Homoeroticism in Sports. No, Really?

I came across a nice op-ed piece in the University of Arizona’s student newspaper, the Wildcat, about homoeroticism in sports.  The author, Alexandria Kassman, makes the point, maybe not so strongly, but nevertheless makes the point, that sports are rife with homoerotic aspects.

True dat.   And, to be sure, I have written my share of posts here on gay.com regarding hot guys in sports.  Just scan down the page to my post about men’s swimming.  When I played a lot of sports – back before I was older than dirt – you better believe I was aware of the “hotness” of the guys around me.  Was that why I played?  Nope.  But it was a nice little fringe benefit.  And, as a couch-athlete today, I still find the fact that sports are full of gorgeous guys to be a very nice side benefit of my sports fanaticism. 

But, like I said, that’s certainly not the draw. 

 There’s a lot of homoeroticism throughout our culture.  In politics: I used to write for gay politics blog, and there was no shortage of comments and posts about this politician or that politician being “hot”, or about the language of politics being “homoerotic”, etc.   In the military: tons of homoerotic stuff going on there!   In just about any organized systems of mankind, one will find all manner of sub rosa issues at play, including homoeroticism.

Moreover, there’s a lot of other junk going on in sports:  economics, law, morals, ethics, cultural issues, etc., are all at play in our sports world.  All these things – including homoeroticism – make sports the fascinating thing that it is.  If it was JUST who won, who lost and how many points were scored, who would give a crap?

So, back to the op-ed in the Arizona Wildcat.  Kassman’s final point is basically that since sports at UA are supreme, and since sports are homoerotic, wouldn’t it be nice if people could use sports to “get over” their homophobia?  Wouldn’t it be nice if people could see that homoeroticism is part and parcel of life, not something to be feared and avoided at all costs?  Wouldn’t it be nice?

Yup, it sure would.

Comments

[Scott]

Hey Joe -

As a gay journalist who rowed in college and active in politics, may I say great job on the 'Homoeroticism in Sports' piece you wrote. It's refreshing to read a constructive but a not-to-heavy gay article so lacking in the gay press.

Keep up the good work!

[Sovereign_X]

I like the idea of male eroticism by supposedly "straight" athletes as much as the next guy, and I admit the things they do sometimes seem a little gay. But we can't go too far as to classify every handshake or hug or embrace as a homosexual tendency. With the exception of the first two photos on top, the other photos just seem as plutonic, non-sexual gestures. Yes, straight people hug eachother as well! It's always fine to fantasize but also keep things in perspective.

[Randall]

I don't understand why men showing affection towards one another in a sportsmanship fashion is automatically labeled "homoerotic." Notions of masculinity differ from culture to culture and we ought to be encouraging more affection in the arena of sports. The more young boys see grown, hyper-masculine men showing appreciation towards one another in the form of a hug, etc., the less violence towards women and gay men we would see. Celebrating in the end zone or patting another guy on his butt after a good play is NOT erotic. Grabbing his package or simulating a sex act is erotic. I see no evidence of eroticism in the pictures posted in this article.

[doc1066_2]

Have to agree with Randall. There is a world of difference between patting a guy's butt after a great play and caressing it with the view to arousing him sexually. We have social kisses that aren't erotic, just a greeting. We hold someone's hand to give moral support but not as a come-on. There are all sorts of cultural differences about hugging. The English and Japanese avoid it, the Ukranians embrace it (yes that was a pun!) but this is not about eroticism. Hell, we even have a rule about male hugging so I'm told. Hug, two pats on the shoulder and let go - or then it's gets suspicious. Hehe!. Question: do gay men want to make all male contact into an issue of eroticism? And, if so, what does that say about sensuality and eroticism as a culture-specific issue for gay men? That is NOT a statement about males in general or around the world. My 2 cents anyway.

[blah]

put on something a hooker would wear...all the str8 guys will become be a bit gay...

[good grief]

why does this website try so often to narrow mindedly sexualize the universe, there is much more perspective in life. take a page out of human experience without projecting oneself into the habit of gay commercialization. go to school Joe Moag and get some perspective.

[zarxo]

It's a double standard and like straight women--an inability to feel comfy with your own masculinity or femaninity.

Examples: I am very masculine and one guy who wanted to date me who was closted at the time to his family--while visiting both of them while working on an house, his dad patted my ass (thought I was straight). Of course, the son ( my date) was shocked. :) Since the father figured I was gay, that did not happen again. :) he he. The father is 65.

Example 2: I have never met a straight woman would would date or go out with a guy that has lived a previous gay life--but would want to experiment with the females. :)

In the end, people are weak minded and prefer things to fall under stereotypes and ambiguities. Maybe it's more fun and less restrictive?

Could be the religious factor of the "orginal sin" if there ever was any.

Now, if those same guys were "out" would they still get the pat?

See what I mean: it is a disconnect in the person of what "real" is. --and some people just "prefer not to know" since that adds to the enigmaticism--to flirt with "disaster" and yet not fall prey to it. This is very similar to out and about gay men who get off on seducing so called straight men.--it's a brain thing! :)

I'll be happy when sex no longer has a value in the market--and all adult humans can do whatever they want to who they want and it would never be considered front page. Unless one is trying to reproduce, where is the value in sex? A misplaced concept by all religions.

A value is something that one does to maintain or keep something--this is a value. Where does sex fit in?

A whale must swim to breathe and not sink (it does not have a floating sac or a anything to move it's gills). It is a value for the whale to move--to live!

A person's value cannot be increased or decreased by sex. It is an act not a right nor a loss that will lead to a loss.

By raising the standard, we lessen the value of/for sex. (See how that works!).

[B Arkell]

"Question: do gay men want to make all male contact into an issue of eroticism?"

THANK YOU, doc1066_2! Some gay men DO want to make all male contact a form of eroticism. These males want to view male aggression and machismo as a form of homosexuality. However, this makes little sense, since male aggression and machismo are directed AGAINST homosexuals. It's a self-defeating, hypocritical stance to take, and it vilifies effeminacy as "abnormal" for males and aggressive and violent competition and eradication of an adversary as "normal" for males.

[josh]

Homoeroticism and homophobia seem like the same thing, because that's where the attraction/phobia lies. Homophobia doesn't mean 'fear of homosexuals', it means 'a fear of being the same'. When we enjoy playing together and working together, the attraction/fear comes around whenever someone realizes I/he might be the same as him/me.
Thats also why people feel they have to yell F*ggot at us. By calling out that someone else is the same as a gay person or that they are not a f*g, its just a person afraid of being the same

[greg]

"Now, you've got to be joking!"
Sure if your with a group of your masculine LOOKING or Fem Gay friends watching some sport ,,,
when someone gets a slap on the ass or a hug, someone there mught say
"Oh, what's going on there?", for goofs & giggles& get a couple of winnies & chuckles
But I highly doubt that too many people will pop a Woody Up for just that.
It is just being silly.
Can you imagine hanging with your str8 friends, as THE ONLY GAY, at a Super Bowl Party and when someone gets their ass slapped you say.
"OH, what is really going on with them two?"
And isn't it funny h2 ow one of the #1 str8 man fantasy of beautiful lesbians.
I don't know about you all, but as mush as I have travele the goood ole Gay USA, I rarely have seen one typical hot Sports Illustrated type Bay Watch Babe Lesbian as 1/2 of a lesbionic couple.
Maybe all str8 men really have a hidden gay fantasy with lumber jacks.
In fact I was hitting on the hottest guy the other weekend in Hillcrest, San Diego.
Beautiful pretty boy face with arms to die for.
Should have picked up on the lesbian's clue with the Cigs rolled up in the T-Shirt Arm.
She looked like she wanted to kick my ass, but then looked at me as if to say "You dizzy bitch queen".

[G]

not everything is at it seems. my brother is 55 and when he was 38 he would constantly interrupt conversations with look at the muscles on that son of a bitch.

I used to think it was a gay thing but it was a body envy thing since he's blue collar and slim toned.

Not all men think sports is homoerotic I am sure.....there are a lot of men in my opinion who hide behind a veil of bisexuality and secretly suck cock and can justify it all....or never give it a second thought....

[tarzoni]

There are beings (animals that are us), there are cultures (always changing, always slightly insane) and there are words (always seeking clarity where there is none). We invent words, think we know what they mean (like homoeroticism) and then try to "apply" them to the world. We can't NOT do this, but it's always inaccurate. Is an embrace homoerotic if those embracing don't feel it, but we feel it looking at them? Is an embrace homoerotic if it were only to last longer, be in private, and maybe occur after a couple of drinks? All things are amazingly more ambiguous than most people are comfortable with. We like to think there are rules to the world, and therefore could be progress towards a better world, but we're really a bunch of smart, horny monkeys with too much stuff and too many rules. We should enjoy the ambiguity and not try to figure it out. Ok, go ahead, but only if it's fun!

[Abstrat]

In sports the closeness between players could me misconstrued to be homoeroticism but I think it's just the gay community yet again seeing things that aren't really there. Have a gander at the photos and enjoy, just because someone receives a hug of celebration, relief, support.. the list goes on. That doesn't make them gay and saying they're supposedly straight just adds on to the disgusting obsession homosexuals have towards recruitment.

Then again, there is no harm in dreaming, you just have to know when the dream ends.

[John]

Thankfully there are several posts recognizing that most of the emotional/physical stuff in sports is NOT erotic to the people involved. Just think of all of the similar pics of gay guys with their girl-friends - how would gays feel if all of that was judged to be proof of underlying hetero-exoticism?
All of this "I know he is really gay" fantasizing is very discrediting and borderline psychotic!

[Joe Moag]

Let’s try and bring a little clarity to the issue, since it seems to have gotten way, way off the topic of the post.

Homoeroticism means the quality of being attracted to members of the same sex. Saying that there is homoeroticism in sports is not saying that sports players are attracted to each other. Some, I am sure, are, some aren’t. As you should be able to tell from my post, I could care less if they are or are not. As I clearly stated, that’s not what gets me into sports and that’s not what I see the point of sports to be. Sure, I find it fun to comment about it as an aside, talking about good looking guys. And that’s part of the homoeroticism of sports – that some people who watch sports find it to be homoerotic to varying degrees.

I also stated that while homoeroticism exists in sports, so, too, does it exist in many, many other organized systems of humankind, and, I pointed out that a whole bunch of other things exist in sports as well: law, economics, morals, ethics, etc., and that all of these things make sports interesting. And, if you read my stuff, you will see that I comment on those elements of sports a whole hell of a lot more than I do on homoeroticism in sports.

Moreover, the main point of the post – which seems to have flown over so many of the comments here – is that the original article that this post was written about (which, it appears, no one bothered to read, since if they had, they would understand that the pics in this post are illustrating the original author’s examples, not mine), is that since homoeroticism exists in sports, and since sports are great ways for people to knock down barriers to each other, wouldn’t it be great if people could get a little more comfortable with the homoeroticism that does exist in sports and, thus, get a little more comfortable with gays in general.
Nowhere did I say that all athletes who pat each other on the butt are engaged in gay actions, nor did I say that sports are homoerotic. I said that homoeroticism is an element in sports, like it is an element in many, many other endeavors of humankind, not limited to the participants alone but to the observers as well.

That, my friends, was the point of the article and the post that the article was written about.

[Sam]

I couldn't help but respond to Randall and doc1066_2. The idea that eroticism should be limited to genital contact or simulated sex strikes me as sort of sad. In my understanding, the erotic is best found in things that are not explicitly sexual. It is the casual touch, smile, glance, a moment of contact and connection that is truely erotic.
As for the association of all male affection as homoerotic, I think this is largely an issue of semantics. To a certian extent, homoeroticism is defined as (and made distinct from homosexuality) by its unconsious nature. Homoeroticism is about subtext, not sex.
Personally, I am ambivalent about the conflation of homosociality, homosexuality, and homoeroticism in American society. I often wonder if it doesn't contribute to homophobia to a certian extent, and frequently places contraints on homosociality.

[tom]

Homoeroticism is in the eyes of the beholder and not necessarily in the athletes.

From the athletes point of view, this is nothing more than an expression of being a man, of being a man in a friendly competition, of being a man on a team, etc. Their focused on the game/competition.

If seeing strong and often un-emotional men suddenly express bursts of public joy, elation, closeness is erotic...well that is totally cool.

If it makes the sport more interesting for the spectator, then thats cool too!

Women express their emotion all the time...though women have devolved into the unemotional dykes (competing with men) and the lipstick traditionalists.

Men are moving down a similar path of traditional soldiers versus the emotionally connected house-husbands.

Men....play ball and have fun...like you always do!

[corrective_unconscious]

Many of the posters don't seem to have been told that the human psyche has an unconscious component.

Sometimes, as Freud would have said if he were a US football fan, a gentle pat on the ass is just a gentle pat on the ass...which is what we're talking about.

[gregg]

This kind of crap so-called journalism is why we always get labeled. As a gay man everytime i see some men in an embrace i do not automatically assume they are gay.

[greyhound1954]

Y'all can argue about how much homoeroticism exists in a butt slap. Personally, I really miss the days when basketball players wore tight uniforms instead of the XXXXXXXL singlets and shorts they drape themselves in today. Even tennis players wear bigger shirts and shorts, and now swimmers are covering up, too!

[Andre]

How about cutting the crap: we are tired of the majority of gay men we've seen over the decades, yea things have changed, we've made strides, etc., but gay guys are still gay guys. That's terrific. They are free to be individuals and express themselves all they want. That doesn't mean I have much (or even any) interest in about 95% of gay men - at all.

So we fawn over sports figures. The one thing that remains constant since puberty - these types of men are usually the first ones that really drove it home that we were gay and for sure this is what turned us on. We fantasized about these guys for years. We fantasized about their confidence. Their strength. Their bodies. Their walk. Their voices. Then we came out. Where are these kinds of guys? Spanning almost every major city and talking to many guys, they haven't seen ONE gay guy who is like this. It's a feeling of keeping the fantasy alive, a feeling of intense anger at 'this shitty selection we're stuck with' and the worst - this feeling that everything has been a waste - we will never find a guy like this for ourselves. They're not gay. And for gay women, who don't have to rely on physical chemistry (as much) to make a sexual connection - gay men, it's either on or off. You can't fake it, you can't hide it. The truth is revealed the moment you become intimate. That's why online porn is huge. That's why straight jock websites attract tons if not the majority of gay men - we don't want to look at each other! We want to see what we can't have and won't ever end up with!

[wallace]

oh, you people complain and complain. don't you see that the first picture is gay, or could be. No one is gonna tell you if they're gay esp when their futures are on the line, You don't know that?? There are so many closet cases out there that I couldn't even immagine. They can't do what theyl want to because of family freinds and their future. So they do it on the side and in private. Who can blame them ?? Don't trust a gay with your secret if you're famous, You'll be in the headlines in the morning for a few bucks

[Joe]

Definitely makes me wanna join a sport! Outta of all the sports Ive seen its seems like Soccer "futbol" has the most questionable activity but no complaints here!