Thanks to the work of a teammate, notoriously homophobic rugby player Israel Folau recently had a chance to become better acquainted with the works of Helix Studios, CockyBoys and Sean Cody.
According to rugby reporter Andrew Webster, when Australian outcast Folau joined French club Catalans Dragons last year, he attempted to introduce himself to his new teammates by joining their private WhatsApp group.
Whereupon Catalans rugger and fellow Australian James Maloney welcomed Folau by bombarding him with post after post of gay porn.
Normally, the only way to discover a scenario like this is through a very specific Redtube search. But let’s be clear: this was hazing, pure and simple. Maloney was engaging in stereotypical “hur hur, gay porn” neanderthal behavior. It just so happened that that target of his hazing was even more problematic.
As his countryman, Maloney was no doubt familiar with Folau’s record of anti-LGBTQ screeds from proclaiming that gays will go to Hell on Instagram to promising to vote “no” on legalizing same sex marriage. Due to such blatant and repeated homophobia, Folau was terminated by Rugby Australia in April of 2019.
Of course, there’s no way that spamming Folau with gay porn would change his beliefs—and that wasn’t the intention. This was an “initiation,” as if Folau’s homophobia was just an excuse for a variation of a shaving cream pie to the face.
Following this hazing, it appears that the subject of Folau’s homophobia was not raised again during his time in Catalans. As Webster further reported, Dragons head coach Steve McNamara emphasized that “Israel never brought up any of these personal views about homosexuality or anything like that at all. He just kept it to himself.”
Of course, just because Folau kept his views private, that didn’t make them any less repugnant. But now we know that for one day, his teammates made him feel as uncomfortable as his social media posts make the rest of us feel.
