Don’t flatter yourself, Akker.
Jason Akermanis of footballing fame has stated that gay footballers shouldn’t go around telling people they’re gay, because it will make everything uncomfortable in the change rooms, what with all the naked men and whatnot.
It reminds me somewhat of a conversation between two male friends who had just finished High School. I shall call them Henry and Steve. So Henry tells Steve that a third guy, Wayne, is gay. Steve freaks out and says “No way, I spent HOURS with him in the edit suite!”. Henry replies “Yes, and he was probably thinking of your cute butt the whole time”. Steve cries. Well not really, but almost.
See, the thing about homophobia that stems from “I don’t want some gay guy looking at me” is this: Pretty big ego you have on yourself there, isn’t it? Let’s clear up some factoids.
Gay men do not just jump on anyone.
Okay some do, but so do some straight men. See, just as being a straight man doesn’t mean you figure every woman wants a ride, being a gay man means you don’t figure every MAN wants a ride. Do you see?
You might not even have to worry.
Why assume that a gay man will even find you attractive enough to look at twice? Do you find every single member of the opposite sex attractive? No, of course not. It works JUST the same way for gay people you know.
It’s a compliment, actually.
If a woman looked you over, you’d be all tingly. Gay men are just as good at checking out hotties as women are, so take it as a compliment. Someone thinks you’re hot enough to check out! Doesn’t mean you have to go home with them.
How doubled are your standards?
If you have no issues with two women getting it on in a bedroom setting, then you should have no issues with two men doing the same. Seriously, it shits me up the wall that lesbians are “hot” and gay men are “disgusting”. Think about it, you doofus.
As for Akker, well I really hope he gets himself sorted out, the man has some issues.
Icy and snow
The Winter Olympics are Olympicing, and it’s quite nice to see Australia compete in something we are so effortlessly terrible at. Australia is not generally a snowy place, except in the mountains and then only in the wintertime – not for us the year round snow of some places, or the slushy streets of others. So therefore, a wintery sporty person is pretty unusual, and our standards are uniformly low.
I don’t want to cast aspersions upon our Aussie Athletes, mostly because doing so would result in my being deported. We are, for some reason best known to someone who isn’t me, a Sporting Nation and therefore we Glory in Sport in a way that would be creepy if it wasn’t so damn National Pridey.
Coverage of the games over the last couple of days has focused almost entirely on one of our sporting gals who landed herself a gold medal by not falling over while landing, which is nice for her. Well done lady.
I enjoy the winter games usually, because it’s stuff we don’t tend to see, and there’s a far higher chance of amusing falling over than there is in say, cricket. Nothing warms my heart like a lass in a tiny dress landing on her bum on the ice. I’m a terrible person, but you knew that. Sadly, coverage this year is mostly things we’re okay at, with miffed commentators barely holding their dismay as we are placed 9th.
Really, as a nation, we should be happy they even let us play. Since most of our wintery sports people train outside Australia most of the time (due to the aforementioned lack of snow here), much of the population has never heard of them. The only reason anyone remembers the gold medal of Bradbury is because he got it when the rest of the field fell over.
The commentators of the ice skating are so amazingly bias toward Australia too, which is part hilarious, part irritating. A flawless skate by another nation might be greeted with a “excellent” or “well done”. If they fall over, the commentators will scream “Oh they’ve lost it, they’ve lost it!”. Our skater lands on her arse and slides practically off the ice and we hear “Slight slip up there”.
I’m having terrible trouble finding a highlights package of the falling over bits though.
The Football Culture.
It’s really – REALLY – time to stop glorifying footballers in this country. I appreciate that sport is important to a lot of people, and football particularly so. Kids in the playground at school make and break friendships on the basis of which team they follow, workmates bond over the latest win or loss of their team, and footballers are held up as the highest possible order of humanity. They are treated like gods, and it has to stop.
Apparently, there’s a type of woman who makes it her main aim to sleep with as many footballers as she can. If that’s what this sort of woman wants, then sure, more power to her I hope she’s having safe sex every single time. However, there’s a breeding culture in footballers themselves that seems to state that ALL women want to have sex with them at ALL times.
Yet accusations of rape, violence toward women and other men, taking a shit in hotel hallways, binge drinking and god knows what else don’t make a dent in the worship of these sportsmen. No matter what disgrace they bring to themselves or the team, it’s all forgiven when they kick a goal or take a high mark.
And the rot is clearly setting in for suburban clubs. Three members of the Monty (I call it Monty as it’s a local team to me) Footy team have been charged with the gang rape of a woman at Philip Island earlier this month. There were actually two women involved, but one has dropped charges. Add to this $10,000 damage done to the house the young men were renting, and you basically have some honest to god AFL footballers coming up the ranks.
Depending on which source you believe, these three and the other under 20′s out trashing rental houses over a drunken weekend either had or had not attended “education sessions about the proper treatment of women”. I’m sorry, but if as a sports culture you need to be telling 17 year olds it’s NOT okay to rape women, then clearly something is very very wrong.
Which brings me back to hero worship. I really do understand the importance of sport to society, although I don’t watch much of it myself, but this blanket forgiveness and acceptance of what amounts to dickhead behaviour cannot go on if we want young men and little boys to understand it’s not okay to do these things.
I’m not saying these guys should be staying up all night knitting socks for the homeless (though it might help) and i’m not saying they can’t enjoy a night out. They are, despite what the newspapers might tell you, only human. I can understand speeding tickets etc, these are mistakes people make all the time. Rape, violence and basically acting like a shit is not a “mistake” that normal people get away with. If they can’t act like the role models they are supposed to be, then they should be dropped from any team they are involved with. No press coverage, no draft picks, just back to nobody land working for a wage like a normal person.