OK. What has that to do with their she-fans tending to dykeness?
Nothing. I am reporting personal experience. I have attended a number of Mystics games. There are, at these games, very vocal contingents of fans that are clearly lesbian. My cite here is me, my own experience.
Some FWIW on thw WNBA and Lesbians
Link #1 in which a Lesbian Mag notes the correaltion and some in the WNBA’s discomfort with it
Link #2 in which (avoding a deabte say top 3) WNBA’s top 3 star Cheryl Swoops comes out and says a. “But the talk about the WNBA being full of lesbians is not true. I mean, there are as many straight women in the league as there are gay. it is widely believed the WNBA is full of lesbians” and b. “*The WNBA is well aware of the support they get from the gay and lesbian community.” *
I don’t know if Sheryl misspoke here, but if there are indeed “as many straight women in the league as there are gay,” that’s a WHOLE LOT of gay women. I mean, 50%?
A statement made so boldly certainly has statistics behind it.
Cite? Please clarify for use what the relative numbers are.
You are wise and prudent to question the absurd assertion that the women’s professional gold has a substantial cohort of gay participants. My web of lies is strewn in tatters at my feet.
Personal experience: there’s a lesbian bar here in town that I frequent from time to time, and there is ALWAYS a ton of WNBA promotional material there. Schedules, mini-posters, flyers, etc. Funny that I always see it there, but don’t often see it in…say…Lady Foot Locker. I think the heads of the LPGA and WNBA know what side their bread is buttered on, and are savvy enough to court the lesbian crowd while still maintaining a mainstream image.
[struggles to think of way to base obscene pun on the above]
I’ll get back to you.
It’s usually spelled backwards.
It’s perfectly valid to question an assertion for which zero evidence has been presented. All I keep hearing is that there’s an unusual number of lesbians in the LPGA because, well, everyone is supposed to know it’s true. Let’s see the evidence.
The Dinah Shore tournament being one of the top destinations for lesbians is not even slightly probative?
Or do you question that as well?
You should know by now that it’s going to be circumstantial, inferential, and hearsay at best. It *has * to be. Marketing, right?
Women’s sports ratings, and therefore income, depend on the cheesecake factor. Most viewers are both straight and male (and I do hope you’re not going to demand a cite for that), pro sports market to that demographic, and there’s no getting around the importance of idle sexual fantasizing to them (well, us). Why the hell do you think beach volleyball players wear bikinis? But knowing the hot-looking chick plays for the other team in more ways than one strongly interferes with that, ya know. Best just not talk about it if it’s true. It’s bad for business. They’ve already fully penetrated the lesbian market ( 
), so there’s nothing to gain financially anyway except perhaps by a few stars whose positions in the sport are secure anyway.
It does? Given the amount of lesbian imagery in porn directed at straight guys (does anybody really require a cite for that), I don’t know that that follows.
Well, the way it works for me (TMI alert) is that the girl-on-girl scenes in porn are because they don’t have a man around to help them, but would jump one if there was. Those scenes work not because they’re lesbians, but the opposite. How’s it work for you, dare I ask?
And what light does that shed on the cheesecake factor in marketing women’s sports to men?
From my experience in college, 20+ years ago, it had more to do with lifestyle. I knew an equal number of lesbian and straight females that played sports. The lesbians were much more likely to be talking about going pro, than the straight women.
The straight women were looking to have careers in which being married with children would be a possibilty. The lifestyle of the professional athlete did not lend well for that. More time on the road than at home. Getting pregnant would definately require extended time off, so having two or three kids would pretty much end a sports career, but not other careers. The straight women didn’t see being a professional athlete as being that desirable. The lesbian women did see it as highly desirable. And the lesbians were more likely to have crushes on other female professional atheletes and were more likely to want to follow in their footsteps. The straight women didn’t follow other female professional atheletes the same way.
I think things are changing now with women knowing they can start having children much later in life, and more girls in sports mean more jobs for women to coach if they want to stay with the sport if they should want to retire and have kids.
Slightly probative at best. But, frankly, by itself, it’s simply not much to go on. A lot of gay men seem to have an inexplicable thing for Barbra Streisand, but Barbra Streisand is not a gay man. Most people who attend NBA games are white, which does not prove that most NBA players are white. Celine Dion’s fans are mostly Americans, which does not prove that Celine Dion is American.
In any case, your own cites pretty clearly note that most of the lesbians who head for the Dinah Shore event don’t seem to actually give a crap about the golf tournament anyway.
Really, if this fact is so obvious, as Tokyo suggests, the evidence should be easily found.
I think we have a winning contestant.
My version of Occam’s Razor says that if there’s a compelling sociological explanation, there’s no reason to posit a biological one without additional supporting evidence.
Nope. I’m not questioning if there is a substantial number. What I’m questions is your assertion that the number is significantly larger than the population at large.
Once again, cite? What is the percentage of lesbians in competitive professional golf? What is the percentage of lesbians in “overall US female occupational population”?
or, in this case, *ask * for specifics.
Totally off topic, but I was just talking with a friend who spent the weekend with a friend who has played and won on the PGA. Over beers he confirmed the “players don’t like Mickelson” talk, but my buddy and I suspect some aspect of that might be jealousy of his success.
Tangentially relevant to this thread, he mentioned a single male pro who was a really nice guy but gay. Admittedly totally unsubstantiated heresay (but heck, the guy does have a girl’s middle name!)