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Who knew that Rooney on Rooney (in a romantically darkened stadium) could be so swooney?

The message of this latest spornographic ad seems to be that you play better with yourself with your shirt off.  Especially if you’re on YouTube.  And that Powerade InnerGear replaces those salts and ‘nutrients’ you lose in your body fluids.

But in all its autoerotic, chunky bear-cub pride this ad seems to also lovingly-longingly evoke a missing torso.  The smooth, defined, ab-tastic one belonging to Rooney’s much more talented, much prettier Portugese ‘winker’ chum – famously fined for peeling off his shirt on the pitch – who is no longer with Man U, or Rooney, but playing for Real Madrid and stripping off for Mr Armani. And also for visiting fully-clothed Formula 1 race car drivers.

Hence the recent statue of Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled by Nike in Madrid looks so hilariously unconvincing not so much because it doesn’t look anything like him – and it doesn’t even look unlike him – but because it’s wearing a shirt.

Tip: Andre Murracas

Male pole dancing is on the rise, according to Diane Passage on the Huffington Post.  Male pole dancing teachers such as the leg-warmer wearing one above have emerged. There’s even a male pole dancing contest in the UK called ‘Mr Pole Fitness’.  However Ms Passage is careful to make this slightly uptight, not to mention self-defeating disclaimer at at the end of her piece:

As I was discussing this topic with friends, the majority of both men and women were not turned on by the idea of watching a man work the pole. I personally am not a fan of a man who tries to imitate the sensual moves of a woman, but I do appreciate a man who demonstrates a masculine gymnastic style suggestive of what I might see in Cirque du Soleil – which does appeal to the masses.

In other words, so long as the male pole performer accepts that sensuality is the woman’s preserve and doesn’t ’try to imitate it’ but rather pretends he’s taking part in an Olympic pommel-horse event or some circus act — instead of pole dancing in a thong — it’s still ‘masculine’ and therefore OK.

It seems to me that male pole-dancing is becoming more popular with men  precisely because in this metrosexual century men are more and more disregarding what is supposed to be a woman’s preserve — particularly sensuality and inviting the gaze.  Men today see women doing things — such as using cosmetics, pole dancing, and sucking cock — and think: Hey! That looks like fun!  I’d like to give that a go!

And why not?

After all, women have been doing the exact same thing with the ‘male preserve’ for some time.  It’s why so many journalists these days are female.

Here are some other clips of male pole dancers that probably won’t meet with Ms Passage’s approval.  I’m not entirely sure whether they all meet with mine.  However the last clip seems to gloriously short-circuit quaint (North American/Anglo) ideas of what’s acceptably ‘masculine’.  The young pole-dancer may be gymnastic, but he’s definitely not pretending he’s on a pommel-horse.  Instead he seems to represent the emergence of a beautiful new species of butterfly. Spectacularly demonstrating that males can be both (eye-poppingly) masculine and sensationally sensual. 

Tip: DAKrolak

The new issue of Germany’s leading gay magazine Manner Aktuell carries an essay on Sporno by yours truly (and yes, that’s my name on the cover but not, alas, my body).

US Olympic swimmer Ricky Berens unveiled his new dashing new swimsuit during the 4×100m relays at the World Swimming Championships in Rome last weekend.  ‘The Bruno’ caused something of a splash – and the US team, no doubt encouraged by the stirring vision before them – both of them – successfully qualified for the Finals.

Let’s hope other swimsuit designers adopt the asstounding aquadynamics of Mr Berens’ blond butt cheeks.

Tip: Joe My God/Uroskin

Postscript:

I’m very grateful to Mark W for reminding me of this highly apposite literary quotation ‘regarding’ the male derriere:

“The veneration I feel for that part of the body and the great tenderness that I have bestowed on the [boys who have allowed me to enter it, the grace and sweetness of their gift, oblige me to to speak of all this with respect”

Genet- “Funeral Rites”

Dolce & Gabbana’s latest sporno campaign for their Intimo men’s underwear line (above), employing eager, wide-shouldered chaps from their national team to stretch their designer cotton, seems to have taken inspiration from the tarty antics of the swimmers at last year’s Olympics, peeling their swimsuits off to flash their ‘cum gutters’ at the world (or was it just me?).

I certainly wouldn’t mind a few lengths with any or all of them, but I can’t help but wonder whether D&G might not have had a more spornographic impact if they’d used instead some of these Aussie Rules footballers from Down Under to stretch and pitch their product: they’ve just appeared in a ‘Gods of Football’ sporno calendar clearly inspired by Dieux du Stade, if not actually paying homo-homage (see below).

Though maybe it’s all just a matter of taste.  Or positioning.  There’s definitely something about Aussie Rules Footie that makes for butts that sit up and beg for attention. And they’re certainly getting it from me. The photographer Pedro Virgil, has expertly exploited this ‘asset’ to the full and made these extraordinarily athletic arses the stars of the calendar.

I really should be bored with this kind of thing by now, but curiously I seem never to be able to get quite enough of young straight slutty sportsmen sticking their naked shelf-like bums out and asking for it….

‘Where are you planning on putting that big lens?’ asks Michael Osbourne with his eyes, worriedly clutching his favourite gold-plated footie ball. ‘And don’t I get some poppers first?’

John Williams contemplates his career profile and clenches, while the setting sun and our eyes stroke his thighs.

Travis Burns is a very modern, very smart player: he’s tattooed his name on the back of his arm so we’ll know whose arse we’re staring at. And book him again.

What would a gay porn shoot be without the obligatory barn and showers scenes? (Yes, yes, we know this calendar is officially aimed at women, complete with a quote from Cosmo on the cover, but everyone knows, including the athletes themselves and Cosmo readers, that gay porn is the sensibility of sporno.)

Just to prove I’m versatile, a classic frontal sporno pose a la Ljunberg for Calvin Klein and Beckham for Armani – reclining on a chair, legs apart, arms behind head, smouldering gaze meeting ours and murmuring: ‘Do with me what you will! (But speak to my agent first, OK?)’

Tip: D.A. Krolak

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 stripped off for FamousMales.com, teasing the gayers with his no longer semi but fully erect assets.

EthanSays.com has some safely doctored snaps from the FamousMales shoot (albeit with the wrong kind of ball  – please try to remember you Yanks: rugby players’ balls are odd-shaped). Here’s how the shoot went according to Ethan:

Completely at ease with being naked, Tim recently stripped down for Famous Males and stood stark naked in front of them, his proud, strong nude form – beautiful and stunning. “I’ve got quite a few scars now,” Tim said. “I get well bashed about on the field. God knows what the lads will think of this when they see the pictures…hee…hee.” “JUST LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU WANT ME HARD.”

I’ve seen the pics sans strategically placed football and let’s just say Tim is not only a shower, he’s also something of a grower.  That said, I personally happen to think his ‘hammer’ is even more fetching than his ‘nail’.

His face isn’t bad either….

(Shame about the haircut, though.)

Adidas’ flirty-shirty interactive sporno gets its tits out in New Zealand: ‘Which two players would you like to see swap jerseys?’

No.1 and No.3 did it for me – though I’d quite like to have invited No.5 to join us, but unfortunately you can only choose one-on-one jersey-swapping at present.

I’m sure though that given the ‘penetration’ of sporno into the culture, group shirt swapping along with shorts-swapping options isn’t far off.

Tip: Jay Hirst

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 the buff snapped by the photographer Alan Clarke. Including, most spectacularly, most spherically, England Rugby Union Captain Steve Borthwick (above), keeping his spornographic end up for the Queen.  And nicely stuck out.

Or as the gay porn legend Dink Flamingo would say, ‘Arch your back, bitch!’

Once again, it seems that it isn’t just me who is undressing athletes with my eyes and giving them filthy directions.  Advertising is doing it too.  But unlike me, advertising can actually afford these tarts.

But I’m not bitter. Honestly. I’m sure that Borthwick was rewarded handsomely by his sugar daddy Coca Cola (who own Powerade) for his bare-faced cheek, but nevertheless he also deserves, as Julian Clary would put it, a warm hand on his entrance for his bravery.  Apparently his mates have been rogering him – sorry -  ribbing him.  ‘It is one of the most daring shoots I’ve been involved in,’ he told the ladies and gentlemen of the press,  ‘but it has been loads of fun, even it it has given my team mates plenty of ammunition for changing room banter.’

I can’t help thinking though that the shoot would have been even more daring and fun if Borthwick had been portrayed along with his bantering naked team mates in an actual scrum instead of doing a muscular Marcel Marceau.  For the purposes of realism, of course.

‘The InnerGear for an athlete – how we train, what we eat and drink – is as important as what we wear,’ says Borthwick, clearly reading here from Coca Cola’s script. ‘And it’s great that this campaign brings it to life’.

‘Gear’ of course is also the street name given to steroids, that hot commodity more and more rugby players these days look as if they’re taking, mandatory drug testing or no.  According to various reports, epidemic numbers of young men who aren’t athletes but who, like today’s sportsmen, also want to look like porn stars are downing them like, well, soft drinks.

I’m sure Coca Cola chose the name ‘InnerGear’ for entirely innocent and pure reasons, and that none of their models would ever use banned substances, even if it is quite easy to do so and avoid detection, but if young men think that by drinking an overpriced sugary-salty drink invested with magical, virile properties by advertising they’ll get buff instead of fat, and look as desirable, as shaggable, as these pro athletes, that can surely only help sales.

Below, England International Paul Sackey and Welsh International Shane Williams who also feature in the InnerGear campaign, prove that really fit bubble-butts can fly. Williams, who looks a little like a Welsh statue of Eros with a rugby ball let loose instead of an arrow, also proves that really fit bubble-butts can arch and look over their shoulder at the same time.

It’s true that this public campaign, unlike the DDS calendars (which are for private consumption, after all), avoids frontal nudity, but then Freud thought that in dreams flying had a phallic symbolism.

So with InnerGear’s flying rugby buttocks you really can have both.

Welsh International Shane Williams. Your flexible friend.

If you’ve been watching the noble Olympics in a slightly pervey way, treating all that lycra and fit young firm flesh on your HD screens as a form of illicit spornography then you deserve to be spanked soundly with a spiked running shoe.

But you’re not alone.

America’s prestigious NBC no less are doing it too.

With an online splurge of swim-boy nakedness called ‘Ab-Fab’ it asks you to ‘Guess the Swimmer’ – by identifying the headless topless torsos of selected Olympic totty.

In other words, it presents photos of top-flight swimmers as if they were headless naked profile pics on Manhunt or Gaydar. At the very least, it takes it for granted that you’ve been studying their bodies rather closely. They should really go the whole hog and provide a ‘MESSAGE ME!’ button to send those naughty athletes our phone numbers.

Someone with more morals than me might be inclined to huff and puff a little at this non-consensual spornographic exploitation of the golden swim-boys. But then, they are encouraging it, those devilish rascals, with their low-slung pants showing off their storm-proof ‘cum-gutters’ and saucy ‘come-hither’ pelvic tatts. They know exactly what kind of world we’re living in – and they seem determined to give it a semi.

And when you see NBC’s full-length pic of multi-Gold-medal-winner Phelps – the slim-hipped superstar whose seismic popularity might just overcome America’s deep-seated Speedophobia - you realise that, like so many young men today, he’s already practically stripping for Fratmen TV , even when he’s wearing jeans and underpants. (And why he deserves yet another Gold – for tarting.)

Meanwhile, two US National wrestlers have permanently lost their place on the team and their scholarships for actually doing just that.

Tip: D.A. Krolak

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 with jealousy.

And also faintly redundant.

These straight lads’ eagerness to perform their manly love for one another in front of UK TV cameras (for an instalment of an ITV2 series last month called ‘Generation Xcess’) does away with the need for my:

• essay on hazing, in which I argued that male bonding is deeply homoerotic, but that despite this it is not a ‘gay’ thing – it’s a ‘guy’ thing

• pointing out the size queenery of straight men.

• explaining how little purchase the Phalliban has in the UK – compared to the US where it has a tighter grip than Captain Tim’s team-mates have on his ‘massive cock’

• arguing that homoerotic fantasy that Sporno advertising sells us is not entirely baseless

• responding to those who adamantly refuse to believe that straight men could get naked with one another on camera and play with each other’s dangly bits when offered lots of cash. (These ones did it for a few beers.)

Instead of all my scribbling, I just needed to take a video camera to a pub in Sandbach on Saturday night and buy a few rounds. It would have been a lot more fun too.

Funny that this should have surfaced around the same time as this spornographic ad campaign for Paris – which after the salty mantics of Sandbach RUFC now looks like a slightly coy promotion for a copycat programme featuring a less attractive, less ballsy team.

But perhaps the most ‘touching’ part of all this groping is the way this (highly successful) team of rugger buggers refuse to be embarrassed by the naughty clips the programme makers make them watch in the cold-sober light of day. Instead they seem quite proud. But then, they have much to be proud of. Especially their Captain.

Alas, I suspect that some – gay and straight – spiteful members of the Great British Public who saw the doc did their best to make these young men feel ashamed for being ‘gay’ with one another – to make them feel ashamed, in fact, for being fit, virile lads full of life, laughs, spunk and puppyish enthusiasm for masculinity. (Actually, the more I think about it, and what I’m missing, I’m beginning to feel spiteful too….)

Worse than this though is the way the clip ends before the programme does.

Anyone have the final segment? Or a better quality version?

As the completely unabashed grinning donkey-hung, bubble-butted Captain Tim says, ‘We should watch that again.’

Update: I’ve just been informed that a better quality clip is available, along with rather a lot of other athletes showing off their, er, sporting prowess, at the premium adult site: www.ruggerbugger.com