Key Points
- France has revealed its mascot for the 2024 Olympic Games.
- Online users say it resembles a giant clitoris in trainers.
- Past Olympic mascots have received phallic comparisons.
France has unveiled its official mascot for the 2024 Olympic games, only to receive a flurry of online mockery, many comparing it to women's most sensitive erogenous zone.
Among those making the comparison was the Vagina Museum, which grasped the opportunity to use the mascots to educate readers with a class in sexual education.
"We've published a new guide to the anatomy of the clitoris!" the Vagina Museum, the London museum dedicated to the female reproductive system, wrote on Twitter.
"Here's the parts of the internal and external organ."
Phrygian cap? What's the mascot supposed to be?
The actual design of the mascot is supposed to resemble a Phrygian cap, also known as a liberty cap, which is associated with the 1789 French Revolution.
The Phrygian cap, or un Bonnet Rouge in French, was worn during the revolution to symbolise a slave becoming free.
It's also the hat worn by the cartoon characters the Smurfs.
But some say the mascot resembles a "clitoris in trainers".
"France, educating those who need to know about where the clitoris is! (Hint)... it's above the trainers," one Twitter user wrote.
Past mascots haven't been much better
Sexual comparisons to past Olympic mascots have also commonly taken place.
In 2012, the London Olympics mascots Wenlock and Mandeville received backlash for resembling a penis.
The London 2012 Paralympic Games mascot 'Madeville' outside the Olympic Stadium at the Olympic Park in Stratford in London, Britain, 28 August 2012. Source: EPA / Andy Rain
The Paris Olympics start on 26 July 2024.
