I truly believe that facing your problems is the best way to handle them. Talk to them about fears, discomforts, questions, and whatever else comes to mind. Have you ever talked to an openly gay athlete? Played a game with one? Please, for your own sake, find a gay athlete and have a conversation with them.
Trust me, if you’re a jerk to us, and we take your spot, there is no better feeling. Maybe you're afraid of being replaced by a gay athlete, and feeling degraded.
The hardest thing to change is our own way of thinking. Just because we look, it doesn’t mean that you are prey and we are predators. The complex about comparing ourselves to others is ingrained and it’s just a fact that men look to compare. There was an episode of "Seinfeld" that touches on the topic of men checking each other out in the locker room. When we talk about the brotherhood (or sisterhood) of a team, it means that those players are family, and are treated as such. This not only goes for the NFL, but all levels of sports. As a friend once told me, "You don’t meet your honey where you make your money." I assure you, gay athletes don’t play sports to be able to get naked with their teammates. Athletes are professionals that take their job very seriously, and the locker room is no different. What’s not OK is coming at the gay athletes from a negative place. I understand that this may be scary for the straight guys, and that’s OK. Having openly gay teammates will be a first for many players in the upcoming years.
Look back to when the first woman tried to run the Boston Marathon, when Jackie Robinson entered Major League Baseball, or when female reporters finally gained access to professional male athlete locker rooms. People are resistant to change I get that. I think they come from a place of fear, lack of experience and insecurity. What are you afraid of? I don’t think your remarks about gays not being accepted in the NFL, and being nervous about being the shower with a gay teammate come from a place of hate. Does it sound like a porno scene? No? That’s because it’s not. Just getting clean, getting dry, and putting on deodorant are your only top priorities. When you get in the shower, ever muscle hurts, the water stings like hell on those turf burns, and your only focus is getting off that damn pre-tape wrap that is stuck to your skin. And when you get in the shower, all you think about is avoiding icy cold water, pee in the drains (don’t lie, you do it too), and the backside of some offensive lineman that desperately needs bathing. Definitely isn’t the most romantic spot on earth. Imagine a big room that has sweaty, nasty workout clothes hanging everywhere, tape and other garbage lurking in corners, and a toilet area that doesn’t exactly smell like roses. The club is located in Passo Fundo, about 600 miles southwest of São Paulo.Michael Sam comes out: Complete coverage Gay linebacker brought partner to senior day In Brazil, the idea of “straight” men being sexual with one another, from what I’m told by people who live there, is not a foreign concept. Still, it’s interesting that the team president understands that things like this don’t make a guy gay. If the video was shot anywhere other than a team facility, the club wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in releasing the players.Īs one writer questioned, it is suspicious “whether the punishment would have been the same if the video featured heterosexual acts, and whether it would even have made the news beyond a blurb in local news.” Rossmo has insisted that the club opposes homophobia and even has a formalized group of gay fans (neat to hear).Īccording to UOL Esporte, the “disgusting” video featured one of the players masturbating two of his teammates. I’m guessing that last bit is a bit of mis-translation on the part of Google.
“As far as I know, these three are not gay,” Rossmo said, “only that they had sex, but now they have to prove they are not.” Gilmar Rossmo, the president of Sport Clube Gaúcho, told UOL Esporte that he didn’t fire the players because of any discrimination, but because he found the video “disgusting” and he was afraid of the verbal beating they might take at the hands of the fans. The video, which of course leaked out to the Internet, features three of the players, with a fourth holding the camera. A soccer team in Brazil has released four of its players for using the locker room to record a group masturbation video.