The crotch

This morning I saw an ad at the underground station for an erectile dysfunction product. It was some sort of Viagra substitute.  It was one of those moopi / adshel type things

In the ad was a football lineout. One man in the line out was broadly smiling with his hands behind him instead of cupping his balls. The others in the lineout were shocked yet quietly approving and staring at him and his groin.

The line below the visual was ‘Get harder tackle’.

I was confused and got on the underground. Nestled in amongst the morning commuters, I moved under an armpit, and opened up my going to work book. However, the more I tried to concentrate on reading the more I saw this visual staring back at me. It was penetrating through the words on the page and creating negative space – a silhouette of a man’s groin.

Why would a man smile at the notion of having a football kicked at his dick?

Playing a game with an erection is an embarrassing situation – surely he would be the first to clasp his manhood in a lineout?

And his teammates… why were they smiling / shocked / and approving all at the same time? Had they taken the product and were they in the know?

And the word tackle? The thing is – they weren’t… tackling that is…

Should they be tackling each other instead? Was that image that was originally pitched? Two men tackling each other on the pitch while being hard?

I looked across the carriage and looked at a business lady. The image flashed up beside her. Oh God. It’s in my head now… the equivalent of an earworm. Wherever I looked, there was the crotch. Jesus. Get me to work this morning.