Are Cardboard Beds Actually Supposed to Prevent Olympians From Having Sex?

Sex between athletes is officially banned at the Olympics, but rumors of anti-sex cardboard bed frames have been labeled fake news

A recyclable cardboard bed and mattress for athletes during a media tour at the Olympic and Paralympic Village for the Tokyo 2020 Games, is seen in the Harumi waterfront district of Tokyo
These sad little cardboard beds may not exactly put you in the mood, but they won't actually collapse under any amorous strain.
AKIO KON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Officials presiding over this year’s Tokyo Olympics have gone to great lengths to keep Olympians from doing what they do best (when they’re not competing in the athletic endeavor that is actually the thing they do best, that is): having sex with each other. The Olympic Village is notoriously one of the horniest places on earth, where some of the fittest people alive come together to share close quarters and prove what those incredibly fit bodies can do at their peak. In pandemic times, however, the Olympic committee is doing everything in their power to keep Olympic Village hanky-panky to a minimum, including outright banning sex between athletes and suggesting they instead use their complimentary condoms as souvenirs, or for pretty much for any other purpose than the one for which condoms are intended.

Just in case a strong warning somehow isn’t enough to keep Olympians off each other, however, the Olympic committee sex wardens have also taken further measures to deter athletes from going at it, including, rumor has it, forcing Olympians to sleep on cardboard bed frames allegedly designed to collapse under certain strenuous activities.

“Beds to be installed in Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard, this is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes,” tweeted American distance runner Paul Chelimo, who cracked that beds designed to hold the weight of a single person should be “no problem” for ultra-lean distance runners: “even 4 of us can do.”

The anti-sex theory quickly spread, with a subsequent New York Post article reporting the beds were “allegedly designed to collapse under the weight of fornicators to discourage sex amid COVID-19.”

Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan, however, has declared the anti-sex bed rumor fake news, filming himself jumping up and down on one of them to prove the beds can withstand their share of strain.

“In today’s episode of fake news at the Olympic games: the beds are meant to be anti-sex. They’re made out of cardboard, yes, but apparently they’re meant to break at any sudden movements. It’s fake, fake news!” the gymnast said in a video shared to Twitter.

The Olympic committee, for its part, claims the cardboard beds were designed with a more eco-friendly Olympic village in mind. First unveiled back in January, the cardboard beds are made from polyethylene materials and can be recycled after the Tokyo games, AP reported at the time. Meanwhile, the beds can reportedly hold up to 440 pounds. So while Olympic officials may not endorse it, in most cases the beds should be able to hold at least two Olympians, if not a four-person distance-runner orgy.

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