The aim of this essay is to present you with the portrait of sexploitation as it is expressed within the field of sports. The motivation for this essay is the article ‘Sexploitation’ by Jan Borrie who writes upon this issue, trying to explore its causes and main effects. There is a specific piece of this article as follows, which is to be the starting point for this essay and the core of the essay’s theme. Jan Borrie writes in his article ‘Sexploitation’: ‘In recent years through diverse forms of media and publications, an increased focus has been placed on the physical attributes of female athletes. This focus has, in many instances, detracted from the sporting performances and abilities of the athletes so portrayed. It has done so by sexualising the female athlete at the expense of her sporting achievements. The athlete’s portrayal as a sportswoman becomes less than the titillating factor of a naked or scantily clad body. The promotion of female athletes in this manner is underpinned by a certain irony, as it is only due to their sporting performances that they are able to attract the media in this way. It is obviously regrettable that in many sports the sexualised female athlete holds more value for promotion than being world champion.’ This essay will shed light to the argument presented in the above mentioned part of Borrie’s article by exploring all the aspects of the issue of sexploitation. The essay will move a step forward by trying to explore the extent to which such a phenomenon like sexploitation could be existing within the borders of the athletic and sports field not only for female athletes but for males as well.
It is common knowledge that the athletic field is a highly antagonistic environment within which athletes experience a lot of stress as well as distress and pressure. The pressure put on athletes does not derive only from their personal needs to set goals and work hard towards their achievement but from the outer world as well. The athletic field holds behind its curtains a whole industry and keeps a great share in the economic progress of a country. There are a number of people and professions involved in the sports field, thus making it impossible for pressure, disagreements, conflicts of interest and hunting of profit not to be expressed. Therefore, athletes receive lots of pressure not only from their inner part and their own personal goals and need for self-improvement, but also from their coaches, their supporters and their sponsors.
All these personal interests of these groups of people, that is their coaches, their supporters and their sponsors, give their own struggles for survival and athletes are always in the middle. This existing situation becomes even worse of course, if popularity is taken into consideration. Like any other kinds of talented and passionate people, athletes seem to be so deeply engaged in whatever they are doing, seeming too ignorant of their fame and popularity or even their influence on younger generations. Gradually though there seems to be an engagement of athletes, upon their free choice, in this whole procedure taking place in the market place. Athletes accept proposals for advertising products or appearing on TV shows and earn huge amounts of money thanks to their popularity.
The above described background is the existing background in each modern society which operates according to the rules and demands of the consistently expanding market place. The rules of the nowadays highly antagonistic market, turn athletes, like any other famous personalities, into victims of exploitation on behalf of those in power in the worldwide financial market. It is this kind of exploitation which may automatically also turn athletes into means of promoting certain products or ideas. As a result athletes are used as sex symbols or symbols of beauty, symbols of power, symbols of success, depending each time on the set goal and desire of each advertisement. The bottom line remains though untouched. Athletes are used as set examples either in the field of social offer, or in the field of social success and recognition so that they can appeal to a great number of people. This is the game which has been taking place in the worldwide community, which operates under certain rules and goals, always serving a common goal, the pursuit of profit.
It is this internal economic and antagonistic game which gives birth to a number of social phenomena like the one of sexploitation. Females are easier victims since female beauty is the foremost means used by advertisers in order to promote a certain product. The sports industry keeps on using female athletes as the set example of the woman of nowadays who has to manage to cope with the multitasking activities of her everyday life. The female athlete is the symbol of the nowadays’ woman. Nowadays, a woman is a hard working career orientated female who at the same time ought to keep her femininity and beauty. So women keep on finding themselves in the forts line when recruited in the name of a successful and efficient advertisement. The social status – quo wants the woman to be having a greater impact on people and even potential buyers compared to a man. This could probably be argued to be the main reason why female athletes are treated more and more like sex symbols with their physical appearance attracting people’s looks and admiration much more than their performance in their sport. This can also happen due to the fact that female athletes still have to fight against the status –quo which wants or at least expects a male to be much stronger compared to a woman. So women athletes are more easily condemned to be treated within the frame of sexploitation. Yet there are many cases of men athletes as well who attract women’s looks and may prove to have a great effect on them. As a result men also fall victims of sexploitation as well.
Since each group of athletes, either women or men, appear to have their own admirers and target group, it could be logically assumed that sexploitation stands the same for both sexes. Yet, there still seems to be a greater rate in women athletes when compared to men’s athletes. There is no doubt that sex as an idea has entered people’s lives nowadays in a totally different way from the way of the past. The vast technological progress and advancements have caused a great progress in means of communication and media have invaded people’s privacy and lives much more than ever before. Sex and the way it has invaded people’s lives has changed radically. This is one more reason why sexploitation keeps on increasing in rates of appearance. Since sex keeps on conquering people’s discussions, their outer stimulation and their everyday life, it is more than logical for them to witness sexploitation even in fields like the one of sports. Although sports and athletics is the expression of the athletic spirit which is beyond any doubt a spirit of great ethical value, the market forces and the marketing forces have changed that radically.
Pictures of young female athletes either nude or artistic on magazines and interviews on TV shows or on the radio invade and conquer people’s thoughts. This is the woman of the advertisement, of the sports field, which means that she is different and stands for success. So if a woman wants to succeed, she has to follow what her idol, the female sports woman does. The idea of resembling a woman athlete who has been appearing as a model of nowadays’ lifestyle is the most challenging and provoking one, but probably mostly for women. They want to combine everything, personal fulfillment, personal success, sentimental maturity, sensitivity and cruelty if proven to be necessary. They want to combine all these elements and this is logical but not easily applied.
Regardless of the sex, whether being a female or a male athlete, the truth is that sexploitation has entered people’s lives and has been expanding in great paces. So, special attention ought to be paid to this aspect which keeps on underlying the field of sports. Sexploitation tends to destroy the athletic spirit, therefore athletes ought to be treated as idols but under a different perspective.
Works cited
Borrie, Jan, ‘Sexploitation ‘
Sexploitation: Helpful or Harmful for Female Athletics? Derived from http:// pages.ucsd.edu / ~akleske/W110/wade/index.html
