I Want My Gay Olympics! Unfortunately.

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Now that autumn has arrived, and the air draws a nice, cool chill into the house at night, I realize that something was missing this summer. I want my Gay Olympics!!

Two summers ago, the Gay Games were held here in Chicago. You’ll have to excuse me if I have something of a hard time taking them too seriously, but I have a couple of good reasons. One, I got a great – and I mean great – old porn video shot during the ’84 Gay Games, and I want to tell you that they are all medal winners in my book! Secondly, three of the medal winners from last year’s Gay Games here in Chicago were three fellow alcoholics – I mean friends – from the corner gay bar in my neighborhood. Each of them is about one Marlboro Light away from hospice care. Athletes. OK. Sure.

Add to this the fact that, like so goddamn many other endeavors our community gets involved in, the Gay Games is wrought with internal political bullshit, and it becomes even harder to take this shit seriously. The 2006 Chicago Gay Games were held at the same time (well, one week apart) as the Gay Games in Montreal, Canada. Why? Take a big guess. Politics and money. Jesus. One of the fundamental premises of the games is to show unity. Oops.

I am not generally inclined to be overly supportive of exclusive amateur athletic events. I don’t usually cotton to “gay only” events anymore than I do to “straight only”, or “white only” or any other such exclusionary bullshit. Moreover, I think the time for much of what still perpetuates in our community around gay-only amateur athletics has passed. Poll after poll shows a constantly increasing acceptance of gays by straights across the American landscape. My view – and it is just my view - is the goal should be creating a safe place for gays to compete, which can – and should – be accomplished with straights being included. Why? Because participation of Queers in mainstream society should be our goal. You can’t have that as a goal unless you practice what you preach.

Sports, of all places in our society, should be as close to pure competition as one can get. That’s what drives us to sports: the ideal that somewhere in our lives, we can be judged by our merit, not our appearance; judged by our ability, not our social status, our sexuality, our gender, etc. But that ideal is injured – and injured badly - when false and irrelevant barriers are placed up against equal competition. It’s wrong when gays are excluded, and it is every bit as wrong when we gays exclude straights.

However, I am not an ideologue on this shit, and I realize full well the Olympics - and pro-sports in general - are a bit different than your average softball league. The path of the Queer professional athlete is a bitch (no pun intended). And, lest one think Queers in non-team sports (meaning, not baseball, football, etc.) would have it any easier, since they don’t have to deal with any internal team dynamics, etc., well, not so.

While it may be easier, on the psyche, to be a Queer sprinter, in terms of not having to worry about a team and it’s group think, the fact is Olympic athletes only exist through corporate underwriting. And corporate underwriting for some running fag just ain’t readily available. Yes, this past summer’s Beijing games saw a number of out Queer athletes compete and succeed. But, I fear this is still the exception. We’re getting to a point where it is not, on the Olympic stage, but we’re not quite there yet.

So, I guess, here in 2008, I still do want my Gay Olympics. Unfortunately.

Comments

[rankola]

Hmm...where to start? I volunteered for GGC as a member of the Sports Recovery Team. Being a legit licensed MT, I thought that it would be fun. The triathlon was fun, but very hot...the competitors were actually nice and respectful. I was with a group of student MT's so that set the tone for a level of professionalism that I was expecting to exist at other venues.

I also donated my time for the basketball and waterpolo events. Here is were I experienced blatant harassment: Heard the phrase "do I get a happy ending?" one time too many, also was asked a couple of times if I do "tantric" massage (a euphemism for sex). Unfortunately the tone was set by the other "therapists" there: That day, they were all men. Many were accidently on purpose "stroking the nipple" they were stroking the abdomen. My training and experience with working with many athletes in a pre/post event setting means that you work the areas that are pertinent to the event. Basketball and water polo: That means leg, lower back, shoulders, upper back, range of motion work primarily. One memorable comment was when a female (presumable hetero) friend walked up to her male friend on my table and said "I'm sure if you ask nicely, you might get a happy ending." I retorted that if wanted that, he needed to plop down cold hard cash to the tune of 10000 times my standard rate, he'll get it. She was shocked, and said, you heard that? Told her, "I'm standing right here, of course I heard it. That was a really rude and inappropriate comment. If i had a dollar for each time i heard something to the tune of that today I'd be pretty wealthy today. I'm hear donating my time for the athletes and did not expect to experience such blatant sexual harassment." I promptly ended the work i was doing on her friend. Told him "we're done here." He was mortified and incredibly embarrassed.

I saw so many guys getting off the other tables with erections. I really felt sorry for the female athletes: The other "therapists" (all gay men) touched them like they had leprosy. After I worked on one of the women basketball players, I had quite a few others that were on other tables come over to my table to ask to get worked on, and they complained to me about the work from the other therapists.

Not only that, I walked in on an orgy in the lockerroom (yeah, that was entertainingly funny--that was athletes and GG staff/volunteers area only) but what I found more than a little disturbing was the sex that was going on in the public bathrooms at the venue: There was also a children's daycamp going on at the venue, and a children's event not related to the Gay Games was going on at the venue (it was the sports complex at one of the universities). So there were parents with children going in and out of the very same bathrooms where the guys were showing each other their stuff at the urinals and doing it in the stalls--you could hear the fellatio and the jacking. The guys were not too discreet about it--they were acting as if they were at the bathhouse. With parents and kids in the bathroom no less!.

It's kind of funny, we get so righteously indignant when the far right thinks we're nothing but polyamouous sexual compulsives. Well considering some of the behavior at the GGC, I can understand why.

[JT]

The entire subject can be summed up by this insensitive one-liner: "Even if you win the Special Olympics, you're still a retard."

Why would we lower ourselves to such a consolation prize? Oh, that's right -- so that the squeeky wheel minority can turn a legitimate endeavor into a fuckfest, and a few people can make a huge amount of money off of this low opinion of ourselves.

Homosexual men and women have risen to be the best of the best throughout history. We have also played Icharus, but that ill-fated wax is not inherent. It is our own weakness, our own lack of self-confidence, and THAT is created by the notion that we are incapable of competing on a level playing ground. Here's another platitude: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Or is that ourselves?

[peter]

I love the idea of the Gay Games but there was too much over commercialization of them and they wasted too much money. Great idea - bad planning.