Sex toys that show your team spirit

Of course, the world’s corporations wanted a piece of the most popular sporting event on the planet, the World Cup of soccer, now being contested in Germany. Big name sponsors like Philips, MasterCard and Budweiser are there and you can buy all kinds of licensed products like colorful hats and scarves — the Euro-version of our big foam “Number 1” hand.

One endorsement deal that wasn't, however, made news a few weeks ago. It seems the German sex shop chain, Beate Uhse came out with Ollie K and Michael B vibrators and a David B dildo. To anyone who knows soccer, it appeared as if stars Oliver Khan, Michael Ballack and David Beckham had lent their names to a line of sex toys.

They hadn’t. After a minor blitz of publicity and a threat of a lawsuit, Beate Uhse dropped the names.

But fear not! The World Cup has still generated a new phenomenon in sports — one we’ll probably see linked to every major international event from now on — the sex product tie-in. And why not? If Viagra can sponsor a NASCAR team, why can’t, say, Manchester United sign off on love balls?

The love balls, used for vaginal stimulation, are out there, shaped like little soccer balls and available from a variety of European and Latin American sex shops. You can buy them for 60 reals in Brazil, and about 5 euros in Italy, Holland, the UK and Germany.

Never want to be too far away from soccer strategy, no matter what else you may be doing? How about the Dolly Dolphin Football edition vibrator selling from at least one German sex shop for 49.80 euros. The Xs and Os and lines of player movements are inscribed along the shaft so you can really, um, internalize the game.

Dream teams
Looking for great sports movies like “Knute Rockne, All American,” or “Pride of the Yankees?” That’s covered, too, with World Cup porn DVDs like “Shoot for the Goal” available from a French shop (with a promise of Un match hyper hard dans un monde sportif corrompu et perverti!), and “Dream Team Holland!” Judging from the cover box — always the most reliable way to know what’s inside — there are women, and there are soccer balls, and there are soccer jerseys that aren’t worn much. Bound to be a classic.

By the way, in case you’re not a fan of the Dutch, you can also choose from Dream Team Italia, Dream Team Deutschland and Dream Team Espana. Isn’t it great how sports brings people together?

The Women's Football Survival Kit contains a TV remote control jammer.

Of course, it can also drive people apart, especially husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends. Actually, I know a few female soccer fans who are more rabid than most guys, but men do get carried away sometimes and neglect the women in their lives, especially during the World Cup, which has already run for two weeks and will run for a little over two weeks more.

So British sex shop Love Honey is offering the Women’s Football Survival Kit for L8.99. It contains red and yellow cards labeled with male sins, a whistle and a TV remote control jammer, which, if it actually works, may well be grounds for divorce.

Better, I think, to relieve your frustrations with Love Honey’s World Cup Victory Vibe, a small bullet vibrator decorated with the red English Cross of St. George. It’s L9.99. The store also sells Durex England Supporter World Cup Condoms which are, well, just a variety of condoms, but hey, labeling is everything.