To celebrate, or possibly commercially exploit, the World Cup in Brazil, ITV are currently encouraging viewers to send in their ‘Goal Faces’. Those ecstatic grimaces we all supposedly express when our beloved team manages to get the ball in the back of the net.
I recently caught a glimpse of this campaign while my television was on mute and couldn’t help but notice that the participants had a definite ‘self-abuse’ vibe. In fact, if you added a soft jazz soundtrack and an overall sense of despair, you could easily be watching one of Porn Hub’s more exotic sub-sections.
This got me to thinking, in the upsetting way that I do, is there actually a connection to the sensation felt when your team knocks in a sitter and when one knocks one out (while sitting)? Are all those ITV Goal Faces more closely aligned to your facial sexpressions (trademark me, 2014) than we might first suppose? Is there something, you know, medical and psychological going on here that an idiot like me can understand?
I recently discovered the interesting etymological history of the phrase ‘blow job’ (if you Google ‘blow job’ it’s the four billionth entry). One theory states that rather than being about ‘sucking’ and ‘blowing’ (though as every second-rate stand-up comedian has told us, if you’re doing a lot of blowing then you need to review your technique), it’s more closely aligned to ‘blowing off steam’.
It’s all about release. The build up of tension, the anxiety followed by the pay off and relaxation. The same retinue of sensations that a satisfying goal provokes. And, as every fan knows, a failure to experience that release (such as a nil-nil draw) can lead to the sporting equivalent of ‘blue balls’. Frustration that can only be illustrated by many A’s, G’s and H’s. You know: AGGGGGGHHHHHHH.
I tried to think back to my most exuberant and meaningful goal celebration. It may have been the 2003 play-offs between Wolves and Sheffield United, which I watched through the window of a bar in Barcelona. (The British owners refused to let me in as the bar wasn’t open yet, though they watched the entire thing themselves, occasionally looking back to see if I was still there, while laughing). Wolves won 3-nil with a final Kenny Miller effort that’s still one of my more memorable moments.
I ran up and down the Ramblas and possibly attempted to hug a startled Catalan, but was it comparable to the sensation of, as noted sexologist Alfred Kinsey described it, ‘dumping my muck’? I certainly engaged in the recognised panoply of emotions: elevated nervousness, sudden euphoria and then a refractory period, similar to the sensations I feel post-coitus, except without the sobbing and apologising.
So I decided to run a highly unscientific survey among a few of my football-loving friends. I posed the question: ‘Is the feeling of seeing a great goal being scored similar to the sensation of achieving orgasm?’ They replied with, ‘No,’ ‘You’re weird’ and ‘Please leave my cubicle’. Though one friend did claim it was more akin to the feeling our caveman forefathers would have experienced when bringing a mammoth carcass back for the tribe. I say friend, he’s more of an acquaintance, really. Mainly because he says things like that.
But he has a point. It all comes down to dopamine, which is the magical gloop in our brains that controls our reward circuitry. Beloved by tabloid papers who run those ‘sausage rolls are as addictive as meth’ stories (and what I’m certainly not doing here, no way), when we stick something nice in our bodies, whether it’s a Werther’s Original or a double-headed dildo, you get a blast of dopamine and feel rewarded.
In fact, when you’re craving cigarettes, video games or those lovely onion tart things they have at Waitrose right now, you’re actually craving the dopamine.
Psychiatrist Dr Angelos Halaris, from Loyola Medecine, who offers help to American sports fans suffering from withdrawal when the season is over, has previously stated, ‘When we engage in a fun activity, dopamine is increased in the brain, making us feel a sense of pleasure. This doesn’t last forever.’*
So, experiencing a joyous event such as a free-kick fly in from 30 yards or performing a quick hand shandy does release brain chemicals that make us feel good. I mean, on a rudimentary level. I’m not Professor Brian Cox or that man with the hair from The Great Egg Race. If you’re sitting your biology A level tomorrow, don’t quote this article. However, couched in terms that a Made in Chelsea cast member would understand, that is sort of how it works.
So those Goal Faces aimed at encouraging our footballing devotion may well be comparable to the gurning we achieve while climaxing. Obviously, we won’t be able to conclusively prove all this until someone somewhere starts a Tumblr where they film their facial expressions as they watch a goal going in alongside another when they ejaculate. Then again, a bearded individual in East London is almost certainly doing that right now.
*BTW to test this theory we decided to bring a little humour to the World Cup experience and with our #gameface or #shameface game? Play the game here and see whether you can tell whether these guys are watching football or wanking? *
Follow Dale on Twitter @MontyBodkin
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.