Same sex relationships

Voice of Reason said:
I believe in modern parlance it's called 'virtue signalling' ....

Anyone with a brain doesn't give two hoots what your orientation is nowadays.

Gay, straight, bi ... if you're any good at football you'll do OK.
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Just not true: there are numerous members of the British Parliament and the Lords who are openly condemning of same sex relationships, have opposed and voted against same sex marriage and equal rights, and some British politicians (not in parliament though) who have stated homosexuality should be re-criminalised.

The Pope still regards same sex relationships as a sin although has ducked away recently from them being regarded as criminal, however in certain catholic dominated countries part of the EU there are political parties who campaign on removing specifically gay rights and have a significant vote base. Islamic leaders in the UK have often come out and stated that homosexuality should be criminalised and practitioners be put to death.

Suella Braverman a tier 1 minister has consistently voted against gay rights legislation and is rather concerningly excited about sending refugees to a country where those of a non-heterosexual persuasion are specifically targeted for prosecution (even though it is nominally not illegal) or worse.

The very lovely and not bigoted at all Nigel Farage, has backed Anne Widecombe who is another who has in the past stated that same sex relationships should be criminalised, gay conversion therapy is legitimate and Farage has also stated that those who hold anti-gay views be given equal consideration, but obviously he won’t come out and say that he holds those views himself, although he has been quoted off record making derogatory comments.

The US is significantly worse and getting worse.

The fact that there is only one openly gay male professional footballer and that it was such a big issue when he came out, tells us that it’s still a problem for many.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
Just not true: there are numerous members of the British Parliament and the Lords who are openly condemning of same sex relationships, have opposed and voted against same sex marriage and equal rights, and some British politicians (not in parliament though) who have stated homosexuality should be re-criminalised.

The Pope still regards same sex relationships as a sin although has ducked away recently from them being regarded as criminal, however in certain catholic dominated countries part of the EU there are political parties who campaign on removing specifically gay rights and have a significant vote base. Islamic leaders in the UK have often come out and stated that homosexuality should be criminalised and practitioners be put to death.

Suella Braverman a tier 1 minister has consistently voted against gay rights legislation and is rather concerningly excited about sending refugees to a country where those of a non-heterosexual persuasion are specifically targeted for prosecution (even though it is nominally not illegal) or worse.

The very lovely and not bigoted at all Nigel Farage, has backed Anne Widecombe who is another who has in the past stated that same sex relationships should be criminalised, gay conversion therapy is legitimate and Farage has also stated that those who hold anti-gay views be given equal consideration, but obviously he won’t come out and say that he holds those views himself, although he has been quoted off record making derogatory comments.

The US is significantly worse and getting worse.
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I thought we were talking about football? The OP was.
 
Voice of Reason said:
I thought we were talking about football? The OP was.
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somebody made the comment, anyone with a brain doesn't give two hoots what your orientation is nowadays, supposedly intelligent people in positions of leadership and power are consistently campaigning and voting against against gay people.

Why are there more openly gay players in the women's game - could be a myriad of reasons including the different viewership, you don't get the football violence either - to edit - the players in the women's game don't seem to be overly reluctant to give each other a bit of a kicking though.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Yes so what does it matter if they are gay or straight

I couldn't tell you what England Women players are gay or straight as I couldn't care less and I watch a lot of Women's football with my daughter
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It might not matter to you.

Other people exist.
 
Ollygon said:
As I've been watching the Women's World Cup, I've googled quite a few of the players.

It comes as no surprise that quite a few of them are in same sex relationships.

...and yet we still have just Jake Daniels and one or two others in the men's game.

When will ALL football supporters be grown up enough to accept gay footballers? I don't think it matters to the younger generation, its just those of a certain age.
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Who said that most people aren't?
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Why because Gary Fcuking Neville said so?
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Are you asserting that a male player coming out would not result in a backlash against that player?

If so, is that assertion based on anything other than the fact that you, Phil, don't give a shit?
 
bleach51 said:
Oh dear….what you mean is Men think that.
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Not at all. The massive majority of professional male footballers will be heterosexual based upon the global population of men.

What makes you think different? Nothing to do with what men think.

From what we know about the ladies game it seems a lot of the girls are in same sex relationships. Nothing to say about that other than that is what it is.

Are you saying I'm wrong in pointing this out in relation to the OP?
 
Ollygon said:
As I've been watching the Women's World Cup, I've googled quite a few of the players.

It comes as no surprise that quite a few of them are in same sex relationships.

...and yet we still have just Jake Daniels and one or two others in the men's game.

When will ALL football supporters be grown up enough to accept gay footballers? I don't think it matters to the younger generation, its just those of a certain age.
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Well I am probably what you would call " a certain age " at 68 and don't give a toss whether they are in same sex relationships or in one with their local stray dog. Who cares ? and it's up to them. It's nothing to do with age, and everything to do with the individual !
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Yeah I get that I just don't see why there is this fascination of always knowing other people's business

When I was 16 I worked in men's fashion and I was in a minority of being straight in the company I worked for. It didn't matter one jot to me or my co workers

And we certainly didn't tell our customers
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Yeah I've got to be honest mate when I saw you in the shop for the first time I did think there might be a touch of the Larry Grayson about you😁
 
There are a lot of gay women footballers as I would say there is a section of gay ladies into more active/stronger activities. I don't think there are loads of male top footballers not coming out. No doubt there will be some. Similarly I would imagine there are lots of gay men at the top of other professions like dancing or hair stylists. Things they are interested in more than a lot of males.
A lot of male cheerleaders and dancers could be gay, it doesn't mean there are loads of female cheerleaders that won't come out.
There again I did see a movie where the whole cast was female cheer leaders and they were very intimate...
 
Macseasider said:
Not at all. The massive majority of professional male footballers will be heterosexual based upon the global population of men.

What makes you think different? Nothing to do with what men think.

From what we know about the ladies game it seems a lot of the girls are in same sex relationships. Nothing to say about that other than that is what it is.

Are you saying I'm wrong in pointing this out in relation to the OP?
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Based on the population, there'd be an openly gay player in every team. There isn't.
 
Wizaard said:
Based on the population, there'd be an openly gay player in every team. There isn't.
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I'm not sure that's a particularly accurate statement to be honest. I think you'd have to look much deeper into the specifics in order to understand how the distribution of homosexual men might be expected to relate to a sport like football. For example, you might want to factor in other considerations to establish whether Gay Men differ (in general distribution terms) from Straight Men from a physical perspective or an 'interest' perspective.... It's entirely possible for example that a higher proportion of Gay Men might just not be interested in Football than Straight men... It might be possible that a higher proportion of Straight Men are more physically aligned with playing football...

To some extent, the opposite seems to be true in Women's Football and so similarly there may well be other reasons or shared similarities (that sit within the context of sexuality) that come into play.

I don't want this to be received as some kind of attempt to 'stereotype' because that's not my intention at all. Obviously there are Gay Men who play football... It's more a case of trying to understand whether or not Gay Men / Straight Men might broadly share other characteristics which might impact on the distribution in certain areas.
 
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BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I'm not sure that's a particularly accurate statement to be honest. I think you'd have to look much deeper into the specifics in order to understand how the distribution of homosexual men might be expected to relate to a sport like football. For example, you might want to factor in other considerations to establish whether Gay Men differ (in general distribution terms) from Straight Men from a physical perspective or an 'interest' perspective.... It's entirely possible for example that a higher proportion of Gay Men might just not be interested in Football than Straight men... It might be possible that a higher proportion of Straight Men are more physically aligned with playing football...
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Latest surveys suggest 3% of people register as gay, I would say that increases to about 5% who are bi (my gay mate says over half the guys on these 'hook up' sites who contact him have a wife).
So let's say about 1 in 20. A squad generally including youth and fringe etc has 30 players in. Now I 100% get of those 30 there may be none that are gay - totally accept that. However multiply that 30 by 92 and that is 2,320 players in England (not including non-league etc).
5% of that gives you 116. I just cannot believe that statistically that none of those are gay.
 
I think it's great, athletic, sexy lipstick lesbos that I took a liking to in mayfair & penthouse.
Far better than those butch, scary dykes holding hands down dickson road.
There, I've nicely played the non filter generation card 😉
 
HatfulofHollow said:
Latest surveys suggest 3% of people register as gay, I would say that increases to about 5% who are bi (my gay mate says over half the guys on these 'hook up' sites who contact him have a wife).
So let's say about 1 in 20. A squad generally including youth and fringe etc has 30 players in. Now I 100% get of those 30 there may be none that are gay - totally accept that. However multiply that 30 by 92 and that is 2,320 players in England (not including non-league etc).
5% of that gives you 116. I just cannot believe that statistically that none of those are gay.
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There’s a lot of information in there…

Firstly, I think Gay men have a tendency to over-exaggerate the number of relationships they have with ‘straight’ or married men, secondly some Gay Men do marry females and thirdly I think it’s possible to experiment with sexuality without the need to conform to existing stereotypes.

Secondly (as I alluded to in my previous post) you are making assumptions within the context of your ‘calculations’ that gay men and straight men share exactly the same characteristics (in every respect) … I don’t see that as being the case … We know that there are certain jobs, interests where Gay Men might be over-represented, so it also stands to reason that there would also be other areas where they might be underrepresented.

We know that there are some gay men who play football, because they’ve ‘come out’, but we can’t just assume that number would be representative of society at large… in fact I would be extremely surprised if it were.
 
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BFC_BFC_BFC said:
There’s a lot of information in there…

Firstly, I think Gay men have a tendency to over-exaggerate the number of relationships they have with ‘straight’ or married men, secondly some Gay Men do marry females and thirdly I think it’s possible to experiment with sexuality without the need to conform to existing stereotypes.

Secondly (as I alluded to in my previous post) you are making assumptions within the context of your ‘calculations’ that gay men and straight men share exactly the same characteristics (in every respect) … I don’t see that as being the case … We know that there are certain jobs, interests where Gay Men might be over-represented, so it also stands to reason that there would also be other areas where they might be underrepresented.

We know that there are some gay men who play football, because they’ve ‘come out’, but we can’t just assume that number would be representative of society at large… in fact I would be extremely surprised if it were.
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So to paraphrase, without resorting to stereotypes at all, that gay men don't like or play football 😉
 
Wizaard said:
So to paraphrase, without resorting to stereotypes at all, that gay men don't like or play football 😉
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No… I think it’s important to be very accurate with the wording. So I’d be more inclined to say that I think it likely that a higher percentage of gay men might not make a career in professional football (when compared to straight men) for a whole variety of reasons.

I think the over-representation of lesbian women in football, together with the over-representation of gay men in other careers lends credence to that perspective.

I’m not sure it’s something we need to get too hung up about.
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I'm not sure that's a particularly accurate statement to be honest. I think you'd have to look much deeper into the specifics in order to understand how the distribution of homosexual men might be expected to relate to a sport like football. For example, you might want to factor in other considerations to establish whether Gay Men differ (in general distribution terms) from Straight Men from a physical perspective or an 'interest' perspective.... It's entirely possible for example that a higher proportion of Gay Men might just not be interested in Football than Straight men... It might be possible that a higher proportion of Straight Men are more physically aligned with playing football...

To some extent, the opposite seems to be true in Women's Football and so similarly there may well be other reasons or shared similarities (that sit within the context of sexuality) that come into play.

I don't want this to be received as some kind of attempt to 'stereotype' because that's not my intention at all. Obviously there are Gay Men who play football... It's more a case of trying to understand whether or not Gay Men / Straight Men might broadly share other characteristics which might impact on the distribution in certain areas.
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I wouldn't argue with a word of that but I would have been banned for posting the same.
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I'm not sure that's a particularly accurate statement to be honest. I think you'd have to look much deeper into the specifics in order to understand how the distribution of homosexual men might be expected to relate to a sport like football. For example, you might want to factor in other considerations to establish whether Gay Men differ (in general distribution terms) from Straight Men from a physical perspective or an 'interest' perspective.... It's entirely possible for example that a higher proportion of Gay Men might just not be interested in Football than Straight men... It might be possible that a higher proportion of Straight Men are more physically aligned with playing football...

To some extent, the opposite seems to be true in Women's Football and so similarly there may well be other reasons or shared similarities (that sit within the context of sexuality) that come into play.

I don't want this to be received as some kind of attempt to 'stereotype' because that's not my intention at all. Obviously there are Gay Men who play football... It's more a case of trying to understand whether or not Gay Men / Straight Men might broadly share other characteristics which might impact on the distribution in certain areas.
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From my experience (as a gay man who knows quite a lot of other gay men), we are far less likely to enjoy football than the average straight man. In fact, most of my gay friends either have no interest whatsoever in football or they hate it (especially the culture surrounding it). So I think you are right from that perspective (although I would add that it's nothing to do with physicality at all.)

However I think the point of @HatfulofHollow's "fag-packet" (pardon the pun) calculation still stands. Even if the 116 "expected" number playing in the FL is way off, you would have to say that at least 10 or 20 would be a near statistical certainty. We're at 1, I think? Probably a reasonable indication that there are a few gay guys playing league football who would deem it a risk to their career and/or mental health to be open about it.

I do get the sense that things are changing for the better, though.
 
stigmaniac said:
From my experience (as a gay man who knows quite a lot of other gay men), we are far less likely to enjoy football than the average straight man. In fact, most of my gay friends either have no interest whatsoever in football or they hate it (especially the culture surrounding it). So I think you are right from that perspective (although I would add that it's nothing to do with physicality at all.)

However I think the point of @HatfulofHollow's "fag-packet" (pardon the pun) calculation still stands. Even if the 116 "expected" number playing in the FL is way off, you would have to say that at least 10 or 20 would be a near statistical certainty. We're at 1, I think? Probably a reasonable indication that there are a few gay guys playing league football who would deem it a risk to their career and/or mental health to be open about it.

I do get the sense that things are changing for the better, though.
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I was drawing on my own personal experience and so I’m not surprised to hear that you support the lack of interest ‘factor’.

I hate to say it, but my personal experience (and I’m talking small sample size here) is that the Gay Men I’ve known weren’t particularly good at football either. (Hence why I referenced the physical aspect)…. There’s obviously a range of factors there that could have come into play…

I have certainly seen studies (and it’s important to point out we are talking about the average here and there will always be exceptions), but in certain Motor Skills tests, Lesbians would ‘on average’ outperform heterosexual women and heterosexual males would typically outperform homosexual males…. So I do think you’d also expect certain physical factors to play a part too.

Of course all of that put aside, I tend to agree with you that there would very likely be more than one or two Gay Men in a sport of many thousands of men… I just think we have to be careful about making too many ‘sure fire’ assumptions.
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I was drawing on my own personal experience and so I’m not surprised to hear that you support the lack of interest ‘factor’.

I hate to say it, but my personal experience (and I’m talking small sample size here) is that the Gay Men I’ve known weren’t particularly good at football either. (Hence why I referenced the physical aspect)…. There’s obviously a range of factors there that could have come into play…

I have certainly seen studies (and it’s important to point out we are talking about the average here and there will always be exceptions), but in certain Motor Skills tests, Lesbians would ‘on average’ outperform heterosexual women and heterosexual males would typically outperform homosexual males…. So I do think you’d also expect certain physical factors to play a part too.

Of course all of that put aside, I tend to agree with you that there would very likely be more than one or two Gay Men in a sport of many thousands of men… I just think we have to be careful about making too many ‘sure fire’ assumptions.
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I'm not aware of any such studies, instead I'd point to the example of Thomas Hitzlsperger, who came out after retiring from a career with the likes of Aston Villa and Everton and won 50 caps for Germany. His nickname was 'Der Hammer' due to the ferocity of his shooting, not much wrong with his 'motor skills'!
 
Ollygon said:
As I've been watching the Women's World Cup, I've googled quite a few of the players.

It comes as no surprise that quite a few of them are in same sex relationships.

...and yet we still have just Jake Daniels and one or two others in the men's game.

When will ALL football supporters be grown up enough to accept gay footballers? I don't think it matters to the younger generation, its just those of a certain age.
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Maybe there's just not as many gay male footballers as female. Pretty bizarre post anyway. Females playing football was always a bit of a tom boy thing to do so I'd expect a higher percentage of females playing football to be gay. I'm guessing if you looked at the stats for gay male netball players they'd be higher than in football
 
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Chaddy Tangerine said:
I'm not aware of any such studies, instead I'd point to the example of Thomas Hitzlsperger, who came out after retiring from a career with the likes of Aston Villa and Everton and won 50 caps for Germany. His nickname was 'Der Hammer' due to the ferocity of his shooting, not much wrong with his 'motor skills'!
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Firstly, I’ve cited a couple of studies at the end of my post, these are widely understood. I’m not sure pointing to individual exceptions is that useful really as they’re inevitable.

I don’t really want to get into a really lengthy discussion. I just made the observation, because people were incorrectly (in my view) assuming that the distribution of gay men in football would be the same as the general population.

I’ve tried to be as clear as possible, so as to keep this rational and factual. And I’ve been At pains to say I’m talking about an average not every individual.

In any group comparison you will have lots of overlap, you’ll have extremes in both cases and then there will be a general distribution.

If we take the difference between women and men, because it’s less contentious… We broadly accept that Men perform far better at Football, Tennis etc etc.. In fact we know Men score higher in terms of spatial awareness, judgement of speed and distance etc.. However, there are still women who are far better than most men.

The differences between the general populations of Gay Men and Heterosexual Men is likely to be less pronounced still.. however the general distribution will still show a distinct result.

So when you combine that factor, along with other factors (lack of interest, environment not supportive etc.) what that might mean (for example) is that instead of the expected 3% (based on general population) there might only be 0.5% or 1% in football.

If you wanted to look at it a different way, you might say there’s likely to be a higher percentage of Gay Men who are effeminate than Straight Men who are effeminate (the opposite with females)… That doesn’t mean there aren’t Straight Men who are effeminate and Gay Men who aren’t extremely masculine…

Citations:

Sanders G, Wright M. Sexual orientation differences in cerebral asymmetry and in the performance of sexually dimorphic cognitive and motor tasks. Arch Sex Behav. 1997 Oct;26(5):463-80. doi: 10.1023/a:1024551704723. PMID: 9343633.


Hall JA, Kimura D. Sexual orientation and performance on sexually dimorphic motor tasks. Arch Sex Behav. 1995 Aug;24(4):395-407. doi: 10.1007/BF01541855. PMID: 7661655.
 
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