Reasons to watch the Olympics can be various. Some look for national pride, some for cliffhangers, and even some for fashion.

What about those athletes’ bodies? Zoe Williams of the Guardian recently wrote about her obsession with the perfect physical appearance of athletes.

To Williams, watching these near-deities for whom every muscle has a purpose and every tweak of a body is a bid for greatness, “we are allowed to make remarks we would never normally make. We’re allowed to gawp at perfection, marvel at beauty, openly wish we could prod chests and have a go on triceps – it’s the Olympic Gaze.”

Olympic-watchers of yore admitted upfront that open-mouthed staring was one of the core purposes of the games.

In ancient Greece, the athletes were asked to march naked through the streets before the games began – it was a warm-up exercise for the spectators, before the main event of watching them all compete naked, which takes an incredible amount of concentration.

According to the Guardian, the story is that the naked-sport tradition began when a runner’s loincloth fell off, and he appeared to go faster than the others.

At that time, wearing clothes came eventually to signify Barbarianism, or at the very least, shame.

Remember the famous statue Discobolos, of a man holding an iron disc? He’s all naked, folks.

Another reason why staring at an athlete’s body is not offensive is that attention falls upon males and females equally.

“When it falls equally upon everybody, you have to think that maybe there is no ulterior motive. Maybe we’re staring because they’re amazing.

“That’s it! How are you going to not stare? That would be like being too polite to stare at a comet,” Williams wrote.

Indeed, how top athletes’ bodies work is amazing. Some lift weights many times greater than their own, while others run 100-meters in less than 10 seconds.

“You do not debase them when you go on about an athlete’s thighs; his or her body is indivisible from their life’s work, which is their pride and joy,” Williams said.

“To say she’s perfect is like telling someone they have cute children. Plus, there is the simple mathematics that it’s impossible to offend, by objectifying, gazing, fixating, or obsessing over in any other way, someone who is so superior.”

“Look at this … what a beautiful boy … Sorry …” The father of Chad Le Clos, talking as a guest commentator on the BBC, was overwhelmed.

“Is this live?” he asked. “Yes,” his partner said, cheerfully. Before he’d even considered the fact that South African swimmer Chad Le Clos had beaten Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian of all time, in the 200m butterfly, he was baffled, brought to the very edge of comprehension, by his own son’s beauty.