That's because it's the Women's World Cup. If this was the Men's World Cup, I think people would notice, and I don't think it'd be as positive (or neutral). There are certainly out, gay men's...
That's because it's the Women's World Cup. If this was the Men's World Cup, I think people would notice, and I don't think it'd be as positive (or neutral). There are certainly out, gay men's soccer players at the higher levels, but they seem far and few in-between still.
I don't know whether lesbians or gay men are more accepted/tolerated in overall society (maybe neither are). But at least in the world of sports, it seems like lesbians are far more accepted/tolerated. I say that, but then I'm also reminded of Caster Semanya and all the issues she's faced. For women, it almost seems there's an expectation that those in higher levels sports (or even sports in general) are lesbians. Kinda like the stereotype that women who play softball are all lesbians. Either way, that has its own issues.
In the US, I remember how big of a deal it was when Michael Sam was drafted by the NFL St. Louis Rams. I think there's only one out NFL player. I don't know about the other major leagues, but there probably aren't that many either. Whether that's because LGBT men are actually rare in higher level sports or because there's a fear of coming out, who knows.
This has been a pretty inflammatory topic in the NHL lately. In the past, many teams in the league have shown support for the LGBT community with Pride-themed jerseys for the players to wear...
This has been a pretty inflammatory topic in the NHL lately. In the past, many teams in the league have shown support for the LGBT community with Pride-themed jerseys for the players to wear during warm-ups once per season.
Last season, several players declined to wear the jerseys. This launched enough of a controversy for the league to decide to ban jerseys that support any kind of cause in the future.
The sport has enough issues around racism and sexual assault to make me believe that a locker room isn't always the safest place for a gay man. It wouldnt surprise me to hear of plenty of talented young, gay players back out of the sport before they reach the professional level. The NHL and other governing bodies aren't terribly interested in improving the sport's culture unless it impacts their bottom line.
This happened in the MLB too. Most (not all…specifically not the Texas Rangers lol) teams would have a pride night where they’d wear a rainbow logo or something akin for the game. The Rays had...
This happened in the MLB too. Most (not all…specifically not the Texas Rangers lol) teams would have a pride night where they’d wear a rainbow logo or something akin for the game. The Rays had several players that refused to do so last year, which created a huge hubbub.
This year, MLB straight up ask all teams not to have any pride things on their uniforms so as to avoid any controversy all together
Sports are one of the places for essentially officially sanctioned virtue signaling, unfortunately. If it’ll make them money, they’re for the cause. Once it no longer does, quietly sweep it back under the rug to not upset the people against the cause.
Yes, there's also the fact that many of the countries that would squeal the most about gay athlete's are the countries that don't allow women to play sports in the first place.
Yes, there's also the fact that many of the countries that would squeal the most about gay athlete's are the countries that don't allow women to play sports in the first place.
I'm not sure nobody is batting an eyelid. Didn't y'all see all the bigots in the U.S. celebrating our own team being knocked out because they "hate America" ?
I'm not sure nobody is batting an eyelid. Didn't y'all see all the bigots in the U.S. celebrating our own team being knocked out because they "hate America" ?
In fairness to the article, the first paragraph was
In fairness to the article, the first paragraph was
There are several superlatives one could use to describe this year’s women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. It’s been really well-attended and really exciting to watch. And it’s really, really gay.
Yeah, I did notice it's marked as posted from Sydney. Still, though, it's the World Cup, and some parts of the World sure did bat their eye, so I think my point about the title still stands.
Yeah, I did notice it's marked as posted from Sydney. Still, though, it's the World Cup, and some parts of the World sure did bat their eye, so I think my point about the title still stands.
See, I didn't see anything about that. But I also don't pay attention to conservative culture war outrage. Mainly because they'll find something to be mad about. Most mainstream US articles I saw...
See, I didn't see anything about that. But I also don't pay attention to conservative culture war outrage. Mainly because they'll find something to be mad about.
Most mainstream US articles I saw on the World Cup were about the USWNT dropping out so early. And just general news on which teams won and lost.
That’s fair. I’m getting pretty tired of the prevalence of these kinds of clickbait-lite titles where the title is a moderately exaggerated synopsis of the content of the article haha
That’s fair. I’m getting pretty tired of the prevalence of these kinds of clickbait-lite titles where the title is a moderately exaggerated synopsis of the content of the article haha
Sexuality doesn't work like that though. It's socially constructed so the sexual relationships of Ancient Greece were structured differently as was society, and thus would be categorized on a...
Sexuality doesn't work like that though. It's socially constructed so the sexual relationships of Ancient Greece were structured differently as was society, and thus would be categorized on a different set of axes than what we use today!
Who topped vs who bottomed was more important to the Greeks and Romans, gender played a part but so did social status and age- and we only really know much about men. Sappho aside, I recall learning that women who had sex with women were assumed to pair off in a penetrator/penatratee pairs with one of them having a very large clitoris with which to do so. And while Top/Bottom/Vers exists today, (as does Dom/Sub/Switch with similar but not at all identical implications) I'm not sure folks put it into an orientation category - but then I'm not a queer dude that uses those labels and maybe I'd feel different if I were.
You may have just been making a joke but this is one of those areas of queer history I find very interesting. Because gender is equally socially constructed and the labels we all use for either are so fully created by the society around us, we often assume that those are in fact the only options. The Womens World Cup (and the NWSL as well) being so queer is really a delight for me as a queer fan.
I rabbit holed a bit so please feel free to ignore if I did too much.
Being attracted to the same sex is a biological characteristic of a person. If the things you were saying were true then conversion therapy would work on gay and trans people, but it doesn't. The...
Being attracted to the same sex is a biological characteristic of a person. If the things you were saying were true then conversion therapy would work on gay and trans people, but it doesn't.
The ways in which a person expresses their sexuality and gender socially changes with society, but their identity as someone attracted to the same or opposite sex etc. does not. I think you're maybe conflating gender roles with sexuality.
I'm not conflating gender roles and sexuality nor am I implying conversion therapy would work. I'm stating that the boxes we sort sexuality into today are not the same as the sexuality boxes that...
I'm not conflating gender roles and sexuality nor am I implying conversion therapy would work. I'm stating that the boxes we sort sexuality into today are not the same as the sexuality boxes that existed in Ancient Greece nor in many cultures modern and historical across the globe. It's a cultural arrogance to assume that our boxes today are in fact the correct ones. Sexuality is socially defined and constructed.
It would be wrong to label the Ancient Greek Olympics as "gay" because that "box" doesn't apply to them. They wouldn't have thought of themselves as "gay" or "straight" (acknowledging translation here). They would have thought of themselves as "erastes" or "eromenos" or I'm sure other categories as well. Gender identities and gender roles also change per culture.
For example, Two-Spirit and hijra are gender categories that are often mapped to trans but this isn't really accurate as both* have spiritual aspects that a transgender label doesn't contain. Similarly brotherboy or sistergirl in Aboriginal and Torres Strait culture is not equivalent of binary "trans" identity as a sistergirl may not also be a woman.
*Two Spirit is a pan Native title created by American Native People to collectively describe the wide variety of non-binary gender and sexuality roles. But many of these have a spiritual component.
As I said, I know this is far more indepth than an off handed comment warrants but it's an interest/passion area of mine.
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identity as modern Western societies have done. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of active penetrator or passive penetrated.[7] Within the traditions of pederasty, active/passive polarization corresponded with dominant and submissive social roles: the active (penetrative) role was associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood, while the passive role was associated with femininity, lower social status, and youth.[7]
Yes, so you're arguing that a person's sexuality can be changed by putting them in a different social context, that's conversion therapy. Guaranteed that regardless of any social ideas about...
Yes, so you're arguing that a person's sexuality can be changed by putting them in a different social context, that's conversion therapy.
Guaranteed that regardless of any social ideas about sexuality, there were people who were exclusively attracted to the same sex and not to the opposite. You can use whatever language you want to describe it, and you can have highly repressive societies that make it difficult to express sexuality, but you can't change a person's sexuality nor their gender identity, that's not how it works. The cultural and social expressions of homosexuality and bisexuality do not come before the innate sexual preferences themselves, you're putting the cart before the horse.
No, I'm saying if you yanked Achilles out of Homer and tossed him in NYC Pride he'd be confused by the label "gay" because it doesn't exist in Ancient Greece. Erastes and Eromenos are on an...
No, I'm saying if you yanked Achilles out of Homer and tossed him in NYC Pride he'd be confused by the label "gay" because it doesn't exist in Ancient Greece. Erastes and Eromenos are on an entirely different axis. And he's usually portrayed as an eromenos.
He'd be fully confused by the idea that the gender of the partner is what matters most. He wouldn't change who he was but might, displaced to a different world, find a label that would fit him here - Bisexual vers? Gay with a beard? Idk, I'm not a Homeric scholar to decide what his true feelings were.
But perhaps he never finds himself happy with a new label. In the way that some folks cannot connect with "queer" or self-identified "dykes" refuse to change their label because others find it offensive. He may always identify as eromenos. This isn't about repression is about society.
His identity label only would have changed because his options were different. Someone born today never considered erastes or eromenos as a possible label. That doesn't mean that those labels are any more or less valid than gay or queer. Race is also socially constructed and no less real for it.
So please stop shoving queerphobic words in my mouth and listen to what I'm actually saying. Or we can stop this entirely because I feel I'm being incredibly clear with my words. I'm happy to provide links beyond Wikipedia but frankly I'd recommend you start there.
You're talking about language and terms, not sexuality itself. By your logic literally anyone can be gay or straight or inbetween or "eromenos" or whatever based on their socialization. But the...
You're talking about language and terms, not sexuality itself. By your logic literally anyone can be gay or straight or inbetween or "eromenos" or whatever based on their socialization. But the reality is there would've been people who weren't at all sexually attracted to the same sex, regardless of how socially acceptable it was or wasn't, you are describing it as if everyone was capable of feeling romantic and sexual attraction for the same sex when that simply isn't true.
It doesn't matter what you label it, what social structure you put around it or to what degree you measure it, you cannot change a person's sexuality. You can describe a tree in many different ways, name it in many different languages, conceptions, metaphors etc. but it doesn't change what the tree is.
Many of us live in societies shaped by the Abrahamic religions, which are repressive and homophobic and have limited the ways in which we discuss sexuality. You've mistaken that social stunting of human sexual expression to mean sexuality itself is entirely socially dictated. But it's not, we know this is true because Christians, Muslims, practitioners of Judaism have enforced their views on sexuality and gender for generations and generations and it doesn't change who people are attracted to and not attracted to, it simply hobbles the way they express that innate attraction/non-attraction.
It is not queerphobic to assert that sexuality is innate to an individual. You do not own the discourse on queer topics and sexuality, I would ask you not use this accusation as a way to shield your beliefs from criticism or to avoid having to actually address with the point I'm making, rather than handwave it away.
You two are arguing past each other. I do think they have attempted to address your point far more than you have addressed theirs, although that seems to be due to misunderstanding rather than...
You two are arguing past each other. I do think they have attempted to address your point far more than you have addressed theirs, although that seems to be due to misunderstanding rather than lack of desire.
Let's go back to the original comment:
I think many sporting events in ancient Greece were probably more openly gay.
It seems to me that you are both trying to clarify your points around "gay", but the more ambiguous word here is "openly".
You are arguing that this is true because there were lots of men who openly had sex with other men. You are arguing that today's definition of gay applies, and because they were open about the actions that today's definition of gay applies to, the word "open" applies. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
@DefinitelyNotAFae is not arguing that these men did not want to have sex with men, nor that if they existed today the changes in socialization would cause them to not want to have sex with men. They are not arguing that among those who only wanted to have sex with men, that they would suddenly want to have sex with women. They are saying that if you introduced an ancient Greek man who only wanted to penetrate other men (no women, no being penetrated) and another who only wanted to be penetrated by men (no women, no penetrating) and said "you are both in the same group and this group makes up the majority of this sports team" they would disagree with you. They would think themselves members of different groups. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
This does not mean we cannot think of them as gay, (though they wouldn't) but it does mean we should not apply the label "openly". They did not declare themselves to be thus. We cannot and should not claim that they did.
Lastly, you did accuse them of saying something queerphobic when they did not, again likely due to misunderstanding rather than malice. It's valid for them to be upset by that and I do think you should apologize.
You have the gist of me correct, there were certainly men having sex with men. But calling them "gay" or "openly gay" is applying our modern cultural labels to ancient people. The existence of...
You have the gist of me correct, there were certainly men having sex with men. But calling them "gay" or "openly gay" is applying our modern cultural labels to ancient people. The existence of different sexual orientations does prove how broad human experience is though, and that repressive theologies or cultures don't have the right of it when they attempt to limit the socially acceptable labels down to one.
And it was truly far too much effort shoved into an off handed comment but I was truly trying to write well thought out comments on an area I have knowledge of and passion about.
I appreciate the outside perspective as it helped me to clarify my own thoughts a bit. I feel like I've communicated to at least one other person clearly so I'll take that.
I do not believe we're arguing past eachother, they have not addressed my point that there is a distinction between the biological driver of an individual's sexuality and their social expression...
I do not believe we're arguing past eachother, they have not addressed my point that there is a distinction between the biological driver of an individual's sexuality and their social expression of sexuality. That's what is being argued here, though they are using terms in an unclear, evasive way while lecturing me about queer theory. If they want to make things clear then all they would need to do is acknowledge the distinction, but I don't believe they will.
I suspect this is because we disagree as to what kinds of concepts fall under the umbrellas of sexuality and gender identity.
To be clear I'm offended by you accusing me of supporting conversion therapy twice when I explicitly did not. I am happy to provide links to texts on the topic of social constructionism as it's...
To be clear I'm offended by you accusing me of supporting conversion therapy twice when I explicitly did not.
I am happy to provide links to texts on the topic of social constructionism as it's part of queer theory. But it's obvious I'm not explaining it in a way that is making it understood. We fully agree that repressive cultures do not erase queer people. I am saying that how people define themselves is culturally specific which is a thing we still see today in both gender and sexuality.
By acknowledging that we actually demonstrate that the breadth and depth of human sexuality is so much broader than any one culture's definitions including our own. The Greeks were very supportive of men having sex with men -in a very particular way, that doesn't fully line up with being "gay" by our understanding. To the extent that men who were not particularly attracted to other men may have felt socially compelled to have sex with other men. Hobbles them in a different way you might say as they were pressured to be erastes rather than eromenos and what if they liked bottoming?
But there I go again. Truly if I can provide links or whatever I'm happy to do so. I don't think we'd disagree if I was better at sharing. I was just excited to share some info about how sexuality varies through cultures.
I'm specifically not talking about cultural differences. Why do you refuse to acknowledge this? I'm saying that the biological driver behind a person's sexuality and gender identity is divorced...
I'm specifically not talking about cultural differences. Why do you refuse to acknowledge this? I'm saying that the biological driver behind a person's sexuality and gender identity is divorced from social constructs, not that social constructs do not exist. I'm saying social influences do not drive that biological reality of an individual's sexuality or gender identity. That is the point of contention here.
If you do not believe that biology is the basis for a person's sexuality and gender identity (and I'm not talking about their social expression of sexuality or gender) then you are using the exact same logic as those who argue that conversion therapy works. You might not advocate for conversion therapy, but it's the same logic that underpins both ideas.
I have not been speaking about biological anything. I've been explicit in that using the term "gay" to describe ancient people is inaccurate because that isn't how they assessed their own...
I have not been speaking about biological anything. I've been explicit in that using the term "gay" to describe ancient people is inaccurate because that isn't how they assessed their own sexuality. I haven't addressed biology because that was never at play until you said I was and I tried to explain explicitly I was not. You responded to my comment about the use of "gay" and sexual orientation being socially constructed with comments about biology.
I do believe it's clear that a combination of genetics and epigenetics develops our innate sexual orientation. Some people find their orientation to be more fluid and less static and I'm not gonna call that invalid either but likely their genetics also allowed them to do so.
And still. The categories we choose from in assessing and labeling our orientation are socially constructed. Erastes and Eromenos are no less valid orientations. Sistergirls are equally valid innate orientations. The language used to describe a man who has sex with a man is going to vary wildly throughout history and our modern western term is not innately correct nor more valid and erases the complexity of past human sexuality.
At no point does any of this imply in any way that I think we could make Achilles a modern straight guy with enough work. I explicitly think that we cannot and nor can force him to be a modern "gay" dude. Because that label is inaccurate to his culture and experience. And thus calling ancient Greeks "openly gay" is as inaccurate as calling Achilles a sistergirl.
I haven't acknowledged your point because it was framed in contrast to mine with an accusation and it was never the topic of conversation so I tried to explain my point better. If you still insist that I'm saying something else, I suppose I'm at a loss.
My comment was made in response to this assertion. You made the claim that sexuality is a social construct. But like gender identity, it is not. It is the haphazard conflation of these separate...
Sexuality doesn't work like that though. It's socially constructed so the sexual relationships of Ancient Greece were structured differently as was society
My comment was made in response to this assertion. You made the claim that sexuality is a social construct. But like gender identity, it is not. It is the haphazard conflation of these separate concepts (of cultural roles and social expression with sexual orientation itself) that is problematic.
You cannot claim sexual orientation comes from biology and then also claim it's a subjective social construct, not in the way you are apply the idea of sexual orientation here.
"Gay" as we use it today would cover same sex-attracted greeks of the past because it is an extremely broad term that encompasses anyone who is exclusively attracted to the same sex, the aspects of submissive or dominant or whatever else do not matter in that regard. Two men who were attracted to each other and not women could safely be called gay without any sort of extreme confusion or contradiction. We have the advantage of historical hindsight to be able to identify broader, uniting truths about sexuality.
It's clear that sexuality was still associated with identity in the past in a comparable way to how we describe it in modern times, they divided the topic up slightly differently in some ways (and much of the info we have comes filtered through the perspective of a very small, literate class of scholars and elites) but the base components are essentially the same, they were not inventing some other sexuality wholecloth that is conceptually incomprehensible to us. We still have relationships whos form is dictated by things like age and status, but a younger woman dating an older man doesn't suddenly change her orientation from heterosexual to something else. Her heterosexuality is a characteristic that exists above social influence and history.
An ancient greek brought into modern times would not be as confused as you make it out because, regardless of culture, humans are still humans and our innate desires towards one another have not changed. None of it is especially complicated, regardless of differences of cultural detail.
Clarity on this topic matters because placing as much legitimacy on spiritual metaphors, subjective social labels and fantasies as on the actual biological reality that has been found to underlie our identities and unite them throughout history, undercuts the long-lasting meaningfulness of the latter. Sexuality and gender are not a mystical alchemy. We are a sexually dimorphic species, it is as contrasting components of that real physical concept that homosexual and transgender identities exist as concepts themselves -- they are a consequence of the physical, natural world not metaphysical social influence or spiritual devices. The latter things are their own separate category.
We saw the idea of socially-driven sexuality being used in the 80s and 90s to deny the legitimacy of gay people. We also saw the same idea being applied to gender by TERFs in the 2000s through to today to delegitimize the medical needs of trans people. I do not think it's a great coincidence that we now see the rise of the "social construct" alongside the decline of LGBT rights and attacks on trans healthcare.
The difference is now they've convinced people within and adjacent to the LGBT community to earnestly preach it themselves, but it is an idea that lends itself to the arguments of the conservative right more than it actually helps LGBT people. The way people are misapplying it now and the focus on creating endless labels and categories is not helpful, even if their intentions are good. The result is more often the illusion of intersectionality without any actual substance.
I fundamentally disagree with the idea that only a small number of predominantly binary labels, notably the ones the dominant culture uses today, are rationally, and biologically defined and that...
I fundamentally disagree with the idea that only a small number of predominantly binary labels, notably the ones the dominant culture uses today, are rationally, and biologically defined and that everything else is some mix of mysticism, and kids on the internet making things up while unknowingly fighting for the anti-queer causes.
That feels to me like colonialism and a bias towards the present day in a way that is much more deeply harmful to queer folks. All of our labels are "made up". The attempt to say "this far but no further" doesn't make any sense on the grounds of sexual dimorphism or on anything but an assumption that the language created by Europeans and Americans in the past two hundred years is correct and complete.
Identity based on social constructs is not somehow less valid. It doesn't mean that it was chosen. (Though even if it were chosen, it doesn't matter. A bi person's identity is not less valid for being able to "choose" to appear straight. (Though erasure is not a privilege either)) Social construct doesn't mean "not real" because they are deeply real things - language, culture, religion, etc. Biology matters but is always filtered through our cultural experience because we're sapient.
I am not going to continue this conversation as I do feel that this has not been worth the effort to get past accusations of supporting conversion therapy, mostly. Feel free to reply as you need. We're at an impasse.
Honestly, I think the article goes out on a limb to try and push a narrative that doesn't really explain what's going on. I agree that it's a good thing for the world to see homosexual people (in...
Honestly, I think the article goes out on a limb to try and push a narrative that doesn't really explain what's going on.
I agree that it's a good thing for the world to see homosexual people (in this case) as role models and, more importantly, not being defined by their sexual orientation but what they actually do, like the article said.
However, they later go on and imply that the reason this is happening is because women's football is more "open" and "accepting" of gay people, and hence more women are "daring" to come out in public. That's just not what's going on here.
While there are some gay players in men's football, they're an extremely small minority, as can be seen by the fact that most of them are either married or in public relationships with women. Some people may argue that a few of them may be marrying women just out of appearance and as a PR stunt, and while we have no way of confirming or denying that, I find that increasingly hard to believe, especially considering most of these elite players live in European countries where homosexuality is hardly a taboo anymore. They're not coming out more because there's usually nothing to come out of... because most of them are heterosexual.
On the other hand, if we look at women's football, the situation is very different. I don't know about other teams, but in the case of the Spanish National Team, a quick glance at the squad shows that AT LEAST, around half of them are in public relationships with women, with many of them in stable, long-term relationships (e.g.: married). From the other half, it looks like it's a split between those in straight relationships and those whose relationship status is unknown.
As said, I haven't checked other squads, but going off the examples from the article itself, it looks like the situation of the Spanish team isn't an exception, but rather the norm.
In other words, it's not a matter of women's football being more open or accepting of queer people. It's just that, for whatever reason, there's a vast overrepresentation of homosexual women in women's football, so we obviously see a lot more of it in public.
I think you’ve come very close to the point here and then just missed it. The question isn’t really about the top level of the game, it’s all the levels before that. Are there fewer openly...
I think you’ve come very close to the point here and then just missed it. The question isn’t really about the top level of the game, it’s all the levels before that. Are there fewer openly non-straight men in team sports because the lower levels are less accepting, and they therefore can’t rise to the top level? And by contrast then, is the women’s game much more accepting, meaning that non-straight women are more likely to stick with the game?
(I hope non-straight doesn’t sound othering here, I’m not sure if this is the correct shorthand term or not - please someone correct me if necessary!)
Non-straight is fine imo but I've also seen WLW (short for "women loving women") used in contexts like these where you explicitly want to include bisexual women too. I've seen "sapphic" too but I...
Non-straight is fine imo but I've also seen WLW (short for "women loving women") used in contexts like these where you explicitly want to include bisexual women too. I've seen "sapphic" too but I think WLW is more widespread. I've seen MLM for men but of course that can get confused with other meanings. Don't know of any other word for it that would work in a context like this though.
Good to know. I didn’t think of WLW/MLM but I thought about straight and bi, and then I thought about pan and demi and ace and then I worried that there were more that I haven’t heard of and then...
Good to know. I didn’t think of WLW/MLM but I thought about straight and bi, and then I thought about pan and demi and ace and then I worried that there were more that I haven’t heard of and then I got overwhelmed and went with non-straight.
Just now realising I could’ve used LGBTQ+ (but I also worry about how many letters it goes up to now, sometimes you see LGBTQIA+). Anyway if you’re wondering yes I am quite socially anxious, how could you tell?
Thanks! Growing up in the UK queer was still also used to mean odd (my mum still uses it this way sometimes) so it doesn’t always come to mind. Will tuck that away for future :)
Thanks! Growing up in the UK queer was still also used to mean odd (my mum still uses it this way sometimes) so it doesn’t always come to mind. Will tuck that away for future :)
Yes, I partially touch on this in my other reply. I agree that's an interesting analysis to make. I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really seem to go in that direction. Instead,...
I agree that's an interesting analysis to make. I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really seem to go in that direction. Instead, they imply there ARE a lot of gay players in the elite of men's football, but they just aren't coming out. I think it's pretty obvious that's not the case, and yet they go with that as their working hypothesis.
Yes, there is an over-representation of gay women in women's football. On the other hand, there's an under-representation of gay men in men's football. The unasked question is why there is an...
Yes, there is an over-representation of gay women in women's football. On the other hand, there's an under-representation of gay men in men's football. The unasked question is why there is an under-representation of gay men in men's football (and in other men's team sports). That question then leads to further questions:
Are gay men present in men's football, but choosing not to reveal themselves? If so, why? What's stopping them from being their true selves?
Are gay men not present in men's football? If not, why not? Are gay men just not interested in playing football? Or, are they interested, but somehow being discouraged from playing? If they want to play football, what's stopping them from playing?
It's not as simple as there being more gay women in women's football. The question is why is that so.
I agree those are the interesting questions to ask, namely #2. I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really start there, but instead automatically assumes #1 is the answer and jumps to...
I agree those are the interesting questions to ask, namely #2.
I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really start there, but instead automatically assumes #1 is the answer and jumps to trying to justify why.
I think it's pretty obvious that reality is actually #2, not #1, given the overwhelming majority of football players are in straight relationships well known to the public, with very little indication that any of them are "faking it" to look straight. Most of them have had multiple female partners, kids, extramarital affairs, etc.
It's very strange to me that the article would choose #1 as their working hypothesis, and I can only assume their real intention was to push a biased narrative rather than making a level-headed analysis.
I don't disagree generally but I do want to point out for the conversation that bisexual men exist. Even beyond closeted gay men who may perform heterosexuality for the media, just because men...
I don't disagree generally but I do want to point out for the conversation that bisexual men exist. Even beyond closeted gay men who may perform heterosexuality for the media, just because men have kids and date women doesn't mean they're not queer.
I do generally agree that this is an issue of "queer men choosing not to/being pushed away from playing football at this level due the environment/culture" rather than "queer men not coming out" overall.
But it's incredibly unlikely that there are zero queer men in men's football, because there are queer men everywhere else in every field regardless of the hostility of the culture. So it's logical to expect there are some queer men in top-tier football who haven't come out yet.
I can tell from your comment that you don't intend it this way, but just so you know, using "homosexual" comes off as derogatory in contexts like this. The word was coined as a clinical term back...
to see homosexual people (in this case) as role models
I can tell from your comment that you don't intend it this way, but just so you know, using "homosexual" comes off as derogatory in contexts like this. The word was coined as a clinical term back when being gay was pathologized, and it's not frequently used unironically as a neutral descriptor. It's better to say "gay" (or, when relevant, "lesbian") to avoid it sounding that way.
I wasn't aware that "homosexual" had become a derogatory term for some people. It's definitely not the case where I live, as my close gay friends use it naturally all the time. Probably varies a...
I wasn't aware that "homosexual" had become a derogatory term for some people. It's definitely not the case where I live, as my close gay friends use it naturally all the time. Probably varies a lot by country and environment.
Either way, that's just another example of the euphemism treadmill, so whatever word is used instead of homosexual will eventually face the same faith and will have to be replaced with something else.
My understanding is that it's the opposite of the euphemism treadmill with most terms for gay people -- they start out as insults and then become reclaimed as neutral or positive descriptors by...
My understanding is that it's the opposite of the euphemism treadmill with most terms for gay people -- they start out as insults and then become reclaimed as neutral or positive descriptors by subsets of the community. I've def seen plenty of gay people use it as a self-descriptor but it's in a reclamatory way (lately I've seen people do the same with "faggot" as well). In any case it can def come off poorly outside of those contexts for at least some people.
That's because it's the Women's World Cup. If this was the Men's World Cup, I think people would notice, and I don't think it'd be as positive (or neutral). There are certainly out, gay men's soccer players at the higher levels, but they seem far and few in-between still.
I don't know whether lesbians or gay men are more accepted/tolerated in overall society (maybe neither are). But at least in the world of sports, it seems like lesbians are far more accepted/tolerated. I say that, but then I'm also reminded of Caster Semanya and all the issues she's faced. For women, it almost seems there's an expectation that those in higher levels sports (or even sports in general) are lesbians. Kinda like the stereotype that women who play softball are all lesbians. Either way, that has its own issues.
In the US, I remember how big of a deal it was when Michael Sam was drafted by the NFL St. Louis Rams. I think there's only one out NFL player. I don't know about the other major leagues, but there probably aren't that many either. Whether that's because LGBT men are actually rare in higher level sports or because there's a fear of coming out, who knows.
This has been a pretty inflammatory topic in the NHL lately. In the past, many teams in the league have shown support for the LGBT community with Pride-themed jerseys for the players to wear during warm-ups once per season.
Last season, several players declined to wear the jerseys. This launched enough of a controversy for the league to decide to ban jerseys that support any kind of cause in the future.
The sport has enough issues around racism and sexual assault to make me believe that a locker room isn't always the safest place for a gay man. It wouldnt surprise me to hear of plenty of talented young, gay players back out of the sport before they reach the professional level. The NHL and other governing bodies aren't terribly interested in improving the sport's culture unless it impacts their bottom line.
This happened in the MLB too. Most (not all…specifically not the Texas Rangers lol) teams would have a pride night where they’d wear a rainbow logo or something akin for the game. The Rays had several players that refused to do so last year, which created a huge hubbub.
This year, MLB straight up ask all teams not to have any pride things on their uniforms so as to avoid any controversy all together
Sports are one of the places for essentially officially sanctioned virtue signaling, unfortunately. If it’ll make them money, they’re for the cause. Once it no longer does, quietly sweep it back under the rug to not upset the people against the cause.
Yes, there's also the fact that many of the countries that would squeal the most about gay athlete's are the countries that don't allow women to play sports in the first place.
I'm not sure nobody is batting an eyelid. Didn't y'all see all the bigots in the U.S. celebrating our own team being knocked out because they "hate America" ?
In fairness to the article, the first paragraph was
Yeah, I did notice it's marked as posted from Sydney. Still, though, it's the World Cup, and some parts of the World sure did bat their eye, so I think my point about the title still stands.
See, I didn't see anything about that. But I also don't pay attention to conservative culture war outrage. Mainly because they'll find something to be mad about.
Most mainstream US articles I saw on the World Cup were about the USWNT dropping out so early. And just general news on which teams won and lost.
That’s fair. I’m getting pretty tired of the prevalence of these kinds of clickbait-lite titles where the title is a moderately exaggerated synopsis of the content of the article haha
In modern/recent history, sure. I think many sporting events in ancient Greece were probably more openly gay.
Edit: a word
Sexuality doesn't work like that though. It's socially constructed so the sexual relationships of Ancient Greece were structured differently as was society, and thus would be categorized on a different set of axes than what we use today!
Who topped vs who bottomed was more important to the Greeks and Romans, gender played a part but so did social status and age- and we only really know much about men. Sappho aside, I recall learning that women who had sex with women were assumed to pair off in a penetrator/penatratee pairs with one of them having a very large clitoris with which to do so. And while Top/Bottom/Vers exists today, (as does Dom/Sub/Switch with similar but not at all identical implications) I'm not sure folks put it into an orientation category - but then I'm not a queer dude that uses those labels and maybe I'd feel different if I were.
You may have just been making a joke but this is one of those areas of queer history I find very interesting. Because gender is equally socially constructed and the labels we all use for either are so fully created by the society around us, we often assume that those are in fact the only options. The Womens World Cup (and the NWSL as well) being so queer is really a delight for me as a queer fan.
I rabbit holed a bit so please feel free to ignore if I did too much.
Being attracted to the same sex is a biological characteristic of a person. If the things you were saying were true then conversion therapy would work on gay and trans people, but it doesn't.
The ways in which a person expresses their sexuality and gender socially changes with society, but their identity as someone attracted to the same or opposite sex etc. does not. I think you're maybe conflating gender roles with sexuality.
I'm not conflating gender roles and sexuality nor am I implying conversion therapy would work. I'm stating that the boxes we sort sexuality into today are not the same as the sexuality boxes that existed in Ancient Greece nor in many cultures modern and historical across the globe. It's a cultural arrogance to assume that our boxes today are in fact the correct ones. Sexuality is socially defined and constructed.
It would be wrong to label the Ancient Greek Olympics as "gay" because that "box" doesn't apply to them. They wouldn't have thought of themselves as "gay" or "straight" (acknowledging translation here). They would have thought of themselves as "erastes" or "eromenos" or I'm sure other categories as well. Gender identities and gender roles also change per culture.
For example, Two-Spirit and hijra are gender categories that are often mapped to trans but this isn't really accurate as both* have spiritual aspects that a transgender label doesn't contain. Similarly brotherboy or sistergirl in Aboriginal and Torres Strait culture is not equivalent of binary "trans" identity as a sistergirl may not also be a woman.
*Two Spirit is a pan Native title created by American Native People to collectively describe the wide variety of non-binary gender and sexuality roles. But many of these have a spiritual component.
As I said, I know this is far more indepth than an off handed comment warrants but it's an interest/passion area of mine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece
The ancient Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation as a social identity as modern Western societies have done. Greek society did not distinguish sexual desire or behavior by the gender of the participants, but rather by the role that each participant played in the sex act, that of active penetrator or passive penetrated.[7] Within the traditions of pederasty, active/passive polarization corresponded with dominant and submissive social roles: the active (penetrative) role was associated with masculinity, higher social status, and adulthood, while the passive role was associated with femininity, lower social status, and youth.[7]
Yes, so you're arguing that a person's sexuality can be changed by putting them in a different social context, that's conversion therapy.
Guaranteed that regardless of any social ideas about sexuality, there were people who were exclusively attracted to the same sex and not to the opposite. You can use whatever language you want to describe it, and you can have highly repressive societies that make it difficult to express sexuality, but you can't change a person's sexuality nor their gender identity, that's not how it works. The cultural and social expressions of homosexuality and bisexuality do not come before the innate sexual preferences themselves, you're putting the cart before the horse.
No, I'm saying if you yanked Achilles out of Homer and tossed him in NYC Pride he'd be confused by the label "gay" because it doesn't exist in Ancient Greece. Erastes and Eromenos are on an entirely different axis. And he's usually portrayed as an eromenos.
He'd be fully confused by the idea that the gender of the partner is what matters most. He wouldn't change who he was but might, displaced to a different world, find a label that would fit him here - Bisexual vers? Gay with a beard? Idk, I'm not a Homeric scholar to decide what his true feelings were.
But perhaps he never finds himself happy with a new label. In the way that some folks cannot connect with "queer" or self-identified "dykes" refuse to change their label because others find it offensive. He may always identify as eromenos. This isn't about repression is about society.
His identity label only would have changed because his options were different. Someone born today never considered erastes or eromenos as a possible label. That doesn't mean that those labels are any more or less valid than gay or queer. Race is also socially constructed and no less real for it.
So please stop shoving queerphobic words in my mouth and listen to what I'm actually saying. Or we can stop this entirely because I feel I'm being incredibly clear with my words. I'm happy to provide links beyond Wikipedia but frankly I'd recommend you start there.
You're talking about language and terms, not sexuality itself. By your logic literally anyone can be gay or straight or inbetween or "eromenos" or whatever based on their socialization. But the reality is there would've been people who weren't at all sexually attracted to the same sex, regardless of how socially acceptable it was or wasn't, you are describing it as if everyone was capable of feeling romantic and sexual attraction for the same sex when that simply isn't true.
It doesn't matter what you label it, what social structure you put around it or to what degree you measure it, you cannot change a person's sexuality. You can describe a tree in many different ways, name it in many different languages, conceptions, metaphors etc. but it doesn't change what the tree is.
Many of us live in societies shaped by the Abrahamic religions, which are repressive and homophobic and have limited the ways in which we discuss sexuality. You've mistaken that social stunting of human sexual expression to mean sexuality itself is entirely socially dictated. But it's not, we know this is true because Christians, Muslims, practitioners of Judaism have enforced their views on sexuality and gender for generations and generations and it doesn't change who people are attracted to and not attracted to, it simply hobbles the way they express that innate attraction/non-attraction.
It is not queerphobic to assert that sexuality is innate to an individual. You do not own the discourse on queer topics and sexuality, I would ask you not use this accusation as a way to shield your beliefs from criticism or to avoid having to actually address with the point I'm making, rather than handwave it away.
You two are arguing past each other. I do think they have attempted to address your point far more than you have addressed theirs, although that seems to be due to misunderstanding rather than lack of desire.
Let's go back to the original comment:
It seems to me that you are both trying to clarify your points around "gay", but the more ambiguous word here is "openly".
You are arguing that this is true because there were lots of men who openly had sex with other men. You are arguing that today's definition of gay applies, and because they were open about the actions that today's definition of gay applies to, the word "open" applies. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
@DefinitelyNotAFae is not arguing that these men did not want to have sex with men, nor that if they existed today the changes in socialization would cause them to not want to have sex with men. They are not arguing that among those who only wanted to have sex with men, that they would suddenly want to have sex with women. They are saying that if you introduced an ancient Greek man who only wanted to penetrate other men (no women, no being penetrated) and another who only wanted to be penetrated by men (no women, no penetrating) and said "you are both in the same group and this group makes up the majority of this sports team" they would disagree with you. They would think themselves members of different groups. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
This does not mean we cannot think of them as gay, (though they wouldn't) but it does mean we should not apply the label "openly". They did not declare themselves to be thus. We cannot and should not claim that they did.
Lastly, you did accuse them of saying something queerphobic when they did not, again likely due to misunderstanding rather than malice. It's valid for them to be upset by that and I do think you should apologize.
You have the gist of me correct, there were certainly men having sex with men. But calling them "gay" or "openly gay" is applying our modern cultural labels to ancient people. The existence of different sexual orientations does prove how broad human experience is though, and that repressive theologies or cultures don't have the right of it when they attempt to limit the socially acceptable labels down to one.
And it was truly far too much effort shoved into an off handed comment but I was truly trying to write well thought out comments on an area I have knowledge of and passion about.
I appreciate the outside perspective as it helped me to clarify my own thoughts a bit. I feel like I've communicated to at least one other person clearly so I'll take that.
I do not believe we're arguing past eachother, they have not addressed my point that there is a distinction between the biological driver of an individual's sexuality and their social expression of sexuality. That's what is being argued here, though they are using terms in an unclear, evasive way while lecturing me about queer theory. If they want to make things clear then all they would need to do is acknowledge the distinction, but I don't believe they will.
I suspect this is because we disagree as to what kinds of concepts fall under the umbrellas of sexuality and gender identity.
To be clear I'm offended by you accusing me of supporting conversion therapy twice when I explicitly did not.
I am happy to provide links to texts on the topic of social constructionism as it's part of queer theory. But it's obvious I'm not explaining it in a way that is making it understood. We fully agree that repressive cultures do not erase queer people. I am saying that how people define themselves is culturally specific which is a thing we still see today in both gender and sexuality.
By acknowledging that we actually demonstrate that the breadth and depth of human sexuality is so much broader than any one culture's definitions including our own. The Greeks were very supportive of men having sex with men -in a very particular way, that doesn't fully line up with being "gay" by our understanding. To the extent that men who were not particularly attracted to other men may have felt socially compelled to have sex with other men. Hobbles them in a different way you might say as they were pressured to be erastes rather than eromenos and what if they liked bottoming?
But there I go again. Truly if I can provide links or whatever I'm happy to do so. I don't think we'd disagree if I was better at sharing. I was just excited to share some info about how sexuality varies through cultures.
I'm specifically not talking about cultural differences. Why do you refuse to acknowledge this? I'm saying that the biological driver behind a person's sexuality and gender identity is divorced from social constructs, not that social constructs do not exist. I'm saying social influences do not drive that biological reality of an individual's sexuality or gender identity. That is the point of contention here.
If you do not believe that biology is the basis for a person's sexuality and gender identity (and I'm not talking about their social expression of sexuality or gender) then you are using the exact same logic as those who argue that conversion therapy works. You might not advocate for conversion therapy, but it's the same logic that underpins both ideas.
I have not been speaking about biological anything. I've been explicit in that using the term "gay" to describe ancient people is inaccurate because that isn't how they assessed their own sexuality. I haven't addressed biology because that was never at play until you said I was and I tried to explain explicitly I was not. You responded to my comment about the use of "gay" and sexual orientation being socially constructed with comments about biology.
I do believe it's clear that a combination of genetics and epigenetics develops our innate sexual orientation. Some people find their orientation to be more fluid and less static and I'm not gonna call that invalid either but likely their genetics also allowed them to do so.
And still. The categories we choose from in assessing and labeling our orientation are socially constructed. Erastes and Eromenos are no less valid orientations. Sistergirls are equally valid innate orientations. The language used to describe a man who has sex with a man is going to vary wildly throughout history and our modern western term is not innately correct nor more valid and erases the complexity of past human sexuality.
At no point does any of this imply in any way that I think we could make Achilles a modern straight guy with enough work. I explicitly think that we cannot and nor can force him to be a modern "gay" dude. Because that label is inaccurate to his culture and experience. And thus calling ancient Greeks "openly gay" is as inaccurate as calling Achilles a sistergirl.
I haven't acknowledged your point because it was framed in contrast to mine with an accusation and it was never the topic of conversation so I tried to explain my point better. If you still insist that I'm saying something else, I suppose I'm at a loss.
My comment was made in response to this assertion. You made the claim that sexuality is a social construct. But like gender identity, it is not. It is the haphazard conflation of these separate concepts (of cultural roles and social expression with sexual orientation itself) that is problematic.
You cannot claim sexual orientation comes from biology and then also claim it's a subjective social construct, not in the way you are apply the idea of sexual orientation here.
"Gay" as we use it today would cover same sex-attracted greeks of the past because it is an extremely broad term that encompasses anyone who is exclusively attracted to the same sex, the aspects of submissive or dominant or whatever else do not matter in that regard. Two men who were attracted to each other and not women could safely be called gay without any sort of extreme confusion or contradiction. We have the advantage of historical hindsight to be able to identify broader, uniting truths about sexuality.
It's clear that sexuality was still associated with identity in the past in a comparable way to how we describe it in modern times, they divided the topic up slightly differently in some ways (and much of the info we have comes filtered through the perspective of a very small, literate class of scholars and elites) but the base components are essentially the same, they were not inventing some other sexuality wholecloth that is conceptually incomprehensible to us. We still have relationships whos form is dictated by things like age and status, but a younger woman dating an older man doesn't suddenly change her orientation from heterosexual to something else. Her heterosexuality is a characteristic that exists above social influence and history.
An ancient greek brought into modern times would not be as confused as you make it out because, regardless of culture, humans are still humans and our innate desires towards one another have not changed. None of it is especially complicated, regardless of differences of cultural detail.
Clarity on this topic matters because placing as much legitimacy on spiritual metaphors, subjective social labels and fantasies as on the actual biological reality that has been found to underlie our identities and unite them throughout history, undercuts the long-lasting meaningfulness of the latter. Sexuality and gender are not a mystical alchemy. We are a sexually dimorphic species, it is as contrasting components of that real physical concept that homosexual and transgender identities exist as concepts themselves -- they are a consequence of the physical, natural world not metaphysical social influence or spiritual devices. The latter things are their own separate category.
We saw the idea of socially-driven sexuality being used in the 80s and 90s to deny the legitimacy of gay people. We also saw the same idea being applied to gender by TERFs in the 2000s through to today to delegitimize the medical needs of trans people. I do not think it's a great coincidence that we now see the rise of the "social construct" alongside the decline of LGBT rights and attacks on trans healthcare.
The difference is now they've convinced people within and adjacent to the LGBT community to earnestly preach it themselves, but it is an idea that lends itself to the arguments of the conservative right more than it actually helps LGBT people. The way people are misapplying it now and the focus on creating endless labels and categories is not helpful, even if their intentions are good. The result is more often the illusion of intersectionality without any actual substance.
I fundamentally disagree with the idea that only a small number of predominantly binary labels, notably the ones the dominant culture uses today, are rationally, and biologically defined and that everything else is some mix of mysticism, and kids on the internet making things up while unknowingly fighting for the anti-queer causes.
That feels to me like colonialism and a bias towards the present day in a way that is much more deeply harmful to queer folks. All of our labels are "made up". The attempt to say "this far but no further" doesn't make any sense on the grounds of sexual dimorphism or on anything but an assumption that the language created by Europeans and Americans in the past two hundred years is correct and complete.
Identity based on social constructs is not somehow less valid. It doesn't mean that it was chosen. (Though even if it were chosen, it doesn't matter. A bi person's identity is not less valid for being able to "choose" to appear straight. (Though erasure is not a privilege either)) Social construct doesn't mean "not real" because they are deeply real things - language, culture, religion, etc. Biology matters but is always filtered through our cultural experience because we're sapient.
I am not going to continue this conversation as I do feel that this has not been worth the effort to get past accusations of supporting conversion therapy, mostly. Feel free to reply as you need. We're at an impasse.
Honestly, I think the article goes out on a limb to try and push a narrative that doesn't really explain what's going on.
I agree that it's a good thing for the world to see homosexual people (in this case) as role models and, more importantly, not being defined by their sexual orientation but what they actually do, like the article said.
However, they later go on and imply that the reason this is happening is because women's football is more "open" and "accepting" of gay people, and hence more women are "daring" to come out in public. That's just not what's going on here.
While there are some gay players in men's football, they're an extremely small minority, as can be seen by the fact that most of them are either married or in public relationships with women. Some people may argue that a few of them may be marrying women just out of appearance and as a PR stunt, and while we have no way of confirming or denying that, I find that increasingly hard to believe, especially considering most of these elite players live in European countries where homosexuality is hardly a taboo anymore. They're not coming out more because there's usually nothing to come out of... because most of them are heterosexual.
On the other hand, if we look at women's football, the situation is very different. I don't know about other teams, but in the case of the Spanish National Team, a quick glance at the squad shows that AT LEAST, around half of them are in public relationships with women, with many of them in stable, long-term relationships (e.g.: married). From the other half, it looks like it's a split between those in straight relationships and those whose relationship status is unknown.
As said, I haven't checked other squads, but going off the examples from the article itself, it looks like the situation of the Spanish team isn't an exception, but rather the norm.
In other words, it's not a matter of women's football being more open or accepting of queer people. It's just that, for whatever reason, there's a vast overrepresentation of homosexual women in women's football, so we obviously see a lot more of it in public.
I think you’ve come very close to the point here and then just missed it. The question isn’t really about the top level of the game, it’s all the levels before that. Are there fewer openly non-straight men in team sports because the lower levels are less accepting, and they therefore can’t rise to the top level? And by contrast then, is the women’s game much more accepting, meaning that non-straight women are more likely to stick with the game?
(I hope non-straight doesn’t sound othering here, I’m not sure if this is the correct shorthand term or not - please someone correct me if necessary!)
Non-straight is fine imo but I've also seen WLW (short for "women loving women") used in contexts like these where you explicitly want to include bisexual women too. I've seen "sapphic" too but I think WLW is more widespread. I've seen MLM for men but of course that can get confused with other meanings. Don't know of any other word for it that would work in a context like this though.
Good to know. I didn’t think of WLW/MLM but I thought about straight and bi, and then I thought about pan and demi and ace and then I worried that there were more that I haven’t heard of and then I got overwhelmed and went with non-straight.
Just now realising I could’ve used LGBTQ+ (but I also worry about how many letters it goes up to now, sometimes you see LGBTQIA+). Anyway if you’re wondering yes I am quite socially anxious, how could you tell?
I probably would've used "queer" myself tbh lol just to give you another option
Thanks! Growing up in the UK queer was still also used to mean odd (my mum still uses it this way sometimes) so it doesn’t always come to mind. Will tuck that away for future :)
Yes, I partially touch on this in my other reply.
I agree that's an interesting analysis to make. I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really seem to go in that direction. Instead, they imply there ARE a lot of gay players in the elite of men's football, but they just aren't coming out. I think it's pretty obvious that's not the case, and yet they go with that as their working hypothesis.
Yes, there is an over-representation of gay women in women's football. On the other hand, there's an under-representation of gay men in men's football. The unasked question is why there is an under-representation of gay men in men's football (and in other men's team sports). That question then leads to further questions:
Are gay men present in men's football, but choosing not to reveal themselves? If so, why? What's stopping them from being their true selves?
Are gay men not present in men's football? If not, why not? Are gay men just not interested in playing football? Or, are they interested, but somehow being discouraged from playing? If they want to play football, what's stopping them from playing?
It's not as simple as there being more gay women in women's football. The question is why is that so.
I agree those are the interesting questions to ask, namely #2.
I was just pointing out that the article doesn't really start there, but instead automatically assumes #1 is the answer and jumps to trying to justify why.
I think it's pretty obvious that reality is actually #2, not #1, given the overwhelming majority of football players are in straight relationships well known to the public, with very little indication that any of them are "faking it" to look straight. Most of them have had multiple female partners, kids, extramarital affairs, etc.
It's very strange to me that the article would choose #1 as their working hypothesis, and I can only assume their real intention was to push a biased narrative rather than making a level-headed analysis.
I don't disagree generally but I do want to point out for the conversation that bisexual men exist. Even beyond closeted gay men who may perform heterosexuality for the media, just because men have kids and date women doesn't mean they're not queer.
I do generally agree that this is an issue of "queer men choosing not to/being pushed away from playing football at this level due the environment/culture" rather than "queer men not coming out" overall.
But it's incredibly unlikely that there are zero queer men in men's football, because there are queer men everywhere else in every field regardless of the hostility of the culture. So it's logical to expect there are some queer men in top-tier football who haven't come out yet.
I can tell from your comment that you don't intend it this way, but just so you know, using "homosexual" comes off as derogatory in contexts like this. The word was coined as a clinical term back when being gay was pathologized, and it's not frequently used unironically as a neutral descriptor. It's better to say "gay" (or, when relevant, "lesbian") to avoid it sounding that way.
I wasn't aware that "homosexual" had become a derogatory term for some people. It's definitely not the case where I live, as my close gay friends use it naturally all the time. Probably varies a lot by country and environment.
Either way, that's just another example of the euphemism treadmill, so whatever word is used instead of homosexual will eventually face the same faith and will have to be replaced with something else.
My understanding is that it's the opposite of the euphemism treadmill with most terms for gay people -- they start out as insults and then become reclaimed as neutral or positive descriptors by subsets of the community. I've def seen plenty of gay people use it as a self-descriptor but it's in a reclamatory way (lately I've seen people do the same with "faggot" as well). In any case it can def come off poorly outside of those contexts for at least some people.
a. lucky you! i got more important things to worry about.
b. seem to me there were the similar complaints about the LPGA back then.
It is a new day and you have to slay.