• “[…] the sexualization of the athletic body, and what we would argue contributes to the porno-ization writ large of culture, does not necessarily involve explicit displays of nudity. Indeed, like with pornography where often the value lies in what is concealed as much as revealed, the athlete’s clothed, or partially clothed, body can still be utilized for explicit ends and means. Often, of course, this occurs without the athlete’s knowledge. Thanks to audiovisual techniques, sport spectators have become voyeurs who now have the capacity to look at performing bodies, again like in pornography, that they would not have been able to see or even necessarily wanted to see otherwise, or without creative camera intervention.””
  • “For example, consider the numerous instances in sport (women’s tennis and beach volley ball being two obvious examples) where television coverage focuses on a breast visible under a sweaty shirt. Or, when a lifted skirt exposes a sportswoman’s parts (and generally, it happens more often with women), various parts and their bodies are captured by photographers who snare piquant moments and consequently publicize them on the Internet or other media. Remember the incident involving the cracked shoulder strap of Russian figure skater Ekaterina Rublevová in January 2009. The photo of her breast was among the main television news items, and it also received significant coverage in newspapers and magazines. This excessive attention toward highlighting and publicizing (dressed and undressed) body parts is a distinct sign of the extreme sexualization of sport. Moreover, such sexualization, and its frequent misuse and abuse in sport, can be seen as symbolic of the broader porno-ization of culture in which the erotic and aesthetic value of the performing body has become fodder for crass corporeal consumption.
  • “Our study shows that despite their outstanding sporting achievements, the Williams sisters have been subjected to the ‘gender-specific images that deem black bodies as less desirable if not downright ugly’ (Collins, 2004, p. 284); that is, their bodies have been positioned by the ‘sexually grotesque’. The complex and ambivalent ways in which the Williams sisters have been constructed  exotic/erotic yet deviant and repulsive, athletic yet animalistic and primitive, unfeminine yet hyperfeminine, muscular yet threateningly hyper-muscular  is a reinscription of the ‘Hottentot Venus’ genealogy.”
  • “But what is it about disability sport particularly that makes it available for consideration as pornography? Porn studies scholars have in fact suggested that pornography sometimes resembles extreme sport (see Zecca 2012; Attwood, Smith, and Barker 2018), and it is also worth noting the non-sexual themes that run though pornography (Hester 2014). Pornography can feature bodies pushed to their limits, where particular acts involve skill, endurance, flexibility, stamina, and risk-taking. Just as sportspeople craft their skills that are then showcased for sports fans, porn performers likewise showcase their talents […] Both forms, sport and pornography, involve an exploration and extension of bodily capacity and corporeal self-expression (Sparkes 1999; Dean 2014).”
  • “Disability sport may also resemble Williams’ (1989) account of the ‘frenzy of the visible’. For Williams, pornography is driven by a desire for maximum visibility, and this is evidenced through gags, spasms, convulsions, and other such movements and reactions that illustrate a body has been touched, moved, and affected. Pornography holds a ‘desire to see and know more of the human body’ (1989, 36), and obsessively seeks knowledge ‘through the voyeuristic record of confessional, involuntary paroxysm’ (1989, 49). Sport also exemplifies these qualities, and many disabled people’s actions create spasms, convulsions, reflexes, and movements that prove bodily experience. […] Sports such as swimming, wheelchair basketball, athletics, and triathlon demand physical energy and endurance, and participating in these activities expose intense bodies – sweating, straining, spasming – experiencing something.”
  • “[…] the photograph is a potent source of ideology precisely because its message gets passed off as objective, natural, and unmotivated at the same time that it serves some interests more than others. […] Sport photographers share in this mystification.”
  • “Photographs do not simply create images of women or girls, men or boys; they construct differences between females and males and address viewers as though the differences are natural and real.”
  • “When the subject of a photograph is an athlete, meanings are suggested by that person’s physical characteristics: age, race, facial appearance, body type, clothing, makeup, and gender related attributes (Thomas, 1986). The athlete’s physical appearance is an object of particular fascination for the viewer, for the body is the instrument through which sporting victories (or tragedies) are achieved. Athletes’ bodies bear the marks of physical conditioning: muscles, bulk, smoothness, or leanness. Furthermore, athletes appear in a state of relative undress as they participate in sport. Swimsuits, running shorts, tank tops, leotards, and other garments display the contours of their bodies. As spectators, we are encouraged to look hard at the athletes’ bodies, whether we are watching the game on television or gazing at a picture in Sports Illustrated.”
  • “In sport photography the ideology of difference is frequently discernible in the physical appearance of women. That is, the physical marks of femininity are highlighted and emphasized in sport pictures of women, regardless of whether the women are athletes or spectators. For example, women who embody the feminine ideal (who are made up, glamorous, and obviously sexually different) are more popular subjects of sports photographs than those women who do not.”
  • “The issue, at bottom, is one of power. Focusing on female diference is a political strategy that places women in a position of weakness. Sport photographs that emphasize the otherness of women enable patriarchal ends.”