Ingrid’s Sin Was Having Sex
An article in Superinteressante magazine recommends that every athlete has sex six times a day during the Olympics. The competitors are almost all young, athletic and good-looking, at the zenith of their hormonal and sporting existence, and in a place set aside exclusively for them, the Olympic Village. What could be more natural than having sex?
Historically, athletes have used certain signals to ensure privacy in their quarters during competitions: A white towel hung from a closed door says "People having sex inside: please do not enter"—an unwritten agreement which everyone has respected since the days of Garrincha. Just display the towel!
In the past it's true that many coaches, stuck-up tough guys, refused to accept that the sex life of their charges was normal. Back then it was believed that sex could hinder athletic performance: today various studies suggest the opposite.
Decades later, the first sex scandal of Rio 2016 has emerged, and it’s got nothing to do with scientific theory. A little backstory is needed in order to understand why this "sexcapade," as the case of female diver Ingrid Oliveira has been termed, has caused such controversy.
Months before the games, Ingrid Oliveira was completely ignored. Nobody talked about her… until a photo posted on Instagram excited people’s curiosity. Their interest, of course, was not sports-related.
The picture shows a beautiful young woman, 20 years old, at the top of a diving springboard. She’s in a swimsuit, her training attire, and pointing to the Olympic Rings on the horizon. It was a somewhat poetic photograph that illustrated the Games to come. But nobody was interested in the poetry. Although she was seated, the athlete caused a stir due to her curves.
Ingrid rose to immediate fame, but at no point was synchronized diving the focus of attention. Female sporting contests, after all, always come in second place. What's important is the bikini, the beauty pageant, the looking, as one Cambridge University study attests. The only thing discussed girl herself, her body, her lovelife.
Ingrid was immediately in the spotlight at the start of the Olympics as a sex symbol, in her costume, strolling among the swimming pools. Wow, a swimsuit! According to the sick minds of her fake fans, Ingrid’s job was to put in a sporting performance equal to the lust that she has inspired among them.
On the eve of the important dive, Ingrid decided to bring another athlete back to her room, just like dozens—or even hundreds—of other athletes at the Games. So she approached her synchronized diving partner, who she doesn't always see eye to eye with, and asked her to sleep in a different room.
They quarrelled, her companion snitched to the Olympic Committee, and they are disqualified. That’s how this scandal was fabricated. How can this be? Such a lack of professionalism and camaraderie! So debauched!
Ingrid gave it up, and for this she cannot be forgiven.
Now the people who previously lusted after her humiliate her publicly, thanks to their repressed, unsatisfied desires. And their sexism is revealed in a certain strategic silence.
Ingrid did not go to her room alone. So what about her accompanying Adonis?
His participation in the Olympic Games, along with hers, might have ended. But instead, in fact, he was allowed to continue and now has two trophies: his sporting victory, and his conquest of Ingrid. Disqualified, she has to deal with a double defeat: a sporting embarrassment and a sexual one—as if having sex were an embarrassment.
Perhaps they didn't pick the best time or place to sleep together; but that’s up to them to judge for themselves. Ingrid, though, is not being banished because she didn't advance to the finals. Her sin was to use her body for her own pleasure. Her sin was that her body gave pleasure to a man—but not the thousands of men who lusted after her.
Life is to be enjoyed as we see fit: the time is ours, and only ours. One thing, though, must be remembered forever: always make sure your friends will let you use the bedroom.
