A Heterosexual Education in Sports

The 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup has started without any major glitches (i.e. Al-Qaeda blowing up any stadiums or fan parks). Apart from the lack of fireworks I am also grateful that this tournament has not taken over our regular television schedules as I would be utterly annoyed if I had to miss any episodes of Ugly Betty’s final season, the escapades of the doctors of Grey’s Anatomy or the toils of the ladies on Wisteria Lane. During the last few days I actually watched two soccer matches, an astonishing feat as I am not into sports unless the guys are wearing tights, speedos are topless and/or are on skates. Having briefly infiltrated the domain of the heterosexual man I must say I have received an education, but probably not the one I expected.

When it comes to sports I am your stereotypical queer. I’m not fond it and when it comes down to having to choose between watching sports or a talk show (don’t care which one it is as long as it’s not Dr Phil) I’ll always choose the latter. In the absence of such a choice male gymnastics, figure skating, diving and swimming shall always win over football, soccer and cricket. I am aware that with my sport preferences it’s evident that I don’t like team sports, but in my defense I’d rather have my attention focused on one Greek god, at a time, and rate them individually on my person scorecard on a scale from one (ugly) to ten (oh my god!!!). This clearly is not the same motivation of my heterosexual male counterparts as they become quite irritated when one digresses from the actual game and focus on an individual player and not pointing out his technical skills but biological assets, as for me they are one and the same.
When watching sports it’s always a good idea to learn the "lingo" prior to watching a match. One thing I learned is that the person talking you through the match is called a “Commentator” and NOT the “Narrator”. It was politely pointed out to me that sports games aren’t scripted, hence the difference. This fairy was quite embarrassed and blamed my mistake on being blond, but in actual fact I should have blamed it on being gay. I was also educated on the difference between a foul and a tackle in soccer. “A foul is when the one player hits the other player before hitting the ball and a tackles is when he hits the ball before hitting the other player”. Both sounds painful and is best avoided. Now only if we can replace the word “hitting” with “caressing”, a foul and a tackle would be so much more interesting to watch!
Straight guys also can be quite curios about the teams they support. They will have their principle team whom they’ll fiercely support, but when that team fails or isn’t playing they are quick to pick another one supported with very technical and logical reasoning. I, on the other hand, can make up my mind with the national anthem part prior to the game. As the camera waves past each team I too have a very technical and logical system in place – pick the team that’s hotter and as the game progress and the sweaty hunks of the opposing team attracts my fancy I have no qualms switching sides without the need to explain. Straight guys can also be obsessively invested in their teams and should their team loose they are crushed and depressed for days, even weeks - some will even weep! I suppose it’s the same sense of loss that I felt when Friends and Sex and the City were cancelled.

Sports evoke a lot of passion. I suspect the only other time straight men gets quite as excited is during sex. Sex and sports have quite a lot in common. Both are best when you are not alone - that would be considered a solo race. Both requires physical excursion, some sweat (if you are doing it right), great technique and when you score it’s climactic! But sex like sport can also have a dark side with those nasty injuries, torn muscles and the one thing some straight women knows very well – match fixing (ladies, they don’t always have to know that their game didn’t quite make it to the finishing line, now do they).

Sports really aren’t my thing, but the two soccer matches I watched was quite entertaining. I am not convinced that I would give up my Saturday or Sunday afternoon to take time to voluntarily watch sports, but in the spirit of Africa hosting the first Fifa World Cup I may just sacrifice a couple more hours of my time to ogle and drool over some more soccer matches. After all it’s a selfless act as I am doing it in support of my country and in the spirit of understanding my heterosexual counterparts.
Till next time.

Kathy Griffin - Balls of Steel