For
those not following the hype and hullaballoo surrounding the most
overhyped and hyper-hullaballooed event in the history of the world, it
seems that in the run-up to Super Bowl XLVII, a professional football
player has expressed the simply unacceptable sentiment that he actually finds it quite undesirable to take showers and walk around naked in the company of gay men.
The
offender is one Chris Culliver, defensive back for the San Francisco
49ers. Earlier this week, over the course of a lighthearted radio
interview with a jocular interlocutor on press day, Culliver revealed
that he has a strict no homo policy when it comes to
goings-on in the locker room. He’d rather not be around any of those
“sweet”-acting, lispy, limp- wristed characters while in a state of
undress: “Uh-uh,” Culliver stated emphatically at the prospect, “no way!”
Needless
to say, all progressive-minded folk interested in showing others how
righteous they are immediately jumped all over the suddenly embattled
NFL jock for saying such an outrageous, “ignorant” thing. Equally as
predictably, soon afterwards a chastened Culliver, looking like a
frightened little boy who’s been called to the principal’s office,
issued a meek apology to all right-thinking people everywhere, whom he
deeply wounded with his viciously hateful, awful, horrible, despicable,
dastardly, and completely terrible remarks. (For his penance, he’s been
assigned—what else—“sensitivity training,” with representatives of the
San Francisco LGBT community! Will he be forced to strip in the company
of a bunch of flaming, leering queens in order to demonstrate having
conclusively overcome his homophobia? Enquiring minds wonder…)
Presumably,
Chris Culliver ought to be perfectly fine with the notion of being in
intimate quarters with men who embrace the love that, until recently,
dared not speak its name (and now apparently won’t ever shut the hell
up). He shouldn’t fret about being ogled, or fear being subjected to
frisky, freaky episodes of frottage by fellow athletes who happen
to be light in the cleats (not that there’s everything wrong with
that). And if he’s afraid of dropping the soap in the shower, well,
that’s just cuz he’s a reprehensible bigot. Once Culliver is properly
sensitivity-trained, he’ll come to know that gay men don’t really like to look at naked men’s pecs, penises, and posteriors…
Oh wait; they do? Uh…
Well
then, maybe he’ll learn that, even if gay men like to ogle his naked
body, he just needs to deal with it, because they’re gay and they get to
do that, and not liking it is hate, plain and simple. Fearing
the (homosexual) male gaze is only baby steps away from digging up
Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi, and killing them all over again;
such a repulsive heterosexist proclivity towards gay zombie genocide
must be eliminated so that tolerance can reign supreme.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Or something.
(Cue the wank gesture and the insouciantly rolled eye.)
