Sex and the Olympics
plus R.I.P. Dr. Ruth
Hey horny readers! This week’s newsletter is about some recent news that I’ve been especially interested in, like the intimacy ban being lifted for the Paris Olympics and the death of sex ed icon Dr. Ruth.
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Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
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200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female condoms and 10,000 dental dams. That’s how many will be provided in a couple of weeks for the 14,250 Olympic Village residents descending on Paris for the experience of a lifetime. That’s roughly 16 condoms per person, which actually seems like a conservative number if you’ve heard any of the horny Olympic stories. For a little over two weeks, hook-ups, orgies, foursomes, and general debauchery rule the land. Grindr even allegedly crashed during the 2012 Games in London. Most athletes are proud to represent their countries, but have absolutely no chance to win a medal, so what else is there to do? As an American javelin thrower famously said in a 2012 ESPN story about sex at the Olympics, “Even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20.”
The condoms weren’t the headline this week because they’re nothing new. South Korea began the tradition of handing out condoms to participants during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. But according to CNN, the 2024 Paris organizers are also launching a comprehensive sexual health campaign that also champions pleasure and consent. This will also be the first year that mental health services will be offered in the Village.
The games might be extra horny this year, considering that the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo had intimacy restrictions due to Covid, and the games were actually delayed by an entire year. Here are some other Olympic facts:
Condoms were formally distributed for the first time at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, which was significant because it was during the AIDS crisis. That same year, they had to ban outdoor sex because so many athletes were fucking in the shrubs.
The number of condoms provided has increased over the years. 100,000 in Salt Lake City in 2002; 130,000 in Athens in 2004; 150,000 in London in 2012. Officials distributed a staggering 450,000 condoms at the 2016 games in Rio and threw in 175,000 packets of lube for good measure.
At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, athletes were provided eco friendly beds that were small, uncomfortable, and not exactly sexy. These beds are on their way to Paris, so let’s hope for a repeat of the public sex issues that plagued the 1988 games. Paris is the perfect backdrop, no?
In other news, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, known affectionately as "Dr. Ruth,” the beloved sex therapist and media personality, passed away at the age of 96. She brought candid, funny, and compassionate conversations about sex and relationships into the public eye. This newsletter wouldn’t exist without her.
Born in Germany in 1928, she survived the Holocaust and later emigrated to the United States, where she earned her doctorate in education. Through her radio show, "Sexually Speaking," and numerous television appearances, Dr. Ruth became a trusted voice for millions of people. She made talking about sex fun and her warmth filled the screen, like in this interview with Richard Simmons, who we also lost this week. R.I.P.
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WOW! Here's to safe sex, facilitated by the Olympic organizers! My favorite Canadian ice dancers, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, never had a romantic relationship (besides when they were 11) although they were out there melting the ice with their Moulin Rouge routine! I always hoped that they would produce an heir that they could submit for the Canadian Olympic team. Sigh. One can dream!