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HIGH GEAR

OCTOBER 1976

SPARTA REVISITED

Are you sure they're just wrestling?

Don't Lilly!

By Leon Stevens

One need not be an expert on Kinsey's statistics to be aware that an incredibly large percentage of people is predominately or significantly homosexual. We are only too familiar with a complex and largely subconscious network of signals which informs us daily that many people we see or meet are "gay as a coot!" Similarly, we know instinctively where such people are ikely to accumulate when they cannot yet freely accept their homosexuality. One of the most prominent of these loci is, of course, the college locker room.

Athletics is a powerful magnet for closeted gays because a) athletics diametrically defies the stereotype that gays are nonathletic. Consequently, the more athletic one appears to be, the less likely it is that people will presume he is "queer," and b) the playing field, the shower and. the locker room are still the most vivid lawful and inexpensive pornography.

sources

not

Assuming intuitively that a goodly number of amateur athletes are predominately gay, we helplessly, if compulsively, specul exactly who among a given group of athletic hobbyists is, in fact, homosexual.

In a locker-room environment, many closets easily give themselves away. One's eyes are the most disloyal informants. If a man consistently gazes at

another man's genitalia, it does not preside his heterosexuality. A man might merely be comparing his development with those of others or ro *ing himself as to who

himself

is adequately "hung." However when a man consistently admires other men's buttocks, we can be relatively certain that he is a clc.

unner."

Ironically, most men-gazers are careful to insure that their subject is unaware of their prolonged stolen glances; but they are careless as to who else is watching them. Obvious signs of homosexu....ty on the part of

assumes a series of sensuous but t gh poses, involving subtle pelvic thrusts, extraneous undulations of muscle, deliberate graceful application and removal of soap froth, and skillful, not-too-intimidating swaggering. 2) A tendency to travel in an unnecessarily wide orbit about the shower, occasionally returning to the surrogate maternal warmth of the stream of H2O (Thus, a helpful hint to remember is a smelly athlete is surely straight). 3) Contrived interaction including the presentation of gifts such as shampoo or

conversation for the sake of interaction is crucial.

4) Eye-contact, a standard feature of common cruising, to be sure. All the same, it is interesting to notice how the stylized methodology of civilized bar cruising finds its evolutionary origin in primitive closet-to-closet cruising. Among primates, direct eye-contact is perceived as threatening behavior. In our age of intricate and precise communication, however, other sophisticated means of threatening are used and eyecontact has been recycled as a

more

The playing field, the shower and the locker room are still the most vivid, lawful and inexpensive sources of pornography.

a closet do not indicate he is on the verge of coming out. They reveally that he is recording Isive collection of graphic imagery for use in masturbatory fantasies.

e trajectory is not the only measure of sexual orientation. Closet cruisers spend incredible periods of time under a nozzle. A man who continuously spends multiple shower-worths of time bathing, is clearly checking out shower traffic. Besides sheer duration, he may have an entire repertoire of mating signals. These include, 1) macho ballet, in which the dancer

fragments of soap to handsome have-nots, or requesting the

same.

Artifical or ritual conversation is an important part of closet cruising. Highly repetitious or redundant discussions of, for example, distances run or swum and petty injuries or innocuous techniques are frequently entertained, and honored with elaborate imagination. An entire semester course or even a science can be created from a topic as isolated as "the defogging of swimming goggles." The content of the dialogues is unimportant, but

excesses and

So

sexual signal. Of course, eyecontact still evokes at least mild instructive "threatening" or "threatened" responses, but we dismiss this as vague macho accessories. (I once met a man following a ceremony of mutual occular interplay. spontaneous and effective was our visual parlay that we quickly and smoothly arranged a sexual encounter. As it turned out, my wordless interlocuter was married foreign student with a limited command of English, only one previous homosexual experience, and no exposure to the gay scene. We agreed that

a

our slightly protracted glances had said everything.)

As many of us know only too well, cruising a closet can be a frustrating and confusing endeavor. Although many closets publicize an abundance of sexual signals, few are prepared to follow them through. For example, a closet might venture to remark that he is playing basketball at 9:00 Friday evening because "the women on campus don't know how to have a good time." The cruiser might then contribute he "has a better time with men too." The closet senses the logical progression of the conversation, panics and interjects that he wishes he could find a "girl" like the one he "dated in high school." This statement alienates the cruiser. The closet, realizing his mistake, seeks an opportunity to be overly intimate with the cruiser who then concludes there's hope after all and reciprocates with an equal gesture of familiarity. The closet gives in to terror and again estranges the cruiser.

and

Before I came out, I met Jeff at a local university swimming pool. We soon became friends roommates. One evening, while watching a televised auction, Jeff asked me if I "wanted to go down." I bleached white with horror and whispered, "What do you mean by that?" He qualified, "Go down to the station and see the CONTINUED

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