Former NBA player John Amaechi says that sport and gay sex have a lot in common. “Sport has been gay since Homer,” says Amaechi. “It is all about setting a context that allows the suspension of that understanding that’s what sports does- especially elite professional sports.” Amaechi came out of the closet in 2007, after his retirement from the NBA. He wrote about his experiences in the autobiography Man In The Middle. He is now a member of the Diversity Board for the 2012 Olympics in London. Amaechi goes on to draw a parallel between football (aka soccer here in North America) and gay porn.
“In Britain football celebrations; you take away the grass on the ground and the fans in the stands and you put some bad 70’s music to it- football celebrations are porn.”
In This previously unreleased video interview with Xtra (in 2009 at the Copenhagen World Outgames), Amaechi talks about what it was like being gay in the NBA, homophobia in sport and what goes on in the locker rooms.
Interesting.
Amaechi’s assumptions could be applied to any situation where men alone are in a group and acting like men. Men in a military barracks, a communial shower, hunting or fishing trips; any situation where a degree of intamacy and familuarity exist, could be called a gay or near gay experience.
Interesting thought.