It would really be tough for a gay guy in the NFL, for the locker room to understand him as a homosexual — I’m not saying it’s impossible to pull off, but I’m saying right now the fear of coming out of the closet and more so coming out in the locker room would really be too tremendous to overcome. It’s unfortunate because it shouldn’t be that way. I understand that the locker room is pretty intimate. I do understand that there are 53 guys walking around nude at times and I do understand how guys may feel uncomfortable, but I don’t think that it should impair someone’s decision to live their life, have their freedoms and express themselves. I don’t know whether that will be five, ten or twenty years from now but right now the NFL culture has no tolerance toward it.
—Marcellus Wiley, former NFL defensive end and current ESPN analyst, on the the locker room’s culture of fear
Jeff Atwood
The real issue here is that an openly gay man in a locker room brings the repressed psycho-sexual homoerotic dynamic into the open, and Anglo-Saxon culture has made people feel ashamed of this natural instinct. Locker rooms are all about exhibitionism. Wiley is trying to divert attention from his sexual insecurities (“Am I gay?” “Am I gay?” — who cares?) and throw the onus on gay men. I don’t see his condemning female or gay reporters in the locker room. We have turned heterosexual men into fearful, ashamed, and insecure beings. A secure man would not care.
Tonic
+100.
Exactly.
horus
ROTFL…
Cam
This is the same thing I say whenever somebody brings up the “But What happens if a gay guy looks at another guy” argument against Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Ok, so our Marines are so tough that we drop them into other countries where they encounter unimaginable situations. They are the toughest of the tough. Yet you are saying that they will collapse into crying babies if somebody glances at them. Since straight women have to deal with more than that every single time they walk down the street, are you saying that your average 18 year old female high school senior is much tougher than a highly trained marine?
Hilarious
Why do peopl even assume we all want to look in the first place?
I’ve been in plenty of locker rooms and I’m normally the one keeping my eyes in front. It’s the “straight” guys eyes that are always wandering.
I even had the biggest troll looking jock in the known universe pinch my ass in high school and then play it off like it was a joke, because since you’re straight pinching a guys ass “as a joke” is ok…right?
It’s funny how “gay” they act and then get worried that we might be looking at their tiny nut sack.
slobone
“Today’s football hero may be tomorrow’s inmate. So contend authors Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger in a controversial study, Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL, published by Warner Books.
According to Benedict and Yaeger, 21 percent of NFL players — more than one in five — have been charged with at least one serious crime, including two murder arrests, seven rape charges, 45 counts of domestic violence and 42 charges of assault and battery.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_46_14/ai_53409148/
… but God forbid there should be a gay man in the locker room.
Ryan C
@Jeff Atwood: Jeff that’s a pretty—no pun intended—gay interpretation.
“Locker rooms are all about exhibitionism.”? Says who? Those with a rating of 1 to 6 on the Kinsey Scale, that’s who.
A heterosexual man or woman can be tolerant, friendly to the cause, AND shy (as can gay men.)
David
I mean really, is this serious. Unless these “jocks” are gonna show up on some hookup site, like AtomicMen or Adam 4 Adam, flaunting their jewels, then what is the big deal. Men see men in locker rooms all the time. That’s sports. Get over it and take your insecurities back to your mama.
Chitown Kev
@Hilarious:
LOL!
And usually the ones that play like that arew small!
In the nutsack and in other places around that area.
timncguy
@Ryan C: and if the hetero man you speak about is “shy”, wouldn’t he be “shy” around both gay and straight men in the locker men? Why would his “shyness” only become an issue if a gay man is in the locker men?
Ryan C
@timncguy: I don’t know; I never argued justification for straight-men-shy-before-gay-men and vice versa. I just said it’s OK to be shy whether gay or straight and that the locker room isn’t a exhibitionist experience for all. For some it’s an experience in function.
RomanHans
Yeah, I hate it when my buddies and I hang around naked together and then faggots show up.
Ryan C.
@timncguy: I thought I made this pretty clear, but for clarification: I’m talking about shyness—or any trait like it—as a mark of character. In theory, that means: Gay, straight, trans, asexual, bi—anything. It means that if you don’t like someone gazing at you, you won’t like someone gazing at you whoever that person is.
ewe
What makes these idiots think that while taking a shower after a very exhausive job performance, a gay person would be the least bit sexually interested in any of the 53 tired bigots he sees day in and day out? He probably wants to go home like everyone else. These straight guys have major complexes around sex hence sexuality and orientation. I have no reason to feel defensive. The ball is in their court. fuck em.
Jeffree
My gym is about 97% str8. There’s a “gay gym” up the road, but costs too much & is too far. These str8 guys do check each othrr out: they know who’s got the biggest biceps, best quads, cuttest abs, etc— and yep the biggest package. We’re competitive by nature, IMHO.
I don’t get this phobic obsessiion about what happens when gay guys shower with gay ones in the NFL, the military, or on MTV! It,s happening already and there have been few reports of total mayhem.
Forget the Umbrella-It's Raining Men!
One of the most frequent, often unvoiced, complaints from “straight” men is that if a homosexual “looks” at them then it must be because they think that the object of their attention must be gay as well.
What others often erroneously view as internalized fear of feeling one is secretly homosexual is more often really the fear of being perceived as homosexual. After all, modern hetero-centric society has always equated homosexuals with weakness and the antithesis of masculinity, hence the hostility.
I don’t accept this broad brush that has been used to paint every homophobe as a closet case. Too many of us are not even aware of how often we have used the “latent homosexual” argument as a put down against our own Gay identity in order to castigate those who attack us. It really is more of the fear, on most insecure straight men’s part, of being “perceived” as a homosexual than actually really being a homosexual — although, there are a few in denial who actually are, but they are in the minority.
By slamming Gays, many homophobes believe they are granted a life-long exemption from that alleged “slur” finding fertile soil to take root on their own persona while simultaneously preserving the “masculinity” label for their own sexual orientation.
Cultural conditioning at its worst.
The fact that male homosexuals can be, and often have been, superior athletes and soldiers makes the entire concept of masculinity independent of sexual orientation. It’s not enough today to say, “I’m a better man than you because I am straight” — that just doesn’t cut it nowadays. That’s why many heterosexual men are afraid of us — they are afraid of not measuring up. That is why they want to exclude us from male rites of passage and tradition masculine role in society.
We desperately need a Gay version of a Jackie Robinson who broke the racial barrier in professional sports. Our ability to hide in plain sight is both a blessing and a curse. It has allowed us to survive in a twisted world which perverts love into hate, but it is also this very same blending-into-the-shadows ability that hinders us from living a full life in the sunshine as who we really are.
It’s time for Gay athletes to come out of those shadows and show the world that excellence is independent of irrelevant factors such as ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation.
…If not now, when?
biguy
It is wrong to jump on Marcellus Wiley for saying what he did. I don’t think he’s insecure at all, he says “Its unfortunate because it shouldn’t be that way” when talking about locker room homophobia. Then he addresses the insecurity of other players by saying, “I don’t think that [sexual orientation] should impair someone’s decision to live their life, have their freedoms and express themselves.” That is not the kind of statement you’re going to get from an insecure homophobe.
It is clear he is giving an honest, insider’s assessment of NFL locker rooms while saying that he doesn’t agree with it. I enjoy seeing him on TV and think he makes a lot of good points. It is good to see a former player who isn’t afraid to come out and say something like this, maybe it will encourage others who feel the same way to do so as well.