Tag Archives: Rugby

Really Rucking Funny: Best Manlove Video of 2011 (SFW)

This clip by Irish comedy outfit Dead Cat Bounce called ‘Rugby’ has to be my favourite video of 2011. Even if it strongly suggests that, in Ireland at least, my work here is done and it’s well past time to retire to the touch-lines. There’s much to admire here: the lightness of touch, the hilarious …

December 21, 2011 – 2:06 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, Rugby, sport | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

Traditional Masculinity Has a Stroke: ‘Burly Rugby Player’ To ‘Gay Hairdresser’

  My friend Michelle, formerly the male stripper known as ‘Stud-U-Like’, alerted me to this ‘freaky’ tale of transformation reported in this week’s Daily Mail: Burly rugby player has a stroke after freak gym accident… wakes up gay and becomes a hairdresser  Chris Birch loses eight stone and transforms himself from skinhead to ‘preened man’ …

November 9, 2011 – 5:22 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary | Tagged , , | Comments (27)

Touching Another Dude Dudely

I’m not sure I entirely believe the preamble from the overly dudey — if very easy on the eye — presenter and star of this ‘experiment’ in ‘touching dudes softly’. Particularly the bit about ‘nothing makes me uncomfortable!’ But it is interesting to watch the responses of the men he decides to monster with ‘inappropriate’ …

April 15, 2011 – 1:52 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Sporno

Mark Simpson on how sport and porn got into bed with one another — while D&G and Mr Armani took pictures.… (Out magazine, May 2006; expanded for The V&A’s ‘Fashion V Sport’ catalogue, June 2008.) You might think that it was Italy’s greater ball skills, or stamina, or team spirit that won them the 2006 football …

April 17, 2010 – 3:18 am | By Mark Simpson | Posted in sporno | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (43)

Homoerotic Horseplay — Not Gay Just Guy

A column of mine on Out.com, ‘Men At Play in Afgrabistan’, gallantly defends the freedom of the derided (and now dismissed) security guards at the US embassy to get naked with one another and eat potato chips from each other’s butts in their spare time — even if they’re out of shape.  I also point …

September 17, 2009 – 3:05 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in article, commentary, journalism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (36)

Tim ‘No Acorn’ Oakes

I seem to have somehow missed the not entirely shocking news that Tim ‘No Acorn’ Oakes of Sandbach RUFC, the spunky rugger-bugger captain who was so keen to show off his impressive semi-tackle on national television — and very kindly let his team mates play with it — has since gone the whole hog and …

April 25, 2009 – 3:17 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, Rugby, sporno | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)

Sporno on Steroids

Now that’s what I call pushing back. Taking the sporno trend to parts it hasn’t yet reached — and what parts! — while spreading the famous French ‘pro’ tartiness of the Dieux du Stade calendars to these shores, the latest ad campaign for Powerade’s ‘InnerGear’ isotonic sports drink features several UK pro rugger buggers in …

January 28, 2009 – 3:24 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in advertising, commentary, metrosexual, sporno, sport | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)

Rugger Buggers and Swinging Dicks

In the Middle Ages, sodomy was thought to be caused not by hair whorls, but by drunkeness. As this spornographic clip shows, they were absolutely right. The post-match beery bonding of the lovely lads of Sandbach RUFC — which, be warned, includes very male nudity, heavy petting and male-on-male snogging — made me feel faint …

July 18, 2007 – 3:46 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, Phalliban, sporno, sport | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (26)