The story shows, among other things, how the male ego can perpetuate mistaken assumptions, namely that the amount of the ejaculate supposedly swallowed by the cheerleader is routinely wildly overestimated. Readers pushes the dates back a bit further, reporting hearing this legend in 1967 about a fraternity brother’s date who had taken on the entire frat house with similar medical results. Thus, according to Fine, this legend came about as adolescent males’ way of simultaneously expressing desire for cheerleaders, the “symbol of virtuous young womanhood” and “highly desirable sexual possessions” while disapproving of women’s newly liberated roles. Alan Fine believes this legend to have originated in the early 1970s, a time when women in American were demanding equal rights - rights that many males found threatening.
