All entries for Wednesday 10 May 2006

Cycling, sterility and emasculation

Writing about web page http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1771302,00.html

Matt Seaton, The Guardian's cycling columnist and author of The Escape Artist (which I've recently finished reading) writes a striking and unexpected column today.

While most of his columns deal with the more prosaic matters of cycling and cycle maintenance and topics such as David Cameron's aversion to panniers, today's piece discusses the issue of cycling and male infertility and ends with a sudden leap into cultural analysis. Seaton suggests that the claim that cycling induces sterility is an "unsavoury confection of fantasies and anxieties" about the New Man:

Is it possible that – under the guise of fearing for his sexual wellbeing – what is actually feared is the New Man? Is the metrosexual man on his bike so disturbing a social figure that what is wished for is his emasculation?

: 10 May 2006 23:36 |  Tags: Cycling |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem