The Jockstrap

History and Design

The jockstrap is an undergarment designed to protect male genitalia during physical activity. Its design consists of an elastic waistband and a mesh support pouch for the genitalia, with two elastic bands connecting around the legs. They come in both soft cup and hard cup designs.

It is most often used during sport activity; however, a line of fashion jockstraps has also emerged. The BIKE Athletic Company created the first athletic supporter in 1874 for riders of the high-wheel, or ordinary bicycles, riding on cobblestone streets.  C.F. Bennett patented the supporter in 1897.[1]

Jockstrap as an Extension of Skin

The most legible reading of the jock strap lies is in its extension of physicality. In Understanding Media, McLuhan describes media extensions, including that “clothing is an extension of skin.”[2] [3] Here McLuhan categorizes clothing as a medium, which mediates or structures how we interact with the world. The jockstrap, as an extension of skin, has an armoring effect, steeling the body from injury and freeing the mind from worry during physical activity. Simply wearing a jockstrap marks the body with athleticism, and portrays a particular kind of masculinity. Though the jockstrap is a mundane object, for late 1800s and early 20^th century, men, the jockstrap was a means of moral transformation of sexuality and precarious male energy.

Moral Transformation of Male Energy

Victorian Anxieties of Sperm

The Victorian era (1837-1901) is often remembered for promoting conservative gender roles and more repressive forms of sexuality—particularly for women. The concept of the ‘cult of true womanhood’ emerged during this time, in which good women were domestic women, embodying piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.[4] Though less attention has been paid to masculine ideals of comportment and sexuality during this period, they were no less prominent.

Male anxieties about sexuality primarily centered on the mental and physical health impacts of masturbation. Cultural panic over spermatorrhea—recognized now as nonexistent—preoccupied medical and non-medical professionals alike.[5] Primarily, spermatorrhea was an ailment afflicting middle-class men, as they often delayed marriage due to gain financial security, had greater social-class restrictions on erotic behavior, and they could afford medical care.[6] The cure for spermatorrhea involved not only restricting non-procreative sex, but also harnessing male energy through productive sport activity. Although spermatorrhea (producing “excess” sperm) does not manifest actual physical ailments, the “disease” is reflective of Foucault’s scientia sexualis—or socio-medical discourses about sex.[7] [8]

The Spermatic Economy

The Student Manual (1835), written by behaviorist Rev. John Todd, is one artifact of scientia sexualis. The tome became popular nationally, with 24 total editions published, offering young men “specific directions” for “forming and strengthening intellectual and moral character and habits.”[9] The manual taught youth how to become self-made men by harnessing their “will and energy.” In the Victorian era, the focus on male energy was a central discourse of sex, and much literature was dedicated to the relationship between energy, mind and body.[10] [11]

At this time, male intellect was viewed as reliant on, and the product of, the material body for productive energy.  However, the discourses of energy are not simply about effort produced or exerted by the whole body in regular activity, but a gendered metaphor for sexuality and male bodies. For example, Todd writes “sperm is the purest extract of the blood, and according to the expression of Ferel, totus homo semen est” (semen is all of man)[12] With sperm elevated to “the concentrated powers of man’s perfected being,” cultural anxieties developed around male celibacy and “energy” expenditures.[13] Though energy is the primary metaphor, other synonyms included “vigor, vitality, vital powers, and vital forces.”[14]

With sperm elevated to the sum of man’s being, male energy needed to be appropriately managed. The ideology of the spermatic economy prevailed—budget your sperm and spend it wisely.[15] Suitable uses of energy stimulated the mind, whereas too much or inappropriate expenditures enfeebled or deranged the mind. Sport became an important site for rerouting men’s sexual desire, but also for regenerating his “energy.”[16] Though sport is seemingly mundane, for Todd and others, the mind-body relationship did not only have consequences for the individual’s sanity, but also for the collective, undermining of man’s manifest destiny.[17] By maintaining celibacy, including masturbation, men could adhere to socio-medical discourses and protect individual and society’s health. Here lies the birth of the abstinent-champion—the view that sexual activity before high-stakes sport events is detrimental.[18] [19]

Productive Energies and Sport

While the Victorian era marked a time of restrictive sexual discourses, it also marked a shift towards material secularization, in which science and medicine replaced religion as an authority on nature, righteousness, and sin.[20] [21] Athleticization was a part of material secularization around masculinity.[22]  Sport scholar David Mzorek writes, “sport’s growing capacity to carry myth itself suggested the shifting emphasis toward the body over the soul.”[23] Sport became a new site to release concerns over physical vigor and sexual energy and promote new masculine ideology.

As men began to indulge sport as a healthy means to expel “energy,” new technologies emerged to support men’s healthy habits. The jockstrap emerged not only as a protective armor, but also as a way to protect male vitality. This vintage BIKE advertisement displays the energy discourses that emerged in early 20th century masculinity and surrounded the jockstrap as a behavioral intervention. The jockstrap became an important medium in representing appropriate masculinity. Simply purchasing a jockstrap could be interpreted as a display of chastity. The production of the jockstrap, thus, was not simply about participation in sport activities.

[1] U.S. patent filing 594673 A

[2] McLuhan, Marshall. 1965. Understanding Media.

[3] McLuhan, Marshall. 1967. The Medium is the Massage. New York: Random House.

[4] Welter, Barbara. 1966. The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860. American Quarterly, 18(2): 151-174.

[5] Rosenman, Ellen Bayuk. 2003. Unauthorized Pleasures: Accounts of Victorian Erotic Experience. Cornell University Press.

[6] I.b.i.d.

[7] I.b.i.d.

[8] Foucault, Michel. 1980. The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction.

[9] Todd, John. 1835. The Student's Manual. JH Butler.

[10] Barker-Benfield, Ben. 1972. The Spermatic Economy: A 19^th Century View of Sexuality. Feminist Studies, 1(1): 45-74.

[11] Todd, John. 1835. The Student's Manual. JH Butler.

[12] Todd, John. 1835. The Student's Manual. JH Butler.

[13] I.b.i.d.

[14] Barker-Benfield, Ben. 1972. The Spermatic Economy: A 19th Century View of Sexuality. Feminist Studies, 1(1): 45-74.

[15] Abbott, Elizabeth. 2000. A History of Celibacy. Simon and Schuster.

[16] I.b.i.d.

[17] Todd, John. 1835. The Student's Manual. JH Butler.

[18] Abbott, Elizabeth. 2000. A History of Celibacy. Simon and Schuster.

[19] See for example, Jane, Spencer. 2006. For Olympic Athletes, Sex Takes a Holiday. Retrieved March 5^th 2016 from http://www.post-gazette.com/life/lifestyle/2006/02/08/For-Olympic-athletes-sex-takes-a-holiday/stories/200602080202.

[20] Burstyn, Varda. 1999. The Rites of Men: Manhood, Politics, and the Culture of Sport. University of Toronto Press.

[21] Foucault, Michel. 1980. The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction.

[22] I.b.i.d.

[23] Mrozek, D. J. 1983. Sport and American Mentality, 1880-1910. Univ. of Tennessee Press.