Gay men and sports is generally considered an oxymoron. They don’t appear to go together most of the time. Many gay men hate sports. I personally never got a great deal of pleasure playing sports.
I still don’t enjoy playing many sports; racquetball is one of the few exceptions. I have never been a great athlete, and I never particularly liked a great deal of exercise. In recent years that has changed. I enjoy going for a walk, and I enjoy working out and lifting weights. Once you get past the soreness, you really do get an endorphin high. Blood flows better through your body (this is good because of many reasons, LOL); you have more energy; and being in better shape is always a plus.With all that said, I may not have liked playing sports, I do love watching sports, especially college sports. I can’t wait for football season to start, then I will look forward to basketball and then baseball.
I don’t take much of an interest in professional sports, though I have pulled for the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers for years. The NFL just doesn’t hold the same interest as college football. The NBA and MLB don’t do it for me either, even though when I was younger, and he was quite popular, I was a huge fan of Jose Canseco. Now on the other hand, I am a big pro tennis fan. Andy Roddick rocks, LOL.As I was doing a little research for an upcoming post about gladiators and other sports figures as a symbol of ultimate homoerotica, I came across this article:
The author of this article contends that homoeroticism is completely unintentional. On that point, I do not disagree. However, the author’s contention that we should not look for homoeroticism in sports only because it is unintentional is a ludicrous argument. If we can’t have fun watching men slap each other on the ass, hug, kiss, or the myriad of other homoerotic activities that athletes engage in, then it takes too much of the fun away from watching sports. At least for me. Athletes often have fantastic bodies and are in great physical shape, they are just fun to watch. 
A “tight end” in a football uniform, the legs and arms of a basketball player, the ass of a baseball player in those tight pants, the beautiful physique of lacrosse players (one of my particular favorites). All of these show why sports are so fun to watch. I think the reason so many gay men do not like to watch sports is because they do not fully understand the game. My suggestion is this, give it a chance, watch a few games, and you will figure out the basic rules. Most of all, enjoy the beauty of the male athlete.
So in the coming week, I plan to do a few posts on the joys of male athleticism. The sensuality and eroticism of bull jumping, gladiatorial fights, bull fighting, greco-roman wrestling and a few more modern less gruesome sporting activities, that I hope will get your blood flowing in all the right places.
I think the future of sports for gays will be very interesting...when I was a kid we thought of anyone who likes guys was feminine....now it seems the gay sterotype is changing more toward a tight body ..and with more people being tolerant of gays I think you will more coming out in individual sports ie gymnastics, swimming, tennis etc
ReplyDeletei wonder if the denial of homoeroticism is part of the necessity of straight sport - there are few areas of male society now where that kind of closeness, the masculine bonding is acceptable yet because of how intimate it is, there has to be an exclusion - a disavowal of the homosociality...
ReplyDeleteas a kid i hated playing competitive sport, and i still do - that sense of having to have an enemy in order to bond reminds me too much of family life lol...
what i wanted was to be part of something, to join with something, but not to have to beat someone in order to do it...
Geoff
@DJC, I think you are right. There are already some who are coming out in individual sports, look at Matthew Mitchem. I hope it continues that way and eventually acceptance becomes enough that gay athletes feel that they can come out in team sports as well.
ReplyDelete@Geoff, I totally agree with you. I have never been a huge fan of all the competitiveness. I enjoy watching sports, but knowing that the whole team depended on the plays you made always seemed to turn me off of team sports. The denial of homoeroticism is probably part of the necessity of straight sports. Straight men need the physical (or maybe intimate) contact as much as anyone, but they don't know how to express it. In sports it becomes acceptable.
I think there is a hidden homoeroticism directed to the public.But in private,sport's homoeroticism is eviedent nd open.Here in Latin America, where soccer is very popular, all players have girlfriends but at the sme time there is a well-known locker's sexual activities between or mong players, rom circle jerks to plain penetrative sex...
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