Recently saw an interview on the local news, with a college football player. The young man was opting to stay in college to finish his degree in Neuroscience, instead of pursuing a career in the NFL. Is it me or are what we called dumb jocks 30 years ago a thing of the past. Even the dumbest of young men know how to use a computer and have had at least one year of algebra (I know I’m dating myself). What is even more scary or disappointing, the modern slutty airheaded porn stars we drool over have college degrees. At least two have masters degrees, that’s what I read in their profiles. Have the dumb jock and himbo become a thing of the past
Well, no, I mean, you can have a degree and still have some degree of dumbness.
Either way, you can use your fantasy to make him dumb as you wish lol
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Very true. Just sad that an era of the dumb college jock who drinks, party’s, and gets laid is ending. Read a study. College students of today drink 1/5th less than college students of the 80’s and 90’s
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Unfortunately, reading the internet, dumbness is just as ranpant as ever - unfortunately, it’s not the ‘welcome’ himbo kind of dumbness but the really unpleasant one…
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Yes I have seen stories on the racist political dumbness that threatens to take over this country (america) but that is a far cry from the airheaded gym rats and trophy husband’s I remember from my youth. Following the message boards I follow (I am a log cabin Republican). I have read posts by groups or people claiming to be members of bodybuilders for Trump, and the Republican Twink conference. So I fear that the days of the himbo are numbered.
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They were never THAT big of a thing… but yes there is a cultural shift to the generalization of what was almost exclusively technical education/specialist pursuits. Thanks to the internet. Though that’s changed. We’ve gotten smarter at being dumb and not smarts isn’t just trivia, as that’s damn easy to fake if you know the code.
See “no likely mainstream cultural touchstones like Star Wars does NOT make you a nerd, etc” Or how superhero flicks are going on decade plus strong and well integrated as to specialist fodder only.
Bro and similar culture and interests ARE a thing As are entitlements and horniness but we’re also more conscientous of negatives associated (sexual harassment/assualt)
Which leads to MORE complexity
Not least there are horny socially adroit, drinking athletic WOMEN and they manage their rep too. And homoeroticism is more mainstream not JUST awareness and insistence on acceptance of homosexuality but posture and male beauty and flexing and so on. I mean internet stars now deliberately use manservice as much, if not as commonly as boobs to attract or play to audience. And even then the… artifice of it all is more well known (Magic Mike, have your beefcake and some drama too)
Its more how we justify male fanservice/eroticism, package it with some (some) drama or depth
Even the popular himbo I thought of on TV growing up tended to be emotionally thoughtful (Joey Lawrence) and maybe just being black but guys were dumbass players not himbos. Still obsessed with self and looks and girls and hookups but like it was a scheme.
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Food for thought: “himbos” are what happen when writers get lazy, so of course they’re not extinct. Digging deeper might yield more nuanced characters, but if what you’re into is a (too-often) white middle-class male between the ages of 18 and 30 with large aesthetic muscles and a swollen ego to match, low body fat, and an IQ too diminished to escape manipulation by the ’brainy’ main character, then you can find countless stories like that here and elsewhere. TL;DR: the himbo as a tired trope is alive and well, and easier caught than the flu but himbos never existed in real life, because humans’ motives and pathos are wonderfully rich and complex.
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These days, the most successful athletes often come from affluent backgrounds which affords them the best access to training, nutrition, facilities, etc. It can also afford them better support for school. Also, athletes often have driven personalities so it shouldn’t be surprising when they also apply themselves academically. And the Ivies have their own D1 conference. Though really there’s always a spectrum.
It’s a common story in real life that schools would often let their star athletes coast with lenient treatment in class if they’d otherwise have trouble. And who can forget Ryan Lochte. I remember on a talk radio station, this one host loved to put on a dumb himbo persona to make fun of Lochte, and I wondered what it’d be like if he couldn’t stop talking like that and ended up turning that stupid.
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I’ve read studies about the subject a few years ago where sportive guys into college were actually doing better at school than the typical indoor “nerd”. And from a scientific point of view, it makes sense since the sportive guys in college and university get more exercise, which helps maintaining a healthy body and brain.
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Himbos never really existed. They’re a one dimensional fantasy marketed by porn and Hollywood, that’s the whole point. Usually people who actually push the himbo narrative irl are just looking for an excuse to feel superior to those who are fit, since they majorly lack self esteem. Himbos are as real as “dumb blondes”, which is to say they’re an entirely person by person basis.
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The dumb jock is definitely an outdated stereotype. Often the top athletes in high schools are decent to good students. It’s not uncommon to see valedictorians who played at least one sport, as the most driven students academically are driven in every aspect of their lives.
That being said, dumb jocks do exist and I love me some loveable big dumb guys.
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Dumb jocks never really existed, obviously. It is as much a stereotype as dumb blonds. I feel like a lot of the behaviors and traits we associated once with dumb frat boys have, in the popular imagination, become more strongly tied with real toxicity, brutishness, and even bigotry. Masculinity has been deeply moralized (for better or for worse, some things needed to be addressed), and I know that for myself at least the idea frat boys were no longer nuisance but a threat. And it could completely just be my tastes changing as well, but I feel like the himbo is a gentler, more innocuous response to frat boy lust, and I’m here for it.
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To preface, I’ve been reading and writing tf stories for around 10 years now under a bunch of aliases - you might know me as Trylithin (from this site back when it was the NCMC as well as from CYOC) or as rododoro3 (if anyone here was around for the old MuscleGrowth forums, before the site was shut down and eventually reborn). Basically, I’ve read a metric fuckton of tf erotica 
From my experience, I think that the “alpha jock brute” has always been toxic and problematic, but that’s a key component of what makes it attractive.
Growing up, being me made me miserable. I saw the stereotype of muscled up, moronic, egotistical fratboy that struggles to count past 12 as the antithesis to my anxious, insecure self - and I thought being more like them and less like me was the solution that would make me finally happy.
The appeal of jockification and jock-related tfs is equal parts envy and loathing. We want jocks for their looks, popularity, and confidence, and hate jocks for their vanity, egoism, and arrogance - they know how much we want them and they rub our faces in it. We loathe jocks as desperately as we envy them, so in our stories we own them, humiliate them, become them, and beat them.
Himbos, to me, aren’t a response to jocks, but are a completely different concept. Fun as it could be to be a pretty, easygoing himbo, their appeal isn’t the result of envy nor of loathing.
Himbos, like jocks, have hypermasculine bodies, but are exaggerated to the point of parody: over-developed muscle tits, huge bouncy asses, dicks so big they’re decorative (and sometimes nonfunctional) or so small they’re perceived as humiliating.
They have some exaggeratedly masculine features that combine with traditionally unmasculine features: dimpled chins and lantern jaws meet big doe eyes and youthful features; a cute, cherubic head that’s at odds with the massive body underneath.
The stereotypical ego, vanity, and domineering callousness of a jock are absent; himbos are cheerful, carefree, and almost completely submissive - beefed up bubbly boys that don’t spare a thought about anything except gym, sex, and showering their partners with endless love and affection.
In my opinion, even though both of these fantasies can be used to examine the horror that comes from losing yourself and the death of your identity, the jock fantasy is inherently pessimistic and the himbo fantasy inherently optimistic.
Writing jocks lets us explore the toxic aspects of masculinity through the crude brutish assholes we’re told men SHOULD be, whereas writing himbos lets us criticise normative ideas about love and relationships through the big buffed up sweethearts we WANT men to be.
To me, both fantasies have their place in erotica, and both are hot as fuck.
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Your post sent me immediately to your old “Trylithin” stories, which I remember very fondly. Newcomers in need of a “dumb jock” fix should definitely acquaint themselves with your writing.
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Thanks Cris! You’ve got more than a few classic jocking stories of your own. I’m quite flattered people still remember my older stories - especially since I deleted 'em at one point 
For anyone else interested in taking a dive into the world of jocks and himbos, Derek Williams did us all a favour with ‘A Metaphor for Kyle’, both by writing another welcome addition to the genre as well as sourcing and compiling a primer of older muscle growth erotica.
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