Let it be said, I loathed football then just as ardently as I do now. So it was likely that lust, ambition or drugs led me to a game in the irksome code of Rugby League back in 1992.
As I recall it, the bright orange Sydney Tigers, who may have then been known as Balmain, were playing Lord Knows Who at some kind of demonstration cabal. I remember orange and I remember an industrial view of the harbour from the grounds. And I dimly remember the rarely animated face of my producer – whom we all called Bolivia thanks to his meticulous avoidance of amphetamines in a drug saturated business – contorted into a mask of passion screaming, "Carn, Tigers!"
But there is an element of the match I remember best.
Bored, confused and sick of making poor sexual jokes about conversions, I stared into the middle distance. I was not at all sure of what I hoped to see. Perhaps the spectacle of an already expensive and smug city imploding into the vacuum of its own self-regard. Maybe a few (unpopulated) Porsches explode. Possibly all the chic little bistros of inner Sydney closed thanks to disinterest and salmonella.
I wanted to see something at this infinite practice match. The exact nature of this diversion I could not have guessed at. Until it presented itself.
There are certain arses in the world on which, quite certainly, you could rest your beer. So firm, cantilevered and steady, they defy both gravitational force and the libido of any sane human not to be stirred to activity. And the rear emerged into my view. Deep gold and concealed only partially by a black and orange scarf, the arse ran at a good clip and nearly toppled a gaping Five Eighth.
The arse, as it happens, was attached to an impossibly gorgeous female uniformly coloured by a dazzling deep gold. Although the size of five cent pieces, her textbook nipples sent the game into a wonderful disorder.
"It’s a streaker," said my colleague, well known for his ability to state the bleeding obvious sans ornament.
"It is," I agreed and we stared. Numbed by the tension of two extraordinary thighs.
Quite apart from the pretty spectacle it offered, this moment shone with a more complex lustre. The young woman had outrun both a five eighth and the conventions of feminine nudity. As pretty and naked as she was, she seemed quite other. Not a passive, naked female but an active performing tigress. She wasn’t a stripper.
She was a streaker.
I love streakers. And I miss them. And I refuse to see why heavy fines are imposed and why Andrew Symonds should get all pernickety about the interruption of his dull game.
Streaking is an especially Australian performance once enacted with equal aplomb by men and women. The naked dash of a gently mocking larrikin is a wonderful ballet. It’s a comic response to the colossus of sport and I approve of it utterly. Frankly, if I were not so worried about sunburn, I might do it myself.
Donate To New Matilda
New Matilda is a small, independent media outlet. We survive through reader contributions, and never losing a lawsuit. If you got something from this article, giving something back helps us to continue speaking truth to power. Every little bit counts.
