Anyone who wants TV censorship of taut muscles is a plebeian, anti-classical Lutheran

Sometimes Islamic countries are at the forefront, as in this case. Ever since sport has been broadcast on television, they have banned close-up shots of young women and, from time to time, interrupt broadcasts. It took a while, but we’ve got there too: Glen Killane, head of sport for the European Public Broadcasters’ Association – the same organisation behind Eurovision – explained that “the sexualisation of female athletes through specific camera angles and editing choices continues to be a significant concern in many live television broadcasts”. Taking up positions at the starting blocks is fine. Zooming in on crouching 100-metre sprinters is not. We’ll have to forget about those famous ‘marble buttocks’, which spark the admiring envy of everyone. Before long, broadcasters will be asking AI to superimpose ‘loincloths’ like those Daniele da Volterra painted on the nudes in the Sistine Chapel. It would be an interesting historical reference. The popes who commissioned the frescoes delighted in Michelangelo’s sensual depictions of the human form.

But the revolt of those boorish Lutherans forced the Curia to add underpants and fig leaves, so as not to give credence to those who accused Rome of remaining pagan. Today, the ayatollah-style sanctimoniousness and the prudishness of self-righteous academics – recognisable in discourse crammed with terms like ‘sexualisation’, ‘objectification’ and ‘stereotyping’ – seek to hide from view bodies straining their muscles, especially if they are female. In the same way, the extremists of the Reformation destroyed images depicting muscular Christs and supple Madonnas, capable of making the faithful forget, for a few moments, that ours is a valley of tears. The plebeian and anti-classical prejudice – which drove the frowning Germans into a rage at the papal court’s festivities – resurfaces in the sermons of those who, instead of being scandalised by indulgences, take offence at a high jump.

Thucydides recounts that the Spartans were the first to train naked and anoint themselves with oil, so as to gleam in the sun and present themselves more effectively to the spectators. The girls practised running, wrestling and discus throwing in skimpy tunics, or even without any, just like the boys. The peoples of Asia, on the other hand, competed fully clothed. The Greeks saw this detail as a sign of their own superiority, epitomised by kalokagathia: beauty and physical prowess as a reflection of a free and noble spirit. One of its modern champions, Walt Whitman, celebrated ‘the naked swimmer in the pool through the transparent green’ and the wrestlers, ‘vigorous and good-natured’, as ritual manifestations of an ‘electric’ vitality.

Behind the zeal of those who wish to showcase the performance but not the athletes lies the age-old whingeing that the Greeks, the Italian Renaissance and the Americans fought against when they were still young. Fortunately, the body is healthier and more patient than its detractors. And, in the end, even the prudes of Killane will fall.