Jock

An athletic, sporty gay man with a confident, laid-back masculinity: the rugby player, the runner, the locker-room type, often in a jockstrap.

In gay slang a jock is an athletic, sporty man, the one who plays rugby, runs marathons or at least looks like he could: broad shoulders, strong legs, a gym bag over one shoulder and a confident, laid-back masculinity. The body matters, but so does the vibe: team sports, locker rooms, sweat, banter and a cap worn backwards.

For a lot of gay men the jock is a fantasy with a history. He is the guy from the sports team many of us watched from a safe distance, and the word carries that mix of desire and old, unfinished business. Today plenty of gay men are jocks themselves, and gay sports teams are full of them.

Where it comes from

The word has a frank past. Jock was English slang for the genitals as early as about 1720, and the jockstrap, the athletic support that keeps them in place, is in print by the 1880s. The athlete seems to have been named after his strap: a 1944 dictionary of US service slang glosses "jock strap" simply as "athlete". By 1951 "jockstrap" could also mean a man whose muscles outweigh his brains, a meaning the word never quite shook off.

Gay culture kept both halves: the athletic man, and the strap he wears. The jockstrap became one of the most recognizable pieces of gay underwear and fetish gear, the uniform of jock nights at gay bars, and the jock became a staple type on the apps: when Grindr introduced its tribes in 2013, jock was one of them.

Jock, gym bunny, muscle

A jock plays something: the muscle comes from sport, and so does the attitude. A gym bunny lives at the gym for the look, and might never touch a ball. A muscle guy is about size. A twunk is a young-looking, smooth man with a jock's body. And a jock with a straight-acting, beer-and-sports manner often overlaps with the bro and the masc crowd.

In porn

Jock porn is a classic: locker rooms, showers, team uniforms, wrestling mats and, of course, jockstraps. The fantasy plays with the straight sporty guy, which is why jock scenes overlap with frat porn and straight-bait scenes. The jockstrap itself is a fetish of its own, worn, sniffed and collected.

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