This innovative text's critical examination foregrounds the prime reason why so many people participate in or watch sport - pleasure. Although there has been a "e;turn"e; to emotions and affect within academia over the last two decades, it has been somewhat remiss that pleasure, as an integral aspect of human life, has not received greater attention from sociologists of sport, exercise and physical education. This book addresses this issue via an unabashed examination of sport and the moving body via a "e;pleasure lens."e; It provides new insights about the production of various identities, power relations and social issues, and the dialectical links between the socio-cultural and the body. Taking a wide-sweeping view of pleasure - dignified and debauched, distinguished and mundane - it examines topics as diverse as aging, health, fandom, running, extreme sports, biopolitics, consumerism, feminism, sex and sexuality. In drawing from diverse theoretical approaches and original empirical research, the text reveals the social and political significance of pleasure and provides a more rounded, dynamic and sensual account of sport.

1. Proem: Sport and the Social Significance of Pleasure Richard Pringle, Robert E. Rinehart and Jayne Caudwell 2. Pleasures Small and Large Robert E. Rinehart 3. A Short History of Pleasure Richard Pringle 4. Theorizing Sporting Pleasures Across the Disciplines Richard Pringle 5. Studying Sport, Feminism and Pleasure Jayne Caudwell 6. Aging Bod(ies) and Pleasure: Poetic Orientations Robert E. Rinehart 7. Running for Pleasures Jayne Caudwell 8. When the Pleasurable Is Political: An Affective Analysis of Viewing the Olympics Richard Pringle 9. "I Just Love Watching Football" Jayne Caudwell 10. Aesthetic Pleasure and Sport: The Case of Love + Guts: Skateboarding Killed the Art Show Robert E. Rinehart 11. Anhedonia and Alternative Sports Robert E. Rinehart 12. Be Happy, Play Sport?: Governing Happiness via the Promotion of Sport Richard Pringle