12-09-2025, 02:24 PM
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with 15-22 year old straight and gay male athletes in both the United States and the United Kingdom, this book explores how jocks have redefined heterosexuality, and no longer fear being thought gay for behaviors that constrained men of the previous generation.
Quote:I was born a member of Generation X. The prevailing “values” of the 1980s in America had a vast impact on cultural understandings of masculinity and sexuality, and thus a profound impact on my adolescence. Just as I grew to understand what hippies were, they had lost their cultural resonance; the anti- conformist beatniks were beaten by a fervently conservative Reagan- led social ideology. Although I questioned social conservatism, and looked upon organized religion with extreme suspicion, I was not entirely immune from the prevailing conservative culture. I was partially conditioned by it. I grew up believing that communism was wicked, the Soviet Union an evil empire determined to annihilate the United States. I had nightmares of nuclear holocaust, a result of practicing nuclear raid drills in elementary school, and therefore supported the expansion of the United States Armed Forces and our nuclear arsenal. I even wanted to be a jet pilot myself. I blush to recall how, aged 16, I put a sticker for Ronald Reagan to win the presidency on the back of my nine mile per gallon Camaro. By the time I was 17, however, I began to question social conservatism and American hegemony. I began to vocalize my opposition to Christianity’s demonization of all those who did not fit its very narrow caste of privileged characters. My liberal empowerment almost came too late, though. I was a closeted gay teenager during the 1980s; damaged, beaten, sent into a suicidal state over the vehemence of conservative ideology. As a closeted gay teenager, I was victimized—
forever scarred—
by a fanatical revival of fundamentalist Christianity hell-
bent on yet another moral panic: this time against the supposed evils of homosexuality. I maintained strange relationships with my friends at this time, who were also my teammates; liking their companionship but hating