This Should Get Interesting....

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There's something I don't understand though (and I'm talking about being openly homosexual in any "team" related activity), what is the fucking point? Nothing good is ever going to come out of it. I still remember how a teammate of mine came out as openly gay in our football team when I was younger...all that resulted was awkwardness in the changing room and far far more homophobic insults. What good is going to come out of being openly gay in situations like that? When you come out as gay, you're basically declaring that you are sexually attracted to guys, don't you see the awkwardness of being (partially) nude in front of such people? I mean girls and boys don't have the same changing room partly for that reason, am I wrong? Do gays have separate facilities in the army?

Hello, openly bisexual guy here! It's actually a pretty easy question to answer; staying closeted only leads to the bigots thinking it's okay to be bigoted, either though a mentality of "oh, they must have something to hide, they think it's shameful too!" or through sheer exclusion. The "point" such as there is one, is to put a human face on homosexuality, and maybe, bit by bit, make the homophobes retreat, or actually change, once they see that the "queer menace" is actually just the guy down the road.

The good that comes out of it is normalizing a previously acceptable target; it's not so much "I'm a gay sportsman now," as it is "I play sports with your guys, and I am also gay, and there's nothing specifically wrong or weird about that."

I'd also suggest that you've got your thinking backwards on the whole issue of homophobic insults; the issue that needs to be changed isn't the existence of a gay person in your midst, but that there's an asshole in your midst who thinks it's okay to denigrate someone based on sexual preference. You wouldn't be accepting that shit if he were making fun of you for being heterosexual, does the equation really change that much when you're not a part of the group being made fun of.

Your comments about awkwardness and sexual attraction made me tilt my head quizzically too; you're aware, of course, that whether or not your gay team mate is out of the closet, he's still gay, right? He doesn't suddenly become straight when he's concealing his preference. The only thing that changes is that, if he's closeted, then he'll be doing any perving on you guys in secret, something I doubt would be any more comfortable for you. When you think about it, the issue was never that another man was attracted to you- if he was, he was before you knew about it too- but that you were made aware of the possibility, which only shows that despite whatever efforts you happen to be employing, you aren't quite there in the tolerance stakes yet.

We dude-lovers aren't irrepressible lust monsters, there's no threat of us coming onto you if you don't want it. We can- through great feats of will- control our wild hunger for dongs... and you know that, because I somehow doubt your gay team mate changed suddenly upon coming out, started walking around the locker room at half mast or anything.

Anyway, just like I wouldn't presume to speak for all atheists, I also won't speak for all gays... that's just my take on it.

Thanks for your take. Personally I have no issue with someone perving me privately, I can't read their mind and I'm thankful for that. But when they openly declare that they find guys sexually attractive, then I'm sorry but they cannot expect the same treatment in the changing rooms or even outside the changing rooms (as you know, sports players do hug one another when they score goals or points etc. And they do put arms around eachother). I would never do that with a gay teammate, ever, how can I do that when I know they are sexually attracted to guys already? There'd be no difference between hugging a girl in that case and being with a guy. If the guy is not openly gay, then I would have no idea what he's thinking and so I wouldn't be careful like that, but when you declare it openly, it makes a big difference.

Both in the army and in sports, teammates help one another in stretching exercises as you might know, are you really that surprised when guys don't want their legs to be touched by a homosexual? I mean, is that really surprising, I don't think so. Once you make your sexual attraction to guys clear, it is not possible for guys to ignore that because it's clear that guys do turn you on. I would never change next to a homosexual for modesty reasons the same way I wouldn't change next to a girl. The bigotry only started once he came out in the open, if your sexually doesn't matter then why do you have to say you're gay when you know that there's plenty to look at in a changing room, and there's plenty of touching in sports, football is after all, a contact sport.