While I think the times, they are a-changin', and gay men and women growing up now are more likely to participate in organized sports, do you think being gay hampers ability to compete? Being in my 40s, I grew up avoiding sports and to this day am not very competitive. In my 30s, I ran many races, including two marathons, where I was only competing with my previous times. I never really thought about going head-to-head with any of the other runners. There were runners I wanted to beat but I don't think I had any "fire" to do so. At the gym, I see the straight guys have all the bravado. Gay guys much more low-key (except in the steam room - Watching the reality shows on MTV I can see the gay guys not being able, or choosing not to, compete as hard as the straight boys. My theory is gay youth grow up with more uncertainty in their psyche and carry that baggage (cliche, I know) to competition. The NYC Frontrunners' Pride Run was, for several years, won by a straight guy. Over 500 runners, 95% gay, and a straight boy kept winning. I do believe things will change. I work in law enforcement and I see myself as not having the same "balls" as some of the straight guys. I believe this is all cultural, not genetic and things will change. Do you guys think I'm off the wall?

not at all tc, in fact I think in some cases its an advantage. and in fact if you look over our gay history to athelets who have been gay and who were extremely successful, I could name at least two people who come to mind. Greg Louganis and Martina Navratilove, who is arguably one of if not the most successful female tennis player ever. I am sure there are more names out there, but at the moment they don't come to mind.
Personally with one exception in my case (baseball), I have always felt that I had as much ability atheletic wise as my straight competition.
So I don't think we are at a disadvantage just because we are gay at all.

No offense TC, but I find the notion silly. If you're competitive and good at a particular sport, you will have success. The str8 guy probably won the race because he was the better runner, not because he was str8 or the other runners were gay. Maybe his competitive juices were amped because he didn't want to lose to a bunch of gay guys. When I'm in a predominantly str8 competition, my competitive juices are amped because I don't want to lose to a bunch of str8 guys. Another reason could be the top gay runners don't participate because they either didn't want to be seen or limited by only running against gays. Another reason could be ompetitors don't want to lose and they make winning a top priority. Some gay competitions are more about camraderie than competition and so maybe some of the runners were on a totally different vibe, which is very cool. Sports shouldn't always be about winning and losing anyway. Regardless, it's all about competitive nature, training and ability, not sexuality.

Z

Z

[quote]Regardless, it's all about competitive nature, training and ability, not sexuality.

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Well said.

TC: Thought your question was a bit out of the loop. What does sexuality have to do with one's ability to succeed in sports? Or do you believe that gays are a bunch of wuss, nellies, effems, wimps and ergo, won't succeed in sports?

Dude, have you not been reading OUTSPORTS?

I do not notice my sexuality hampering my performance. I swim in both Straight and Gay meets, and I notice no difference in the way I approach the meet, I am there to better my times and try to get points for my team. I rank in the top 20 in Canada for my age group, for all Masters swimmers, gay and straight.

Okay there are some slight difference, Gay meets have a more social/party air about them, but once the gun goes off it is a race to the finish. Oh and the goody bags at gay meets have condoms and lube, along with the required powerbar.

[quote]Originally posted by tzeile29:
What does sexuality have to do with one's ability to succeed in sports? Or do you believe that gays are a bunch of wuss, nellies, effems, wimps and ergo, won't succeed in sports?
?

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The straight guys that TC admires so much MAY be closeted gays. You never know. Also look at all the over 30 straight guys who have pot bellies and haven't played any sports since high school - or college ball- they are living off their past glories. I am not a team sports player as much as an individual sports player but compared to some of the over 40 guys at my last class reunion I am more fit than many, I believe. With all the wide range of gay guys on here - I think its a stereotype to say that gay guys aren't competitive. I have heard those same stereotypes. (Gay guys can't be good cops - or fireman or whatever.) I know gay guys who bust every stereotype and can beat you on the ball field too .

I understand exactly what TC was saying, and being gay definitely had an impact on how I develped athletically, and how competitive I am today. I was a late-bloomer athletically, and definitely attibute coming out (mostly to myself) and being at ease with being gay as having helped me grow physically as well. Competitiveness is a personality trait, and in my years of struggling with my sexuality, I gravitated to sports where I competed against myself, running, and tennis (I always more wanted to play well than win). I was uncomfortable in team sports (softball) and TOTALLY uncomfortable in contact sports (basketball). I'm absolutely sure those were side effects of struggling with being gay.

We're all different; all our experiences are different. But I know exactly what you're saying, TC. Good post.

WARNING: politically incorrect answer.

my own opinion is that, on average, gays are naturally less athletic than straight people. i feel that most of the psychobabble about torment or issues with being gay or coming out or whatever are basically BS.

i think we ARE genetically different...call it "more feminine" or whatever. conversely, lesbians quite often tend to succeed athletically...my opinion is again that genetics play a role. i guess the "torment" or "issues" don't affect lesbians the way they do gay males???

While being gay doesn't necessarily hamper an individual's ability to play sports, it has a formative influence upon a person's attitude and early experiences.

I grew up in the midwest with two brothers and a father who'd been not only a football star but a minor league baseball star who dropped out only because he got married and had to support the kids. He was my coach in everything and my family lived and breathed sports. While all of us backed away eventually from my dad's overly driving influence (he wanted us to fulfill his dream, like many parents do), my relationship with sports and competition was definitely curbed by the onset of puberty (dated girls, stared at boys) and all that came with it, though I couldn't have told you that at that time.

I think this is why so many gay men pick up sports again in their twenties and thirties and even forties. We become clear again about our love of competition or a specific sport and the need to be out there doing something at full intensity. And it's funny, two of my last three losses in tennis tournaments came at the hands of another gay guy. And while I take a certain silly pride in kicking str8 guy's asses, I like beating guys who're 10 or 15 years younger than me even better! I always want a gay guy to win the tournament, what can I say, I'm biased!

Don't forget Carl Lewis, while not exactly out, a remarkable athlete who's gay.

I'm sorry Faydman but that was the most assanine opinion on gays in sports I have ever heard in my life. While it's true genetics has a hand in all of this, I think if you look at society as a whole, you will find most str8s are not very good in sports. There are just more of them so it appears as if str8s in general are more athletic. Plus, for all we know half of the Yankees could be gay.

Z

i respect your opinion zman, but i'll stand by what i've observed. the percentage of gay men who "throw like a girl" or who were the last people picked for whatever sport in elementary school is WAY higher than straights. i don't think there should be any blind denying that we're different...gays are the first to extol their differences when they're perceived as positives (we dress better or whatever), but i think ON AVERAGE gay men are less athletic, starting in early childhood and not after they are "scarred" somehow. this does not mean, of course that some gays are wonderful athletes. they are.

ATL Jock -- I like your reply -- but doesn't it have much more to do with self-confidence -- and very little with actually being gay? I had a similar experience in high school -- not being sure I was gay -- and that contributed to a lack of confidence and impacted lots of things -- from athletics to friendships ...

I don't want this to come off like I'm tooting my own horn, but I just want to try and make a point.

Being gay did not stop me from playing Little League and Pop Warner as a kid. And I was always as good and competitive as anybody else in the league.

Being gay didn't hinder my ability to start on my high school football and basketball teams or play #1 singles on the tennis team. I was as good, if not better, than any of of the straight guys.

And it didn't prevent me from going on to college and playing #1 singles and doubles my junior and senior year.

And I have over the years palyed in gay softball, volleyball, tennis, basketball and bowling leagues or teams. And while many people are purely recreational, those in the upper divisions are as good as any straight guys.

I had a number of straight friends over the years who "threw like a girl" or tried to catch a football like it was a rotten fish. Everybody has different talents. Let me reverse the question. Does being straight hinder a guy's ability to be a hair dresser or designer or artist, if that's what he wants to be? I think a place like Outsports will help dispel notions like this.

I'd have to go with whoever said it's a matter of self confidence at an early age. I think most gay people are conflicted and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable in athletic settings (showers, etc.) when they are really young since they know they are "different" than the other boys somehow, or if they know exactly how they are different. And it can very often hinder development of the technical skills many of their straight counterparts have the opportunity to develop, they are not born with them. I don't think it has anything to do with genetics or anything like that any more than just the fact that some gay guys might be sort of feminine and therefore might not be as strong in much the same way as a straight guy might be fat and can't run. Just a crapshoot. Given the same training I think gay people would be exactly the same. Of course the ironic thing is that I know stupid faydman who is saying this stuff and he is a great tennis player who is probably better than 95 percent of his straight counterparts his age. What the hell is he talking about, we should all be so gay.

Mike Bryant has some interesting insights of being gay and athletic.

I played T-ball, little league, and Heisey Basketball as a kid. I was pretty good at T-ball, not quite as good at little league, and basketball, LOL, lets just say I was more clueless about that than I was about the fact that I was gay at that age. I was a pudgy little guy while playing basketball, and I think that being heavy was part of the reason I didn't enjoy it.

Skip ahead a little, now I'm a senior in High School. I went out for the track team, and loved the practices, and the locker room experience, but hated the competition because I wasn't that good at what I was doing. I had grown out of the baby fat, but saw myself still as the pudgy little guy. Throughout high school I learned to ski, and actually excelled in it to the point where I taught skiing for about 6 years.

Now in college I didn't play any sports except a little ultamate frisby, but I did workout quite a bit. At that point I thought that I didn't have the skill to play with people that had been playing for their whole life so I never decided to join the teams. Actually, I really took on a hatred for sports due to the fact that they frustrated me because I wasn't good enough at them, but now I see that I was just not confident enough, since then I have gained quite a bit of confidence, both in my abilities and my own sexuality, and thanks to this site mostly I have really taken on an almost finatical liking to sports. I also found my nitch too, I love hockey, I started skating and I'm not half bad. Actually, I skate better than all the straight guys that I take my lessons with. Then again, when I'm at the rink my sexuality really doesn't come into play. Noone knows, and I don't even think about it until I hit the locker room, but hey that's another story. I guess my thing is, it wasn't the gay thing, it was the self confidence issue. I am so much more adventurous now than I was then, it's awesome. I just wish that there were a gay hockey, or football, or softball, or whatever group that I could join in my town, but sad to say there is none, but someday maybe I'll move and get to join one.

Don't know if that made a whole lot of sense, I have tried to respond to this post 3 times and everytime I end up not posting what I wrote because it didn't make sense, I hope this does.

Thanks guys for being here, this site is a great inspiration to me, and you guys make it what it is.

This kind of topic gets me all riled up and pissed off. Gay people who show a lack of interest in sports growing up may lack the interest because they are turned off by what they perceive as the machismo and anti-gay culture of sports in elementary and secondary schools.

I know. I saw it (but that didn't keep me away).

It really sucks that in history actually the best athletes were gay. See ancient Greece and Rome.

I think if we were accepted today in society like we were a thousand years ago, a lot of us probably wouldn;t be as "feminine" as we are and would be more into sports. Most of us would just be regular men who happen to sleep with other men.

The closet, attitudes, and biases make us shy away from sports and other supposed "manly" things. We DO have a long way to go.

Unless we dismiss much of what is known about homosexuality in ancient Greece, the proposition that being gay hampers ability is doubtful at best.

I think if we lived in that society we probably wouldn't even be arguing the question.

But then the Greeks loved to argue about everything didn't they? Hmmm wonder if that had something to do with being....? Naaaaah!

Does being gay hamper ability? I don't think so. As for some of the previous comments about a competitive nature, I had so much internalized anger as a teen and young man, most of it certainly coming from repressed sexuality, that even though I was a nice guy and a good kid, I was very competitive, and seethed inside about the silliest things. I suppose I felt I had things to prove. And if I couldn't win at something, I avoided it a lot of times if there were guys involved who I somehow wanted to impress (because I was attracted to them, and didn't want to risk looking stupid in front of them).

We've certainly all known gay men who were naturally not very athletic, but lots of straight guys are not athletic either. I'm beginning to believe, too, that sexuality is more fluid than some black and white gay/straight definition anyway. I think we do share some commonalities as gay men, but I'm becoming less sure about what they really are beyond the obvious.

I do think there might be one pertinent trait that might effect a gay man's ability to perform in any kind of endeavor: self-consciousness. I think it takes a lot of gay men awhile to shake that. To really excel at something, or even just enjoy it, it helps enormously to have a really free approach.

The older I get, the freer I feel, liberated from feeling that I can't do something unless I'm good at it, liberated from only feeling competitive, free to just enjoy the activity and the company and let it be what it is. I still get those irrational competitive urges, but I'm not driven by them in the same way anymore. Plus, when I'm on a bike trip and someone 10 years younger than me cranks by me going up a hill, it's a pretty strong dose of reality.

I'll have to agree with that. Being self-conscious and lacking confidence is a real handicap if you're competing at any level. That's a huge issue while growing up gay. Athletic ability can be genetic and it can be learned but a lack of self-confidence not only gets in the way, it can halt a young athlete's progress.

And if we were more evolved as a society (especially in America), and comfortable with a more fluid definition of gender as well as sexuality, a "feminine" guy wouldn't be an issue: he'd simply be accepted as he is..by straights and fellow gays...Personally I've dated my share of european guys simply because i'm attracted to the dichotomy of both the feminine and masculine in a guy..So many str8 european guys seem gay to us Americans only because we're so force fed this masculine ideal, or should I say phony macho ideal...oops, I should be careful saying "force fed" on this site...

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: Bryan ]

Bryan,

totally agree with your comments. btw, if I caused any offense, it was unintentional.

certainly no offense taken by me...

I'm lucky enough to have many children in my life and I've noticed how personalities are so strongly present from day one. I know a lesbian couple whose 6 yr old has been obviously effeminate from the cradle. My roommate's four yr old runs around in a superman costume, almost everyday! My 4 yr old niece has been a tough little cookie since the first day her older brother starting wrestling with her, at about one and a half years old. We are born with specific and unique personalities and granted, our environment is hugely impactful, but we are who we are, and as we get older, we simply become more ourselves. It's the societal pressures that try and hammer out so called undesirable traits and characteristics. For me, I had a horrible temper growing up; my parents did their best to teach me that it was unacceptable. For some, their parents shame them into believing that being a "fag" is shameful. The work of an adult is to find out who you are and who you're comfortable being...and accept it fully...

I hope that in time athletics are encouraged even more for kids not naturally gifted or who don't get it right away. It's such a great way to build a child's confidence..Just like learning anything is..

[quote]Originally posted by faydman:
...people picked for whatever sport in elementary school is WAY higher than straights. i don't think there should be any blind denying that we're different...gays are the first to extol their differences when they're perceived as positives (we dress better or whatever), ...

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Interesting Faydman, are you saying the person defines the roles assigned or is the role assigned to the person and the person accepts?

Anyone read Brian Pronger's Book, "The Arena of Maculinity, Sport, Homosexuality, and the Meaning of Sex" In the book, Pronger discusses this topic. I found the book very interesting.

I do believe gay men are different than str8 men. But, I do not think it's in the area of atheltic ability. I believe it is in the area of how we precieve the world. We as gay men see the grand myth of gender being the natural order be anything but true. Str8 men believe the myth of gender thus, they must act it out and be masculine as define by the cultural constructs of their society. Being atheltic is one of them.
Not all str8 guys are jocks or have the talent to be jocks, and some, I venture to say more than we admit "throw like girls." But does that make them any less str8? No, of course not.

As a gay men, we see the myth of gender for what it is, a myth. The dominance of women is not needed or true in our perspective. So, many gay boys/men do not engage in the typical masculine pursuits such as sports and yes, liking girls/women. Thus, this perception of the young boy's/man's reality is acted out,by many gay men as "not being good at sports" but also through the fundemental male expression of the sex act. We don't like "fu*****" women, it's doesn't feel right." Remember those words guys?

So, the way I see it, it's not because we "like guys" that many of us are not good at sports, but because at an early age, the interpretation of ourselves in relation to the gender role assignments is not that of a str8 man. Sort of, "If you don't believe it, you will never achieve it." Many of us, as gay boys (even if we don't know it yet) already knew that the agression, the competitvieness, the expression of the masculine attributes the other boys (str8 mostly) was not necessary, was meaningless. But when we saw other boys excell at the such, we felt alienated, left out, and for many of us, did not pursue, did not develop the atheltic desire, and yes, it showed because we threw like a girl, were afraid of the ball, and we were picked last for the team, everytime. Compound this with a true lack of atheltic talent for some of us,and Whola, you got the school yard f**.


But again, the question remains, do we as little gay boys choose the role of being weaker, unatheltic, fems (as Faydman) termed because we are gay, OR are we GAY and accept our weaker status because it's assign to us by the str8 boys who set the social order and we buy into it? Remember, to be label gay, queer, homosexual is to accept the catergories set up by the rules of gender. Hard to escape, I agree, for we are all men and enjoy the privilages of being male in a patriachal society, gay or not. We are not just Gay....We are Gay Men.

Like TC wrote, the Times, the are a'changin.
Gay men are building muscles, playing sports among themselves, among the str8s and now every so lightly, sport to sport we are letting everyone know we are on the football teams, the basketball teams, the baseball teams...

Did everyone forget Mr. Lemon's boyfriend?
True or not.... There is a gay Major League baseball player and a very good probability more than one. That fact has been true, is true and will continue to be true.... Whether he's Mr. Lemon's boyfriend or not.

So, I guess, I agree with Faydman on one level, I do not agree on another.

Just a thought...

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: satxbuddy1 ]

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: satxbuddy1 ]

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: satxbuddy1 ]

[quote]Originally posted by MSUBobcat:
Don't know if that made a whole lot of sense, I have tried to respond to this post 3 times and everytime I end up not posting what I wrote because it didn't make sense, I hope this does.

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Don't worry, it made perfect sense.

Being gay doesn't hamper someone's ability. It's the reactions to it--from the gay person and from others--that may hamper ability.

To anyone that thinks there is the slightest merit to this notion that being gay hampers athleticism I urge you to pick any large gay sporting event and check it out for yourself.

I've played sports competitively, gay and straight, all my life and am repeatedly surprised at how good the upper level athletes are at any of the gay sports tournements. I've played in gay volleyball, basketball, softball, soccer and tennis events and always meet someone who is not just good, but elite. Athletes that have competed nationally and internationally. And honestly, there's usually more than one.

Seriously. Go check out how good the gay boys can be. There are large gay tournements for just about any sport you conceive. Go watch one out and decide for yourself. This site is a great resource for where and when those events happen.

Until then, don't discredit that Greek/Roman argument either. That's historical.

There are a lot of little straight boys and girls who aren't interested in sports either. Whether Johnny throws a ball "like a girl" (have you seen women's fast pitch lately??) or not depends more on whether someone took the time to teach Johnny how to throw at a young age. It has nothing to do with genetics.

(I could fill a few pages on how teaching kids to throw a ball is the best way to improve their chances at being athletic later in life, but that's another thread all together)

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: curtj ]

interesting stuff from all...particularly satxbuddy.

curt, i must say that your point has merit, there ARE some really good gay players out there. i, too, have played and seen the highest levels of gay tennis and basketball. there are some really good players out there.

i don't think, however, on a percentage basis that as many gays are really good as straights. maybe for some of the reasons y'all have postulated...(asians are, on average, shorter, but there are still the occasional yao mings and wang zhizhi's that pop up. likewise, there are some great gay athletes)

if we're REALLY 10% of the population, then shouldn't 10% of pro athletes be gay? (of course, i can't prove that they're not, but i'd think we'd have heard about more than the occasional dave kopay, glenn burke, john amaechi or jackie smith)

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: faydman ]

wow. great topic, and good thread. a few thoughts and observations...

I do not feel that sexuality in-and-of-itself has any effect on one's athletic ability. However, I strongly feel that the effects internalized homophobia has on one's psychological state could manifest in the sports arena. How they manifest depends on the indivdual.

here's how they manifested in me;
i saw lots of competativeness and sexism/homophobia in team sports, esp from team mates if you didn't play well (you thorw likw gurl, etc). indivdual sports were a bit different, you had no one to answer to but yourself. i took up skateboarding. where my self-worth had been destroyed by being gay, i overcompensated it for it by becoming a good skateboarder. yet the whole time, i always felt leftout of team sports...which i had always like to play as a kid. the effects being gay had on me arethat it kept me out of team sports, and help make me a really good skateboarder.

but in terms of a metadiscusison of this whole thread, perhaps rather than ask 'does being gay hamper ability', we should ask 'does homophobia hamper ability'? anyone else see a significant difference in the two questions?

-chr|st0pher

Since I started the thread, I will say Chr1stopher's point is well-taken and that is a major component of the question. It's hard to have the mental focus to be a good athlete when you are constantly wary or fearful of being "found out". Certainly I consider the premise/myth/whatever of gays not doing well in sports to have its core in our culture, not our genetics.

good points, tc and christopher.

i must say that in my own case "being found out" probably acted more as an incentive to be athletic rather than a deterrent to playing sports. i was able to "pass" as straight all the way through my twenties i think in great part BECAUSE i was so athletic and didn't fit in with the perceptions that my straight friends and acquaintances had about gay people.

Well I'll go out on a limb here and hypothesize that gays may be disproportionately represented among athletes.

Before you boo me off the thread, think about it.

The very nature of our difference from other men is sexual; Thus a naturally disproportionate preoccupation with the sexual aspect of life.

Yet that 'overdrive' is suppressed due to social norms and the energy has to go elsewhere.

Isn't it possible that it goes into near-neurotic athletic exertion. Might a larger than the oft quoted "10%" be gay among athletic overachievers.

It may also go into achievement in other fields but the athletic outlet is probably easier and more sexual...not to mention a good excuse to continue hanging out with the boys almost exclusively.

Just a thought.

>The very nature of our difference from other men >is sexual; Thus a naturally disproportionate >preoccupation with the sexual aspect of life.

well, that is only *half* of the story. they nature of our difference is not only *just* sexual, but also psychological and philosophic (in terms of how we relate to our person-hood or self-ness). By example, I may engage in homosexual activity in the bedroom, but I am 'queer' 24-7. Becuase heterosexuals have stigmatized and politizied homosexual behavior, we are forced to deal with that 'difference' all the time. we can deal with it by anything from confronting it, to ignoring and pretending to be straight. both of which, are manifestations of a survival instinct...which hetero's have the priveldge of not even *thinking* about.

yours in heterocentricide,
-chr|st0pher

the last post makes so much sense. the very things that most heteros dislike about us -- flamboyance, political activism, etc... -- we do because we are forced to by straight society. it is a survival thing.

I find myself thinking about my sexuality all the time. It is kind of all-consuming. Somehow I doubt that heteros go through the same thing...because they don't have to. Gay people shouldn;t think about their sexuality as much as I am under the impression they do. But it is forced upon us by the straight majority. And they probably aren't aware they do it.

Does being gay hamper ability in sports? Sure it does. Not in raw physical talent. But when you play team sports with a bunch of supposed straights who are homophobes, it's sure to het to you after a while.

btw, when I was still closeted, I would go to the movies with a friend of mine. we would sit in the movie theatre with one seat between us. It used to annoy the HELL out of me. He would say that he didn;t want anyone to think we were fags.

Think about it. If soemone is so homophobic at a movie theatre, don't ya think it would be that much worse vis-a-vis a locker room?

And heteros wonder why we have what they call a chip on our shoulder?

ok, so if were talking about hetero priviledge...and why str8 people wonder why we have a 'chip on our shoulder', least we also not forget white privledge and male privledge...
i'm sure being the first african-american in baseball wasn't an easy time either...

-chr|st0pher

Interesting that you mention the movie situation AZW. Your "friend" does seem to have (or had?) a problem with your sexuality (or his?). I admire your honesty about and how much you think about sex.

I just saw an Indie film in which a woman at a dinner party of three heterosexual couples taunts her closeted husband by mentioning results of a study showing that "men think about sex on average every 20 seconds".

I suspect the study actually exists and the results are not surprising. Preoccupation with sex is probably characteristic of MEN not just gay men.

Personally I think a tremendous sex drive is great as long as you are doing the driving and not being driven.

Intrestingly the same study showed that women "almost never" think about sex. Oddly enough that would apply to some of my gay friends who coincidentally are also not interested in sports.