.

Around 150K same-sex couples have married or otherwise committed to each other, so that would mean around 3K same-sex couples divorce each year. I couldn’t find any stats solely for annulments.

But in 2013, Pew Research Center’s FactTank found that same-sex marriages numbered around 71K+. It did take into account that there might be some underreporting going on.

As time passes and more same-sex marriages and divorces/annulments/separations are recorded, we’ll be able to see a clearer picture of any trends.

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.