Frankly, I don't want lesbians in my locker room either.

In the 2.75 minute audio segment you will hear part of the Chris Culliver interview with Artie Lang and you will also hear a clip from KQED’s 01/31/2013 Forum episode where the topic was Homophobia In Sports with guest Patrick Burke. WHERE I AM NAKED AND RELAXED So let us say that I had a 20-something perfect body of an athlete rather than the 42-year-old out-of-shape body I have now. If I was naked in the woman’s locker room at my gym and a male cardio instructor happened to walk in that I knew was gay, I wouldn’t bother covering up. Nothing about my nudity would be inviting as he knows that I know he is not aroused by the female form. Nothing about his gaze upon me would be threatening as I know he is not looking at me in an objectifying way. And even in the body I have now I would not cover up as I know he would not be looking at me in a judgmental way thinking about how much my body does not arouse him. Me being naked in front of a gay man is as safe and non-tension-filled as me being naked in front of straight women.
There are women who are members at my gym that I know are lesbians and there are women who are members that I perceive to be lesbian. They pay their dues and they have every right to use the locker room just like me. There is nothing I can do about this “mixed” locker room situation and no one has ever disrespected me in the locker room so I just keep on minding my own business like they mind theirs. But that doesn’t mean it does not bother me that the locker room, because it is open to straight women and lesbian women alike, is a place that is not free from the weight of the gaze of desire. By gaze of desire I don’t just mean being looked at as an object of lust. I also mean being looked at and being judged for not being lust inspiring. But how much it bothers me or not is irrelevant. Until I make enough money to have my own private gym I’ve got to share the locker room with other dues paying females, gay or straight. And I’ve got to do it in a civilized manner. Chris Culliver was representing his employer, the 49ers, when he gave the interview with Artie Lang in which he expressed how unwelcome a homosexual player would be on the 49er team. As such he should have known that his employer is actively involved in the It Gets Better campaign and he should have been cautious about saying anything that did not toe the corporate line. Chris seemed to be saying that football was no place for an openly gay man. I can understand those who have a negative reaction to Chris’s words. If someone is a gifted, dedicated and talented player, which gender they lust after should not be an obstacle that keeps them from playing professionally. But some of the criticism I’m hearing for Chris’s sentiments seem to be criticisms of the fact that he has any negative feelings whatsoever about being in a locker room with gay men. I just don’t see what is wrong with expressing the sentiment that one would like the sports locker room, where one is frequently in various modes of undress, to be a room in which one never has to think about being looked at in a lustful way or being looked at and being judged as not lust worthy.
WHO OWNS WHICH WORDS Patrick Berk, creator of the group You Can Play (http://bit.ly/TshiES) was on KQED’s Forum earlier this week when a young person called in saying that he felt it was okay to use derogatory slurs as long as he was not in the presence of his friends and relatives who are LGBT. The hypocrisy and inaccuracy of Berk’s comments are nearly comical. First the hypocrisy. While admonishing the young man that it is never okay to use the hurtful homophobic slur “fag” just to make your friends laugh, Berk has no trouble insulting all of Christendom by using the name of their deity as an epithet right at the end of his admonishment. The inaccuracy is in Berk’s comments about how words are used. In fact, the word Nier does have two meanings. It can be a term of brotherhood (“I stand by my niers/ I would die for my niers”) and it can be a word used to describe someone the speaker is categorizing as less than human. The word Bih is used against women who the speaker feels are behaving outside the speaker’s notions of femininity and it is also used by gay men as a term of endearment.
I think intent plays a huge role in how words are received and I’m weary of word police who don’t account of the code shifting that goes on as speakers move from one social group to the next. My church is 40% LGBT with the majority of the LGBT congregants being over 50. I would never use the word Bih in front of them because I mostly see them at church and I would not use the word at church. But if it is pride month in my home town and I am bar hopping with my younger gay male friends and I say something outlandish and the response is “Bih please!”, I’m going to laugh, I’m not going to take offense and try to “educate”. #ChrisCulliver #ArtieLang #KQED #Homophobia #superbowl2013 #49ers #PatrickBurke #YouCanPlay #Superbowl #LGBT #Football #Sports #ItGetsBetter @KQED_Forum Adreana Langston at Google+ : gplus.to/AdreanaInLongBeach Shortlink to this article: http://bit.ly/Xz8wCS