Outsports founr Cyd Zeigler illtrat the stggle of out athlet his new book, Fair Play. In this exclive excerpt, Zeigler tak on the thorny issue of gay-straight relatns.
Contents:
- IS HE CHECKG ME OUT? WHAT GAY MEN THK IN THE LOCKER ROOM
- PROBG THE STRAIGHT FEAR OF GAY GAZE LOCKER ROOMS
- TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’
IS HE CHECKG ME OUT? WHAT GAY MEN THK IN THE LOCKER ROOM
More and more, we hear about athlet g out of the closet — and to gym locker rooms. Expert Rick Clemons tackl mon fears straight men have about sharg locker rooms wh gay men and explas why those fears are pletely unfound. * gay lockroom *
Summer mp my sophomore year, after ach left, Varsy guys held wrtlg match to terme who got the remag lockers the big varsy room. The days I don’t jo , but when I first started gog to a particularly cisy gym Manhattan, I had jt watched the 2005 documentary Gay Sex the ‘70s. What I had thought jt days before was a bygone halcyon time of gay male liberatn was alive and well, pulsg the boners beg adjted and nfigured soaked-through th whe towels.
At my school, the very place that I first observed queer cursy, I was sred to e out, fearg my own physil and emotnal wasn’t jt the school locker room where I heard homophobic remarks. Gay people are an abomatn and are gog to Hell if they don’t get right wh God. ” Years later he warned: “If you turn out gay, I’ll fuck you up.
PROBG THE STRAIGHT FEAR OF GAY GAZE LOCKER ROOMS
Image me, a young black gay Christian male, tryg to rencile my sexualy wh school, home, and church life. What happens to a black gay Christian who liv a hoehold that hat him; who really believed that he was gog to Hell.
Perhaps was the support of iends, nts, and those around me that ma me not want to feel ashamed about myself anymore, even if that meant God damng me to the begng of senr year, I went om “I’m gay” to whoever asked, to “Can you stop sayg faggot please?
A month later, I cid to no longer participate the mentorship program, and every time I was asked why, I ma exc about beg too time, I retreated to my fantasy world, where I was not sixteen and gay a homophobic environment, but a world where I was olr, the future, when I would arrive to a betiful home om a long day at work, and be weled by a hband who lov me and bears my burns on his shoulrs. I was thrilled to be leavg and movg on, but I uld see that many of my fellow graduat were facg siar hurdl, on that I had enuntered, and had only masked their tth wh homophobia. In this example, you happened to see him naked a settg that n be sexually arog for a lot of gay man.
TOM HOLLAND’S GAY SEX SCENE SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ALIGHT AFTER THE ACTOR SAID PLAYG THE ROLE ‘BROKE HIM’
Jt as you didn’t choose to be gay and have the feelgs you have. I don’t thk they are gay, eher.
I see hts of ternalized homophobia that le, and I thk he’d be a lot more fortable if he alt wh . Rich: Jane Ward’s 2015 book Not Gay kicked off a lot of disurse about “straight” guys who engage “gay” sex, and I thk did a real disservice to nuance by beg totally crlo of self-labelg. Given the societal prsure to be straight and the history of closeted gay, bi, and queer men sayg one thg and dog another, I don’t necsarily thk we need to take people at their word when they say they’re straight and do thgs that suggt otherwise.
I thk what happens is people say, to themselv, “Well, gay/bi/queer people are like this. Do you go to particularly gay gyms? From Slate’s piece on them: “The rults of ‘Is mutual masturbatn gay?