Considering that it was only a few years ago that Ellen felt comfortable “coming out” even in Hollywood, it shoudn’t be too surprising that it’s going to take a lot longer for the same to happen in proffesional sports.
I wouldn’t expect any significant change for the next 25 yrs, to be honest. And who knows how long beyond that.
I’ve got to believe that if this guy had done some straight porn nobody would care. It’s obviously the “homosexual act” that he’s apologizing for and it’s too bad he feels like has to.
I also doubt that his teammates would be so accepting if he had told them that he was gay.
Pro atheletes are a bunch of hypocritical troglodytes when it comes to this issue. Drinking, drugs, steroids, orgies, domestic violence, drunk driving, even murder charges are accepted are forgiven in locker rooms but if you’re a homo you have leprosy.
I’m not entirely sure I really want the answer to this question, but what, exactly, was his “role” in this movie? That is to say, how “active” a participant was he?
You know, used to be, back in the WWII era and before, that entirely hetero men would avail themselves of the, ah, services of gay men when the preferred outlet was unavailable. James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity, was said to enjoy shocking people by relating stories of being on leave in various ports of call and asking, in faux innocence, “What? You never had your cock sucked by a man?” According to legend, this was especially true of servicemen overseas. It was held not to reflect on the “manliness” of the suckee.
Your correspondent hastens to note that he claims no expertise in this regard whatsoever. I’d rather see my grandmother naked than watch two guys get it on. You probably should check with Diogenes on this, he was in the Navy, and all.
Once again, it’s going to take a very brave and supremely talented player to begin to break this down. Someone just like Jackie Robinson when he (re)broke the color barrier.
Someone of the true superstar level who’s established himself as one of the top players in the game could come out of the closet and dare MLB to banish him into exile. If done with an owner of good conscience it could begin to turn the tide.
But don’t hold your breath.
I can’t speak for continental Europe, but in Britain, there are very few openly gay sportmen - at least in sports like football, rugby, cricket, athletics etc. British sports crowds aren’t exactly noted for their tolerance.
On the other hand, the revelation that any particular figure skater or gymnast might be gay would most likely draw a “Well, duh!” from the average punter, and as for women’s sport, it’s generally held that lesbianism’s rife all through the tennis circuit and probably football too, and it’s more or less impossible to throw a bucket of water over a women’s rugby scrum without getting a lesbian wet. But it doesn’t attract anything like the same hostility so far as I’ve seen.
Womanizing, Drugs, Steroids, Adultery, Spouse Abuse, Corked Bats, Brawls.
What’s one more scandal in professional sports?
Well at least he didn’t bet on baseball
Live and let live. Someday we’ll be at the point where sexual orientation is no more a barrier than skin pigmentation.
I once saw an Oprah show about brave gay people who have overcome the homophobia that used to control their lives.
It was appalling to me because the whole point of the show was ‘Look how brave we are!’ rather than ‘Look how f*cked up our society is when people can be made so miserable because of their orientation!’
Anyhoo, one of the guests was a former NFL player who was gay but didn’t come out until after he retired. Again, it was the whole “I’m so strong for coming through this trial,” not “There’s something wrong with a culture (American, NFL, whatever) that forces people to live such miserable closeted lives if they want to be successful.” They interviewed other NFLers who confirmed, yes, they would have beat the snot out of him if they’d known he was gay when they had been in the locker room together, haw haw, well, that’s the way things are.
It really upset me. I had to chalk it up to another example of ‘how those in the real world aren’t nearly as nice as people in my world.’ Really, on this board (and IRL for me, fortunately) we all tend to agree that people really shouldn’t be treated like shit because of their sexual orientation, but this doesn’t seem to have permeated the world that Oprah, for example, inhabits, and if Oprah hasn’t got it yet I certainly wouldn’t expect professional sports to.
I have read interviews with MLBers (I think the most recent was Bobby Valentine, but I have no cite right now. It was during the Mike Piazza affair) where they say that if a player were gay, there’d be no issue for most of the players. I would like to think that this is true, but I am then reminded of the horrible treatment Jim Bouton received when he wrote a book about his years playing where he mentioned that some of the players would make out with each other on the buses. (Foul Ball? Ball Four? Good lord, one of those anyway!) He was pretty much shunned. However, the book was more trashy than anything and also this was several decades ago. It wasn’t simply about homosexuality in baseball, and Bouton himself is straight.
I would like to think that it would be tolerated and perhaps even accepted in the sport, but I also wonder if it makes a difference who it is. A big star who is already established vs. a nobody. Do you think that would matter?
Ian Roberts played Rugby League not “Rugby” (which is Rugby Union the game of last year’s World Cup. League is a more physically demanding game without the rucks, mauls and interminable stoppages. Roberts immediate acceptance on revealing his sexuality stemmed in part from the fact that he was one of the most ruthless defenders in the game.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. 
It’s funny you should say that because out of curiosity, I went to check what had been said on Japanese MB about the topic, and one comment that came up often was that TDN (Tadano’s nickname) is in trouble because there is a lot of homophobia in America.
Although it’s true that here, there’s a lot of expectation, institutionally, about your social behaviour. Scandalous revelations are definitely likely to get you screwed - figuratively speaking, of course.
I was stupid enough to click on one of the links in the threads mentioned above. I’ve seen way more of TDN than I would’ve cared to.
Wishful thinking.
The NFL player was likely Esera Tuaolo. If you google him up you will get a lot of articles about being gay in the NFL. He was closeted for his pro career.
I think the public’s going to forgive Tadano, at least as long as on the field he only tries to adjust his own package.
For God’s sake man, if players start appearing in porn, how will fans tell them from the cheerleaders?!? 
I find it interesting that, with a couple of exceptions, the discussion on this so-called controversy, both here and in the general media, has skewed heavily towards the question “Which sports professionals might have been gay?” and away from the question “Which sports professionals have appeared in hardcore pornography?”
I mean, we can all think of fallen idols on hard times who are only a drug relapse away from making a cameo in “I Swallow Fifty-Two,” and who’s going to blink an eye?
Seriously: Have there been any? Does anybody really know, even?
It’s the double-standard that irks me. I don’t think the guy’s gay (but I could be wrong), but I do think he’s apologizing for the gay aspect of the encounter. Do you think for one minute that if Anna Kournikova dropped trou for the cameras that anyone would be complaining? Fat fucking chance. I also think if this guy did it on camera with a woman, no one would think much about it.
Just a second, there, Cervaise. Hold everything. You mean to tell me those guys get paid!?
How come my vocational guidance counselor never mentioned this?
Well, it’s never too late. Perhaps you can petition for some “retraining” dollars if you can claim your job was shipped overseas.