When baseball metaphors meet bedroom statistics
In a bold move to make sexual behavior data more accessible to American audiences, researchers have apparently decided to frame virginity statistics using baseball metaphors. Because nothing says “comprehensive understanding of human sexuality” quite like reducing intimate relationships to sports analogies.
The “hitting a home run” framework operates on the charming assumption that sex is a scoring system where someone wins and someone presumably loses. It’s the kind of metaphor that makes actual relationship counselors reach for industrial-strength aspirin and question their career choices.
What’s particularly amusing about the baseball metaphor approach is how it reveals cultural attitudes about sex as achievement rather than connection. You don’t “hit a home run” with another personyou’re both on the same team, or if you’re doing it right, you’ve transcended the whole competitive sports framework entirely. But that doesn’t make for catchy headlines, does it?
The actual data behind the sports metaphors shows that relationship satisfaction has shockingly little to do with virginity status and much more to do with communication, mutual respect, and emotional intelligence. But those don’t reduce neatly to baseball terminology, so they get left on the bench.
Religious communities have embraced the baseball metaphor with varying degrees of enthusiasm, mostly because it allows them to talk about sex without actually talking about sex. It’s like those nature documentaries that describe animal mating behavior using euphemismseveryone knows what’s actually happening, but we’re all pretending this linguistic fig leaf provides meaningful cover.
The Isle of Man contingent is reportedly confused by the baseball metaphors, as cricket is more culturally relevant, but they’re gamely trying to participate in the conversation. Nothing says “global survey” quite like forcing American sports metaphors onto communities that use entirely different games for their awkward sex ed talks.
SOURCE: https://theondecknews.com/whos-hitting-a-home-run/
SOURCE: Bohiney Magazine (Who’s Hitting a Home Run?)
Gina Mann