Gay WNBA ach Curt Miller reflects on g out five years later - Outsports

Contents:

• A MIRACLE CONNECTICUT SUN EBACK WOULD HELP GAY ACH CURT MILLER MAKE HISTORY
• THE SEXED-UP RTOON HUNKS THAT FED GAY CULTURE
• GAY UPLE WS SE AGAST FLORIST AFTER SUPREME COURT REJECTS APPEAL
• KURT COBA'S 1993 ADVOTE COVER STORY: 'I'M GAY SPIR'
• CURT MILLER, THE FACE OF GAY COACH AS AMERI CHANG
• THE REASON KURT COBA PRETEND TO BE GAY FOR YEARS
• GAY CURTIS
• SUPREME COURT TURNS DOWN APPEAL CLASH BETWEEN FLORIST AND GAY COUPLE

A MIRACLE CONNECTICUT SUN EBACK WOULD HELP GAY ACH CURT MILLER MAKE HISTORY

One of the thgs that ma sry for me to be out was I didn’t see that gay male succsful ach. “Sometim ’s tratg when articl are wrten out there about how’s there’s no (openly gay) ach the NBA right now, there’s no major ach Divisn 1 men’s basketball.

THE SEXED-UP RTOON HUNKS THAT FED GAY CULTURE

Currently down two gam to none, if the Sun were to pull off a miracle eback to feat the Las Vegas Ac, Miller would pull off an equally legendary feat: the first champnship for a publicly out gay male head ach any major sport anywhere the world. Miller already broke through one barrier when he was named Sun Head Coach, beg the first publicly out gay man to ach a profsnal team North Ameri.

Wh a tle hand, Miller would prove to the entire sports world that a gay head ach is every b as pable of ung and leadg a champnship roster as his straight unterparts. And he would make a ltle b easier for other gay prospective ach to follow his footsteps and fd jobs themselv.

In fact, a good argument n be ma that Miller has already monstrated that a gay ach has what tak by takg the Sun to the Fals twice four years.

GAY UPLE WS SE AGAST FLORIST AFTER SUPREME COURT REJECTS APPEAL

Miller himself knows the importance of visibily for other gay men lookg to ach profsnal sports. “One of the thgs that ma sry for me to be out was I didn’t see that gay male succsful ach, ” he explaed to Outsports’ Alex Reimer on The Sports Kiki podst. And when anyone asks, “Yeah but n a gay head ach really lead a pro sports team, ” all you’ll have to do is show them his picture.

But 100 years on om his birth, how do they stand up now, asks Nick Laaksonen’s groundbreakg gay erotic art has ma him a global in. For more than 50 years until his ath 1991, the artist better known as ‘Tom of Fland’ drew gay men a way that was radil: his mcular young hunks were happy, playful and unashamedly sexual, whout beg like this:- Why do gay men love Judy Garland?

- The troubled legacy of an inic rtHis work, which he liked to ll ‘dirty drawgs’, first found an dience on the gay unrground the 1950s and 1960s, but sce then has edged ever closer to mastream acceptance. Equally, Tom of Fland’s ifitn of a certa type of gay man – mcular and avowedly mascule – hasn’t necsarily enared him to all rners of the LGBTQ muny.

KURT COBA'S 1993 ADVOTE COVER STORY: 'I'M GAY SPIR'

His fluential drawgs of men leather and biker outfs helped to spire the popular Gay Clone look that Freddie Mercury and Frankie Go to Hollywood adopted and brought to the mastream, but also ma his work appear exclnary to other queer though I had to hi my own sir – or maybe bee of – I started drawg fantasi of ee and happy gay men – Tom LaaksonenIn the 2011 book Tom of Fland: Life and Work of a Gay Hero, Dehner reflected that members of an activist group lled Queer Natn “protted [Too] not long after his ath, llg him a ‘sell out’ – only drawg what they saw as ‘straights’.

CURT MILLER, THE FACE OF GAY COACH AS AMERI CHANG

” And 2020, Tom of Fland’s stylised hunks uld look like the embodiment of the toxic ‘masc4masc’ culture that pervas gay datg apps, shamg queer men who prent a more femme of Fland’s drawgs were herently subversive – bee they dared to prent imagery that mastream society wasn’t ready to acceptHowever, ’s important not to separate Tom of Fland’s drawgs om the historil ntext which he created them. “At the time when I beme aware of my sexual orientatn, before World War Two, all gay activy was forbidn by law most untri, ” Laaksonen wr the preface to his 1988 book, Retrospective I.

Laaksonen, born 1920 and raised by schoolteacher parents a small town southwtern Fland, says the first gay men he enuntered “felt ashamed and guilty, like [they were] belongg to a lower human tegory” as a rult of the prejudice they faced.

He also acknowledg that his creativy was a reactn to this shame, sayg: “Even though I had to hi my own sir – or maybe bee of – I started drawg fantasi of ee and happy gay men.

THE REASON KURT COBA PRETEND TO BE GAY FOR YEARS

”Creatg a new stereotypeWhat’s more, Laaksonen veloped his distctive athetic – a homoerotic fantasy world populated by gay men who epomised physil fns and male sirabily – as a rrective rponse to the particular, rctive way which gay men were portrayed at the time. Even if Laaksonen’s drawgs now seem to perpetuate the stereotype of gay men as herently sexual and supremely body-nsc, they were once groundbreakg for this very reason.

“Pop culture reprentatns of gay and queer men the first half of the 20th Century are domated by the image of the ‘pansy’, ” says Dr Jt Bengry, who ns the Queer History urse at Goldsmhs, Universy of London. Bengry says that the ‘pansy’ homosexual was variably portrayed as “effete” and “the butt of the joke”.

GAY CURTIS

“He’s showg that homoerotic sire n be mascule, valid, fun and playful. ”His work ptur a raw sexual energy that’s unashamed, punk, rebell, fantastil, sleazy and most importantly very funny – Chris WellerTom of Fland’s gleeful and very gay brand of sexual eedom still ronat today – more than 60 years after his first drawg was published.

”Tom of Fland’s mcular young hunks were a reactn agast the portrayal of gay men as effete – but arguably have proved exclnary their hyper-masculyHicks says Tom of Fland’s work don’t jt feel dangero bee of s overt queerns, but also “bee of the way he’s playg wh subcultur like leather and BDSM and the way he’s playg wh race”. ”The polics of beefkBut another way, Tom of Fland’s unashamedly gay drawgs were herently polil – namely, bee they dared to prent imagery that mastream society wasn’t ready to accept.

Laaksonen had been drawg for his own pleasure sce the 30s, but 1956 he submted one of his efforts to the Amerin beefke magaze Physique Pictorial and had published – that was when edor Bob Mizer gave him the psdonym ‘Tom of Fland’ of Fland’s work Physique Pictorial was so gay that uldn’t be any gayer but jt bodybuildg-y enough that uld be gotten away wh – Dr Jam HicksThough publitns like Physique Pictorial were ostensibly prented as bodybuildg manuals celebratg the male form, many were sentially purveyors of gay eroti hidg pla sight. Unlike gay pornography, beefke magaz uld be sold on Amerin newsstands and sent through the US mail.

SUPREME COURT TURNS DOWN APPEAL CLASH BETWEEN FLORIST AND GAY COUPLE

“I thk that trod a le refully so that uld plsibly ny beg a gay magaze if the issue me up, but realistilly was self-nscly and knowgly a gay magaze.