Up until about a year or two ago, the world of sports had been pretty much silent when it came to its gay fanbase. Thanks to an emerging presence of openly gay athletes, a shift in social attitudes, and organizations like You Can Play stepping forward, more and more athletes and major sports leagues have been working to create safe spaces for gay athletes and fans.
Unfortunately, the Sochi Olympics have thrown something of a wrench into things. Between the fact that Russia has made any sort of publicly stated pro-gay opinion a crime and the fact that the International Olympic Committee is a bunch of spineless jag-offs, most athletes are back to sweeping the issue under the rug. In response, openly gay sports blogger Matt Horner wrote a piece (via Global News) about why we need athletes to step forward now more than ever as allies and LGBT people.
You don’t have to prove your masculinity by calling someone else a faggot. If these star athletes — essentially the paragon of masculinity in Western culture — can accept gay teammates, friends, brothers, and sisters, there is really no reason for any other man to do otherwise. It doesn’t mean you have to march in a pride parade, it just means you don’t have to be awful to a group of people.
[…] So why post this now? Well, with what’s going on in Russia, where being yourself can mean risking your life, it didn’t feel right to continue keeping my sexual orientation hidden (even if I only wasn’t “out” online) when so many rights and freedoms are afforded to me because I live in Canada.
[…] It also feels good to share my story, and hopefully it might resonate with someone else somewhere. Maybe if I read something like this when I was younger I wouldn’t have felt so alone and scared, and maybe I could have realized sooner that coming out, no matter how difficult, was the only way to live a happy, healthy life.
So where does this leave our gay Olympians? Well, chances are Russia is still a dangerous place to play it loud and proud, but here’s the thing: the Olympics are a cursed orgy. And that’s your chance to nail them.
The Olympics are notorious for sending their host cities into crippling debt (see: Montreal) and the Olympic villages tend to become full-blown orgies real fast. So here’s my proposal: go to Russia, fuck and suck through everyone you can — safely! — and make sure you milk the Village for every last dollar you can. Win some medals, come back home, and then say, “Oh yeah, I’m gay. Thanks for the hardware and the free shit!”
I’m just saying, if you’re gonna hit Russia, hit them where it’ll hurt the most: their pride and their wallets.
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