Sports and gayness

So, when you’re sitting in a bar, because you want to drink an excellent German beer while ruminating on the plot of your current novel, staring at the sports on the TV is kind of a useful thing, because it gives your eyes something to look at while your brain is elsewhere. And it means that if other patrons attempt to engage you in conversation you can grunt vaguely, nod, and then focus your eyes back on the game, because you’re just really that interested in… somebody. Playing soccer. Against somebody else.

But then sometimes they show things like figure skating or a Saints game, and in spite of myself I get a little caught up in actually watching it.

Tonight they showed this guy — Johnny Weir — scroll down to the black number with the pink edging — and I found myself thinking, “Oh my God, I think that outfit just might be the gayest thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life.” I didn’t actually find the outfit attractive, mind you. I just thought its awe-inspiring gayness made it adorable beyond belief. So I was sitting there kind of in love. Doesn’t matter if the dude can skate! But of course he can. Duh!

And this caused me to think about the fact that there are, no doubt, people of a certain mindset who would proclaim figure skating at all inherently gay. As opposed to football. Which is assumed to be !!!!!ULTIMATE MACHO!!!!!!GRUUUUUNT!!!!!!!!

But — having watched more football than usual recently because !!!GEAUX SAINTS!!!! — I can tell you, football is pretty gay too. Actually, all game sports are pretty gay, and the more touching, the more gay. That makes football gayer than basketball or soccer, and wrestling the gayest of them all. (And things like golf, not at all gay. But also not at all entertaining. Make of that what you will.)

See, sports tend to involve young, fit people. Of the same sex as each other. Running around with lots of energy and getting sweaty and grabbing each other in an intimate way. And then slow-motion replays of said grabbing.

!!HAWT!!!

And this made me think about how, for many homophobes, especially the religious types, “gay” doesn’t actually seem to mean “sexually interested in members of one’s own gender,” the way normal people think it does. Instead it means, “failing to conform to traditional gender roles.” Which is really the only measure by which figure skating is typically gayer than football.

I don’t know if that’s actually profound, or the sort of thing that only seems profound after a liter of very excellent German beer.

But either way, I thought everybody should see that pink outfit because it is so awesome.