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Another closeted athlete?This thread is a couple of months late because I haven't been able to log as many AfterElton hours as I would like lately, but here it is.It's something that I don't think ever really made it to AE.I don't know how many of you have a subscription to Instinct magazine, but I do, and in the March issue J.P. Calderon was there cover guy for the second time.Inside there is a 7 page spread about how his life has changed since coming out.One of those changes is the new man in his life, but here's where the article really grabbed my attention. While the article talks about how they met and everything, it only refers to him as "the X games athlete".Did I understand that correctly?Is his boyfriend a skater, or one of those hot BMX riders?Is he famous?Why didn't they mention him by name?Who is this guy? Now I might be making too much of this, but you know how it is.There are some militant gays out there who really want more gay role models out there, and you can count me among them.One area we are really lagging behind in is sports.How cool would it be if an extreme sports athlete came out?......But I guess that's the problem.One other thing I took away from the article is that J.P. himself, among others, is a bit of a reluctant role model. Gay people like me want people like that to come out and do the GLAAD thing and the HRC thing and the outfest thing and every other gay thing, but it seems like most of the time they just aren't interested in being the poster child, or face of gay visibility. Submitted by homoguy563 (1226 points) (194 posts) on Thu, 2008-04-24 12:53. |
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Do the X games include Snowboarders?
There was one out snowboarder/model around the time of the Winter Olympics, who just missed making the team due to an injury. If you add the slash model together, he and Calderone could have met. I chatted with him once online and then saw him written up somewhere. He was very comfortable in his own skin. I wish I could remember his name
Acknowledgement
If J.P. is talking about him chances are the guys on the tour know about him too.
I'm with you in wanting athletes to acknowledge being gay. I don't like that gay people who have the option to be out to follow the straight supremacist ideology (believing everyone is or should be straight). They also have to mentor young gay talent otherwise coming out will be for nothing because young gay people will make the same (bad) decisions.
I'll see what I can learn.
Athletics especially Pro
athletics is really the last major area of western society in which gay men have not made an impact. I personally feel that men are very insecure about other people being sexually attracted to them (even women), they would rather be the pursuer not the pursued. That is why gays in the sports locker room is such a touchy subject. Strange because there is supposedly a lot of homoerotic conversation and behaviour going on from what I have read. Want to see a locker room that is void of homoerotic behaviour? A locker room full of gay athletes! Very strange indeed.
Eventually somebody will be outed while an active player. There are supposedly at least a dozen gay pro hockey players in the NHL if you believe the account in the book "In The Game". The pressure to conform for these individuals must be excruciating at times.
Cheers
JBE
Wide World of Sports
Oh, you know the issue is the paranoia of straight men. Whenever the topic of gays in sports come up they almost automatically start ranting about how they wouldn't want to be in the lockeroom with a gay and how they'd react (usually with violence) if they thought a gay was looking at them, etc.
There is no more frightened and insecure creature than the heterosexual human male. They are almost obsessed with defending their "manhood" to the point of being terrified of anything that could threaten it. Now, most straight men neither fear women nor fear the possibility of a woman propositioning them (unless she's ugly or a crazy ex-). Indeed, they are conditioned that sexual prowess with women is a key definition of manliness.
The other thing is, of course, their physical superiority over women and "queers". This is a big reason why a lot of men don't want to play mixed sports with women, and definitely don't want to play with gays. What happens if a woman or gay outperforms them? What does this mean for their sense of masculinity?
Even in the world of diving, which isn't generally considered as as butch as many other sports, there has been homophobia. A lot of straight divers greatly resented Greg Lougainis after his homosexuality became known. There was even an informal "Beat the Faggot Club", which was just a kind of joke name for the guys who (rarely) managed to outperform Greg.
But in sports where team interaction is involved there's understandable cause for worry. It would be easily possible to inflict deliberate injury on a gay athlete on a playing field and cover it up as an "accident". Given the homophobic diatribes that many athletes make, it wouldn't surprise me that this is a real fear for closeted gay athletes. It's not just that they might face social or career issues, they might be genuinely attacked.
It's no wonder gay athletes are such a rarity.