Wicked games

If the movies are anything to go by, sex and sport have always made great bedfellows. SADAF SHAIKH compares the sensual undertones of contact sports to the carnal anticipation of foreplay

-  SADAF SHAIKH

I’M FLAT-OUT ON the grass, my chest rising and falling from the labour I’ve just put it through. My partner is on the ground next to me, also panting heavily. We turn our faces towards each other at the same time, waiting for our breathing to stabilise. Our bodies are awash in sweat, our clothes are in disarray and our hair sticks out at odd angles. He gets on his haunches and holds his hand out to me, yanking me upright and into his arms. I smile lasciviously at him… before sticking up my hand and yelling, “Foul!” I send the ball sailing into the back of the net with my free kick, winking and mouthing: “Payback for that tackle at home,” when our teammates aren’t watching.

Playing a sport with your partner has always been sexy. Long before Tashi, Art and Patrick’s racy threesome in Challengers, there was Jess and Joe (or Jess and Jules, depending on which team you bat for) in Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Viola and Duke in She’s The Man (2006). In tennis (or even badminton, as seen in the iconic ‘Dhal Gaya Din Ho Gayi Sham’), it ’s the suggestive, rhythmic grunting as you hit the ball back and forth which implies that seduction is in session.