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Sexuality in Sports 3/13/2008 12:46:11 PM
Swimming isn’t often thought of as a sport where giants clash. It actually looks like quite the opposite with a bunch of hairless guys (the chlorine causes all of the body hair to die and fall out) in water together covering nothing more than the necessities with the tiniest swim suit that could ever be imagined on the male body. To most outsiders, having a gay person doubling as a swimmer should come as no surprise, but I give assurance that this assumption couldn’t be farther from the truth. I swam for four years in high school. One of my best friends swam with me those four years. During the summer after we graduated, "George" came out.
The reason why swimmers, despite the obvious material for gay jokes to be made about them, are even less likely to come out if they are gay is because of that very same material. According to current research, only about 2% (not the 10% that has often been claimed by gay-rights activists) of the population is homosexual. That is a very small figure leaving one to conclude if an assumption is to be made about a group of people as to whether it is a group of gay men or a group of straight men, one can presume it is the latter. Because of the way the swimmer’s uniform differs from that of other sports in terms of the bodily coverage, the only way for the swimmer’s to get around the propensity to feel “gay” while around the other guys wearing only Speedos is to make jokes about it. Once the jokes are made, no one is going to think you are gay because you seem homophobic about the whole situation.
Consider that in basketball, the closest the players get to being naked with each other, or gay with each other for that matter, is the 30 seconds when they are changing into their uniforms. In swimming, you change, and then it is swimming around in what is essentially only underwear for two hours. In Basketball, nothing is really done to lead someone to believe that the environment will turn a gay teammate on to another teammate, yet there is still the great fear that it may happen anyway just because they are gay and they can’t help themselves.
In 2007, former NBA player John Amaechi declared to the world that he was gay. It was an announcement that shook the basketball world, mostly because no one in the NBA had ever made such an announcement before. However, for one former player, Tim Hardaway, it was much more than a matter of him being the first openly gay NBA player. Hardaway said things like, “I hate gay people,” and, “I don’t think he should be in the locker room while we’re in the locker room.” Such hateful statements are extremely politically incorrect, however, they were still the thoughts many other players undoubtedly had, but chose not to say. It was such a big issue for a basketball player to be gay even though the situations where the “gayness” can be provoked are far less numerous than in swimming. With that in mind, one can imagine how earth-shattering it would be for a locker room of swimmers to find out that one of their teammates was gay.
Sports teams rely heavily on trust between one another. The reason swimmers can be comfortable around each other even though only a tiny piece of cloth is preventing you from seeing all of your teammates’ family jewels is that trust. There is a confidence between the swim team members that no one will make an advance on another teammate because that’s the only way around feeling homophobic while wearing Speedos. Straight guys are not attracted to other guys so there should be nothing to worry about. But if one swimmer is gay, will that mean that he will make advances on his teammates, or will he respect the teammate code? Once doubt is raised about whether you have to worry about a gay guy hitting on you, the trust will be broken completely and then you start questioning everyone else too. The make-up of the team is out the window making for a miserable situation.
It isn’t correct to think this way, but it is true that it is difficult to get around thinking like that. When "George" came out, the swim season had been over for months. But just talking to guys about it made us all realize that at any moment he could have peeked over and saw a little more of us than we would have felt comfortable with. But then again, he never tried to kiss us, or make any type of advance for that matter, and the fact that we were shocked when he came out meant that he never did anything before to make us uncomfortable. But even so, many were pretty disturbed that all those years we were put in awkward situations for a mixture of straight and gay guys. While nothing ever culminated from such situations, just having the possibility existing can be unsettling to some.
This leads us to believe that it is not really a gay guy that makes his heterosexual teammates feel uncomfortable, it is an openly gay guy. In Esera Tuaolo’s auto-biography, “Alone In The Trenches”, he says that he “lived out a lot of sexual fantasies with men in [his] head… [Esera] had crushes on other guys, but never other football players. [They] were more like a tight-knit family.” (Pg. 56) It is true that a gay athlete, or any gay person for that matter, will think about being gay with other men. It is only natural for gay guys, just like it is only natural for straight guys to think about women in a similar way. However, he said that he never had crushes on his teammates because he couldn’t picture himself being that way with his family. The swim team was like a family to all of us, "George" included. Being heterosexual, I can honestly say that I do think about certain females, I can’t help it; it’s natural and other guys do the same. However, I could never think about my female cousins like that because they are family. A sports team is like a family, too; anyone who has ever been on a team can back up that claim. So there really are no thoughts like that going on inside gay teammates’ head. "George" told me that he knew he was gay while he was on the swim team, but he too never even thought about one of the other swimmer’s in a sexual way.
Trust comes from being comfortable with your teammates. If one guy is openly gay and it makes his teammates feel uncomfortable, can you really blame the teammates? It is said that a gay person doesn’t choose to be gay, they just are and nothing can change that. Then shouldn’t the same logic be applied to someone who feels uncomfortable by it? If given a choice, would homophobic people rather not be homophobic? It is too difficult to answer that because they don’t know how they would change as a person if they weren’t that way. Gay people would likely give the same answer if asked about if they would prefer to be gay or not.
If one gay person thinks that the team’s unity is strong enough to endure his coming out, then he should do it because the team wouldn’t care either way. However, seeing as he wouldn’t make advances on his teammates regardless if he was public with his sexuality or not, a team with homophobic members shouldn’t be thrust with the burden (I don't consider it a burden, but a homophobe might) of having a gay teammate coming out. It is the gay player’s responsibility to judge whether or not his team can take him being a homosexual. Jim Provezano interviewed Billy Bean, a former MLB player who came out after he retired, and wrote, "Bean said he couldn’t come out while playing. ‘Overnight they would have found some way to kick me out, because some dad doesn't want his little kid watching some gay baseball player and saying, 'I want to grow up to be just like him.'’" (Provenzano) As of today, Billy Bean, Esera Tuaolo, John Amaechi, and any other gay athlete has waited until after they retired to go public, or else kept it private forever. Perhaps in the future, god willing, a team will be able to tolerate a gay teammate.
In "George"'s case, judging by the reaction of the other swimmers when they found out about his sexuality, we were not ready for him to be open about it during the swim seasons. It is wrong, but you can’t help but wonder if he is just looking at you like anyone else would, or if he was checking you out. He says that he wouldn’t and he didn't, but he could have lied about that. After all, he did keep his sexuality a secret, and secrets betray trust just as much as lies do. Personally, I do believe him. Unfortunately, though, the world really isn’t ready for an openly gay athlete while he is on a team, but all gays are welcome.
