Corona Daily 025: Abstinence at the Olympics

The chatter on social media started with a tweet by Paul Chelimo, an American long distance runner. He posted the pictures of beds in Tokyo’s Olympic village. The beds are made of cardboard to avoid any intimacy among athletes, wrote Chelimo. Beds will be able to withstand the weight of a single person to avoid any situation beyond sports, he added.

The media immediately called them the ‘anti-sex beds’. The Athletes Village specially built alongside Tokyo Bay has 18,000 cardboard beds for the Olympics.

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‘Sex in the Athletes Village’ has been a widely reported story in the last thirty years. The naïve notion that these young boys and girls, fittest and in great shape, would spend three weeks in the Olympic village practicing celibacy was busted when in 1988, Korean organizers distributed 8,500 condoms to the athletes. In that decade, AIDS had become a major threat. Hundreds of condoms were found the following day in courtyards, in shrubs, on terraces resulting in a ban on outdoor sex.      

By the time Sydney 2000 happened, condom distribution was an accepted norm. Australians distributed 70,000 condoms, and a week later needed to supply another 20,000. During Beijing 2008, some reporters called the Olympic Games a massive sex party with the hottest people on the planet. During Sochi 2014 winter Olympics, Tinder, the new dating app, reported a 400% rise in users for the duration of the games.

Rio 2016 set an Olympic record by distributing 450,000 free condoms, and 175,000 sachets of lubricant as a bonus. This was 42 condoms per participant for three weeks; do your own math.

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Parents and journalists are banned from entering the Athletes Village. Many participants are focused on the medals, but once their competition is over, lovemaking is a good way to celebrate victories as well as to forget losses. There may be disciplines where distractions may not matter so much: archery, canoeing, golf, rowing, shooting etc. And in the risk-reward equation, some of the fittest young men and women are willing to go for an immediate reward leaving all risks to the future. A detailed ESPN report including interviews of former and current athletes had revealed stories of parties, orgies, hook-ups in the Athletes village. If not for Covid-19, the Tokyo Olympics would have been the same.

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This week, Airweave, the Japanese company making the beds, clarified the cardboard beds are recyclable. This is the first Olympics where beds are made of renewable materials. The beds are very strong, can sustain up to 200 kg (440 pounds) of weight, said Takashi Kitajima, the general manager of the Athletes village. They are stronger than wooden beds, he added.

Rhys McCleanaghan, an Irish gymnast, provided proof by repeatedly jumping on the bed and posting the video on twitter. The Olympics’ official Twitter account thanked him for debunking the myth.

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Strong beds don’t mean the Japanese encourage their use for anything except the primary purpose. A playbook outlining Covid-19 safety measures advises Olympic participants to avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact such as hugs, high-fives and handshakes. (Is Playbook the right title?)

This is the first Olympics, where alcohol is completely banned. The athletes’ stay in the village is minimized. Competitors can arrive five days before their event, not earlier. They must leave within 48 hours of winning or losing. As is typical of Japanese housing, rooms are small. Single rooms are 100 sq feet, and double rooms 120 sq feet.

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Japanese are human, and understand human nature. They have already distributed 160,000 condoms among the athletes. How do the organizers explain asking the athletes for abstinence and giving away condoms?

The Japanese officials have announced the condoms are not for use in Japan. They are meant as souvenirs for participants to take back home. The young athletes will carry the memorable condoms home and are expected to engage in the noble activity of propagating their use to prevent AIDS.

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Ravi