If you don't like sports, you're gay!
So say more than a few people. Forget the gay angle. I'm simply repeating what a lot of people say about those of us guys (mostly straight, by the way) who have no interest in sports.
Here's a good example of what I'm talking about:
http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=552379
And now I'm going to engage in a shameful act 
; namely, quoting from my previous DU post (which was submitted in another topic in another board). 
. . .
Look at these guys.
[img][/img]
[img][/img]
They're both gay.
surprise, surprise
They're not the only ones.
I'll probably end up regretting that I ever posted this, but who cares? I'm an oddball, anyway.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I didn't begin to understand my teenage years until just a few years ago, specifically what was going on in my life as I drifted along listlessly. I was withdrawn and depressed.
I must have been born without a sports fan gene. What's hilarious is that by the time I was a high-school freshman, I actually felt ashamed for not participating in something (sports, that is) that I wasn't even interested in.
At the same time, I apparently suffered a form of psychological deprivation for not being physically active. (I should have been raised on a farm instead of in an affluent suburb! 
) When I started working with a personal trainer at a local health club on a bodybuilding program, I felt as if I had found a piece of my life that had been missing for decades. Bodybuilding is a great way to build self-confidence in sedentary boys who have no interest in sports. I would have benefited from it greatly when I was young.
Last edited Wed Sep 4, 2013, 07:44 AM - Edit history (2)
. . . is a valuable trait for kids (and adults) to possess. Developing self-confidence goes hand in hand with that trait. If a kid is burdened with a sense of inferiority, he will have a difficult time not worrying about what others think.
My religious views are not the same as yours, but that doesn't matter in the realm of interpersonal relationships. At least it shouldn't. I don't go around thinking I'm superior to those who don't happen to share my beliefs. I've made plenty of mistakes in my own life; so, why should I look down on others for simply disagreeing with me? In fact, there are perfectly understandable reasons why they believe what they believe. That's where empathy comes in. I can disagree with the beliefs of some people and still treat them the way I'd want them to treat me. I also recognize that someone whose religious views differ from my own may have strengths that are far greater than mine. Dr. Sakharov, who (unless I'm mistaken) was an atheist, is a hero of mine. I never could have done what he did. I probably would have been content to remain silent and not antagonize the authorities serving a totalitarian regime. He was quite an honorable man.
As far as more power to cool, funny, smart people who like sports, they get all the power they want and then some. We live in a society that is dominated by the culture of school sports. I have no problem with decent fans. But I do have a problem with fans who don't believe that individual school athletes should be held accountable for the way they treat others away from the game. A good example is Steubenville, where a cover-up was well under way and would have succeeded had it not been for Anonymous. I was stunned that there was even a guilty verdict at the trial. I could give more examples, but this post is going to be too long as it is. Of course, the rapists among school athletes are a relative few; but they're often able to get away with it. I've also wondered how many high-school football coaches are morally opposed to any of their players bullying other students at their schools. Machismo has no problem with bullying. In fact, it promotes it.
I get sick and tired of the insinuation that boys who chose to not participate in sports miss out on a great deal and are somehow deficient. Whatever became of respecting the preferences of others? (Well, in this case, it was never there!) Because the popular culture of our society is virtually saturated with sports, boys who have no interest in sports are likely to be marginalized (sometimes by their own parents!) and even bullied. Who speaks up for those kids? Next to no one!
And what has mandatory phys ed always been about, historically speaking? Yes, today there are some decent P.E. programs around such as PE4LIfe, which I happen to support; but the old P.E. is still around in some school districts. There are still boys' P.E. coaches who demand that all boys participate in team sports -- including those who are physically weak or scrawny, those who are fat, and those who simply have no interest in sports. Precisely those who are likely to be bullied. In fact, historically speaking, P.E. has been a bully's paradise; but how many of the coaches have ever been opposed to the bullying that goes on? Honestly, I have to laugh whenever I hear talk that sports are socially inclusive. Just take a look at traditional mandatory P.E. classes and see the way nonathletic boys are treated. It doesn't look very inclusive to me, to put it mildly. Even some DU members (who happen to be sports fans, by the way) support the "old P.E." while showing no interest in innovative reforms. They have no problem with this sort of bullying. To the contrary, they seem to endorse it.
I've not been dwelling on my childhood ever since I last had to set foot in a school gym. The issue was actually at the back of my mind for decades until my first physical trainer at the local health club inadvertently showed me that the P.E. coaches had provided no instruction whatsoever as to how to throw a football or a baseball, how to toss a basketball, etc., etc. So, for example, if a boy didn't know how to throw a baseball properly (which, after all, is a skill, not a natural ability) because he was never taught how, he was still said to "throw like a girl," with the insinuation that he was one of them homos. (By the way, you wouldn't believe the radical difference between my boyhood mandatory P.E. experience and my currently ongoing very positive health club experience. Completely different social dynamics. Most physical educators should hang their heads in shame!) My older daughter had a calculus teacher like that during her senior year in high school. She actually did no teaching in the class, but expected the students to teach themselves! Fortunately, my wife (the mother of our daughter) had taught high-school math classes, including calculus, for about ten years; so, she was able to fill in for the "teacher," who was FIRED at the end of the academic year for not doing the job she was supposed to do. That is precisely the way mandatory P.E. was "taught." But mandatory P.E. was different somehow; so, this nonsense was overlooked and tolerated. The coaches had no use or sympathy for the nonathletic boys, anyway. They viewed these boys with contempt or indifference. At least this was my personal experience. But I've heard the same sad story from other nonathletic guys over the years.
The only justification for a mandatory P.E. class is to encourage students to be physically active and to become physically fit. The traditional approach to mandatory P.E. fails completely with regard to the students who are the most in need. Did I get any exercise in my P.E. classes? Are you kidding? No, I didn't! (I get more exercise in a single workout session with my personal trainer than I ever did in an entire year of mandatory sports-exclusive boys' P.E.) The great tragedy about traditional mandatory P.E. is that sedentary boys could have been helped a great deal. As a man now in his early 60s, I've gained more self-confidence since I took up bodybuilding. I would have benefited greatly from this self-confidence when I was a teenager. Bodybuilding and other exercise programs, as opposed to mandatory sports, could have been a great blessing to sedentary boys. But the sports culture didn't care about them. At best the nonathletes were the nonpersons in their world. Having a winning football or basketball team was far more important. The nonathletes were just losers, nerds, geeks, wimps, sissies, fags, "feminized males," etc, etc., and were undeserving of any consideration. All that the sedentary boys ever learned was that supposed physical exercise was associated exclusively with team sports and that an intolerant form of machismo was very much a part of the culture. Well, a guy can develop his physique or attain high levels of physical fitness without participating in a sport. In fact, a demanding exercise program is far more efficient! Whenever I hear people blather about how much we need mandatory P.E. but offer no support for programs that actually help the nonathletic kids, I sneer with derision. (Again, many of these very same people have absolutely no problem with bullying in the schools. In fact, they condone it!)
Again, I have no problem with sports fans, as long as they don't impose their preference upon others. The problem is that more than a few of them don't respect those who happen to not share their preference. You may not believe this, but I have never looked down on any guy for participating in a sport. But respect is a two-way street.
My mother once told my best friend's mother that sometimes I talked too much. 
. . . I have run 9 races so far this season and I have won medals 6 out of 9 times. 1 bronze, 4 silver, 1 gold. I'll be running 3 more races before the season ends here.
Congratulations! That's really great!
I would challenge any of these armchair athletes who say if you don't like sports, you're gay to come on over and lets have a race. Just to make it easier on them let's just run to the end of the block. If they beat me they can make any derogatory slur they feel like making. If I win, and I probably will, they keep their yap shut!
Yeah, I'd love to see that!
I had a brief period in the early 90s where my hanging out in Bars with (what were then known as) Big-Screen TVs coincided with a particularly impressive several years of playing by the Chicago Bulls--- during that time, I admit, I was paying some attn. to Basketball.
But other than that, it's never held much appeal for me.
Still, I do not in any way consider myself "superior" to those who like it. 
Last edited Thu Sep 5, 2013, 07:53 AM - Edit history (3)
We all have our own preferences. Each guy should respect the other's preference.
for those of us who like sports, we get to put up with the holier than thou, nose stuck firmly in the air types who think watching sports is beneath them and a sign of the degradation of society or something...
I have never had this bad attitude in my life. I've never felt superior to any school athlete I ever encountered as I was growing up. Not even the jerks. Sports have always been a part of the mosaic of human expression. (How do you like that for a trite statement?) They will always be around, just like the fine arts. I respect the effort and self-discipline that is involved in developing athletic skill, which to me is comparable to all the dedication that is necessary for one to become a concert pianist. I would not be interested in attending a piano concert anymore than I would a sporting event such as a football game, but that wouldn't mean I don't respect the efforts of the participants in both events. Lack of interest does not imply lack of respect.
I will say, though, that the types you speak of hardly have any power over others (except, perhaps, in a college classroom or an online forum where it's easy to be rude and personally attack others). The sports crowd, on the other hand, seem to have a great deal of power for obvious reasons. Picture, if you will, in your mind the situation of a scrawny or fat nonathletic boy in a mandatory boys' P.E. class that is centered around sports to the complete exclusion of exercise programs for the nonathletic kids. He has no power at all. Every school day he dreads the approach of the period when he will have P.E. He likely will be subjected to humiliation and bullying, and nobody will care.
As I said, I've never had this attitude in my life. But I was subjected to ridiculous stereotyping. For example: In the mid-1960s when I was an eighth-grader, my parents sent me to a clinical psychologist because I was being bullied (verbally) at school and my grades had fallen. The psychologist -- who, unfortunately, turned out to be abysmally incompetent -- decided in his infinite wisdom that I should take judo lessons. He sent me to a dojo that was run by a former university football player. He was the embodiment of machismo. The coldest man I've ever known. I learned what machismo was before I even heard the word. I always felt like an outsider in his dojo; and when he promoted me to brown belt (a promotion I clearly did not deserve), I felt like he was patronizing me as that scrawny nonathlete in his class. By the time I was a junior in high school, I decided this nonsense had gone on long enough and quit, expecting an angry protest from him but hearing none.
I looked him up eight years later. He expressed certain peculiar views of his own that explained a lot. First, he claimed that he had saved me from homosexuality! You see, he stereotyped me. Since I was physically weak, had no interest in sports, didn't stand up to bullies (because they all were physically stronger than I was), surely I must have homosexual tendencies. You know the old line. I supposedly was some kind of sissy, whatever that is. He also said that only athletes and men in certain blue-collar vocations were "real men." He even denigrated Dr. Sakharov, claiming that he really wasn't all that courageous because he had the support of the "international media." (Say what?) And even though he was an instructor in the marital arts, he had no problem with bullying! He said the guy who's bullied by his boss can always kick the family dog when he gets home from work. What a noble philosophy! (For whatever it's worth, this guy happens to be a Republican.)
It's not so hard to understand why I detest machismo with every fiber of my being. I respect the true masculinity that was manifested by Sakharov and Wallenberg, when they sought to help the oppressed. Those men in this country who spoke out against Jim Crow during the 1950s and early 1960s were cut from the same cloth, as far as I'm concerned. I dare say machismo has no respect for such men.
I hate to say this, but machismo seems to be so common among athletes and coaches. Just to give another example (and I could give others), just a few years ago a childhood friend of mine who had played on his high school's football team informed me that most of his teammates had considered all the nonathletic guys at their school to be inferior. (This childhood friend of mine wasn't playing the "sour grapes" routine. He's still a big football fan today.) Another friend of mine who played on the same team recently told me that he never saw a more insecure group of guys in his life. He said they were constantly "proving" their masculinity over and over again, usually at the expense of guys who weren't athletes.
I realize there are exceptions to this. For example, trumad and several other DU members I know of who have decidedly athletic backgrounds clearly reject machismo. They are men I admire. I honor them. I wish I had known someone like trumad when I was in high school.
I'm firmly convinced that there has been a social animus against nonathletic boys for generations going back to the Thirteen Colonies. You know, bookish men are supposed to be effete, blah blah blah. I suggest you read The Feminized Male, which was written by a New York City sociology professor named Patricia Cayo Sexton (who passed away last year). She rails against nonathletic boys and men, whom she deems to be "feminized," and makes some of the most absurd statements I've ever heard. The book is seething with hatred. (Hey, she detested nonathletic academic men; so, why in the world did she choose to become a Professor?!
) She was on the political left, but this diatribe reads like it was written by Ann Coulter or Phylis Schlafly. It reads like racist or anti-Semitic hate literature, except the targets are nonathletic guys. If you don't believe me, read it for yourself.
As a heterosexual, I don't know whether being gay makes one predisposed to disliking sports anyway. Sounds rather unlikely...and it hasn't been my experience .
It's a dumb claim that historically has been made by those seeking to demean gays with negative stereotypes. There are more gay athletes than we realize. Some stay in the closet. Incidentally, several years ago I once came across an interesting blog at a particular gay website -- outsports, I believe (if I remember the name correctly). Just as there are sports fans on one side and sports haters and critics of the culture on the other side among straight guys, the same rift exists to the same degree among gays, apparently.
End of this rant, an incredibly long post.
Peace.
As another DU member once told me in a PM, the problem with exchanges in forums such as this one is that many people don't always express themselves well. Sometimes when I've submitted a lengthy post, I may look at it in a day or two and spot a single sentence or two; and I'll say to myself, "That's not exactly what I meant." When I said "the human side," I meant the dark side. I misspoke on the money angle. Making money wouldn't necessarily be the only motivation behind a media outlet. Another motivation I didn't mention would be to turn as many people as possible into sports fans. Such a motivation would preclude dealing with the dark side of school sports.
I will admit I don't seek out every sports program to watch. I've never heard of the shows you've just mentioned; so, you may have something there. I've based my impressions of the sports media on selected sports columnists in newspapers. For example, I've noticed that none of the sports columnists in The Houston Chronicle, which serves this country's fourth largest city and outlying communities, have said a word about the Steubenvile scandal, not even after the guilty verdict. The sort of bias I just alluded to certainly is not restricted to these sports columnists I just mentioned. For example, in the news media Poppy Harlow and Candy Crowley expressed sympathy for the convicted rapists.
I've had certain misgivings about the Internet. It has been a boon to pedophiles and other predators, has made porn accessible to young children, and has given birth to a new form of bullying (cyber bullying). One of my own obsessions has been mandatory boys' P.E. As I indicated in my first long post (unless I'm mistaken), when I first started working with a personal trainer at my health club, I inadvertently was made aware of how deficient the mandatory P.E. of my schooling days had been. In addition to asking other middle-aged nonathletic guys about their own P.E. experiences, I made many Google searches for the same purpose. Yes, I know people can lie on the Internet; but surely not every statement made online is a lie. To put it briefly, the picture that emerges of mandatory boys' P.E. is that historically it was centered around sports to the complete exclusion of any exercise programs, which is what the sedentary boys needed most of all. The professed claim that the purpose of mandatory P.E. was to promote physical fitness was a complete lie. I certainly never got any exercise, and I never even heard the words "exercise program." In fact, I didn't even learn what an exercise program was until after I had finished with P.E. in junior high school.
The real purpose of mandatory P.E. was to promote sports, as if that were even necessary! Sports are so immensely popular that they don't need to be forced upon anyone. I mean, there are plenty of volunteers. Sports can be promoted without making the lives of nonathletic kids miserable, as has been the case with mandatory P.E. for generations.
By means of reading online posts and messages and actually personally contacting guys by e-mail or phone, I've learned that some nonathletic guys had an even worse time than I did. Some of the bullying has been horrendous. Some of it has been physical bullying that amounts to assault. I seriously doubt anyone in the sports media has dealt with the issue of the bullying of nonathletic boys in sports-centered mandatory P.E. To be fair, I guess I should say that neither would the rest of the media.
I have felt bitter about this because some kids were hurt very badly, and for no good reason. I repeat, no exercise programs were provided for the nonathletes. They were forced to take a class that was completely useless to them. I know what works and what doesn't work for nonathletic boys because I have experienced both in my life. I never cease to be amazed at the radical difference between the mandatory P.E. experience of my youth and my current health club experience. Completely different social dynamics. I could have used the self-confidence I've gained from bodybuilding as man in his early 60s when I was a teenager, a time in my life when I had no self-confidence. But the physical education establishment, which was solely a creation of the sports crowd, cared absolutely nothing about the very real needs of nonathletic boys, whom they regarded as nonpersons or worse. I do appreciate the handful of reformers of recent years who recognized that nonathletic students were being kicked in the teeth and came up with decent programs that actually promoted physical fitness instead of bullying. I greatly admire the late Coach Phil Lawler (who created the wonderful PE4Life program and Coach Tim McCord (who just retired about two years ago). As for P.E. coaches who subscribe to the traditional approach and demand that all boys be forced to participate in team sports in mandatory P.E. (an arrangement that is always prone to bullying, including physical stuff), I have absolutely no respect for them because of their lack of compassion. Talk about imposing your personal preference upon others!
For generations horrendous bullying in P.E. classes was largely ignored, and all in the name of sports. But thanks to the Internet, the nonathletic guys have been given forums in which they can speak out instead of being ignored, as they always were before. Just do a Google search of this website on "phys ed bullying," "p.e. bullying," and "jock bullies" and see what you come up with. Some of your fellow DU members are painfully aware of what I'm talking about. No, this issue doesn't rank up with the latest issues in the news, such as whether the U.S. should intervene in Syria. But this issue was never discussed anywhere. I find it extremely difficult to believe that it was ever discussed in the sports media. In fact, Rick Reilly, for example, has been a strident defender of dodgeball, a game that clearly was designed for bullies. Another one I hadn't heard of was "smear the queer." Sounds quite progressive, doesn't it? I wonder what Scott Fujita would think of it.
If I sound bitter, so be it. But my bitterness is justified. If you don't like it, I'm sorry about that.
I could go on, but why bother? If I devoted more time to composing my posts, I'd come up with better prose. Some of it could be cleaned up so it would read better; but I don't have the time. I devote the bulk of my revising efforts to a novella I've been writing for a hobby.
In the scheme of things my opinion doesn't matter. Critics of the negative aspect of the culture of school sports (Notice I don't say "all sports." are so way outnumbered that they are comparatively smaller than a flea on the back of a whale.
You and I would get along quite well in real life, I'm sure. Forums emphasize differences and don't reveal the complete person.
Regarding Real Sports: Unfortunately, I and my wife no longer subscribe to a cable service; but I believe what you say about the program. I did a site search at the ESPN "Outside the Lines" webpage on "steubenville," among other items. They have had up-to-date reporting on that incident, including an article that points out the rape victim continues to undergo persecution to this very day. (Any comment about that, Poppy Harlow?) Excellent (the investigative reporting, that is).
Thanks, again.
Grew up in New England so I think it's in my genes.
I don't think it's weird one way or another...to each his own, and never considered someone gay for not liking sports.
Our son played baseball for several seasons and didn't really like it...no biggie when he quit.
He would rather be drawing some cool, weird stuff and playing Minecraft....normal imo. He doesn't watch sports with us....no interest
I can't believe I'm admitting this because most of you that "know" me know I am not easily offended, but I hate commercials that portray women as being pissed at their husbands/boyfriends for watching sports...it's like seriously...as a woman I'm not supposed to like sports or be mad at my husband for watching a fucking football game?
Hope I didn't dig my own grave...I did get a kick out of the comment about the guy that doesn't like sports but watches porn.
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What, why are you looking at me like that?
Just wanted to add:
The funniest part is this is what an actual gay professional wrestler looks like:
And this is that the straight wrestlers look like
Enjoyment of sporting events, or lack thereof, doesn't make you any more or less of a 'man'. I'm sure there are plenty of straight individuals that couldn't be bothered with professional or amature sporting events and plenty members of the LGBT community that route for their favorite team every Sunday, or whatever day depending on the sport.
