Hot and Bothered by World Cup Soccer

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:16:34 -0500

As I did four years ago, I’ve been watching the World Cup with some interest. I’ve grown to love the sport of soccer—the pace, the strategy, the incredible skill of the world’s top players. I’ve also been deriving great pleasure from the erotic spectacle of the men’s bodies. I’ve never been more thankful for slow motion replay as I am when I watch the bodies in motion--the strong legs, the fine asses, and the anguish and ecstasy on the players’ faces while they demonstrate skillful patience and stamina with their lower bodies. Is it hot in here, or is it just me? In case I’m not being clear, what I’m trying to say is that watching the World Cup makes me really—forgive me for TMI—horny. I mean, really horny. I am distracted by sexual desire that lasts well after the matches have ended each day.

On a couple of occasions, men have confronted me about sexually objectifying the players and question whether or not my sexual objectification of the men is any different from men sexually objectifying women. Irin Carmon has written a fantastic blog about this at Jezebel.com, so I don’t want to repeat what she said here. Read it for yourself. She’s spot on, in my opinion, about the politics of women sexually objectifying the players.

What I’m going to write about is how wonderful it is to have a regular visual feast of men’s beautiful bodies and its effect on me. To be frank, in these weeks of the World Cup, I think about sex constantly—sex with the players, sex with my partners, sex in the morning, at noon, and at night. And though I might think about sex more than the average person (it’s my work, after all!), this feels different. And given the way my friends talk about the players, I don’t think it is just me.

I started to wonder what it would be like if my and my friends’ desire was hailed in this way all day every day—you know, what it might be like to be a straight man. Look around. Billboards, beer and car commercials, strip clubs, readily available pornography, women’s fashion; all of it constantly hails heterosexual men’s desire.

When I suggest to others that there should be a Sports Illustrated issue that features hot guys wearing close to nothing, laying prone, and ready for the ravishing, people—especially straight men—say that there is no market for it. Women, they say, just aren’t visual and don’t think about sex as much as men. My experiences watching the soccer hotties sweat and struggle and fall on top of each other made me realize that they’re putting the cart before the horse. It is not because men are more visual or more sexual that we have a visual culture that constantly offers women as sexual objects for men’s pleasure and consumption. Instead, men are more visual and preoccupied by sex because our visual culture is constantly telling them “look very closely, imagine, desire, and feel really good about yourself for doing so.”

Imagine reversing this dynamic. What if billboards, commercials, strip clubs--all of it-- constantly featured scantily clad men who, in one way or another, say to the audience, “I want you to look at me. I want you to desire me. I want you to fuck me, and I want you to feel really, really good about wanting to fuck me.” What if a normal, formative experience for adolescent girls was to sit in their bedrooms with magazines or internet sites and stare at photos or videos of beautiful, naked men, contemplating each part of the splendid, masculine body in various positions so girls think about what it would be like to touch, to pleasure, to have those bodies in a way that would be physically pleasurable but also deeply affirmative of their budding femininities and sexual desires? What if most, if not all girls have this as just a normal part of being a girl and their parents tsk tsk and say, “Well, girls will be girls”?

I’ve listened to women talk about the visual feast of beautiful and desirable men offered up by World Cup Soccer. Trust me when I say that women are perfectly capable of and derive pleasure from visually consuming men’s bodies and that consumption has an impact on their libido. I have no doubt that, if all day every day, visual media served up image after image that hailed women’s sexual desire for men, women would be visual and feel pretty good about sexually objectifying men.

So why don’t visual media serve up men’s bodies to straight women?

Well, first, the vast majority of the people making the decisions about what will “sell” are the same boys who pored over images of naked women. They are so comfortable with and feel entitled to their hetero-masculine desire that they can’t even imagine having another perspective, let alone successfully produce imagery of the desirable, heterosexual, masculine body. When Hugh Heffner says that he came up with the idea of 3-D Playboy because he thought, “What does everyone want to see in 3-D? Naked Women,” there is a fundamental inability to see that “people” does not equal heterosexual men. When I once said to a man that movies would be better if, once in awhile, they showed desirable, naked men in the throws of orgasm (as we do women), his response was, “No one wants to see naked men. Everyone knows women’s bodies are better to look at.” Umm, whom do you mean when you say “no one” and “everyone”?

More importantly though, I think it has something to do with the gender structure of sexual objectification and the role it plays in gender inequality. What I mean by “the gender structure of sexual objectification” is a general pattern where the desiring person is always a man or perceived as masculine and the object of desire is always a woman or perceived as feminine. Camera angles in film, billboards, straight porn; it all situates the viewer as someone desiring a woman’s body. Take a moment and bring to mind all of the images you can recall of a desiring feminine subject in relationship to a masculine sexual object. Take your time, I’m done writing and it’s your time now. My guess is that it took some thinking, and the images you came up with, if you could recall any, were so extraordinary that they stand out in your mind. Now think of the last time you saw an image of a woman’s body that encouraged the audience to think, “She’s hot. I’d like to tap that!” Even during the soccer matches, the camera operators constantly settle on beautiful women in the crowd. Google “world cup images” and see what comes up. What you’ll see are pictures of the cup, of men playing soccer, but also pictures of scantily clad women doing nothing but being sexual objects for the internet viewer.

How is this tied to gender inequality? In Western Culture, subjectivity is the definition of personhood. Persons make all the decisions, have rights and resources, and control objects in their world. Objects are things that are used by person/subjects. In a male dominant social system, the males/men/masculine are person/subjects and the females/women/feminine are the objects to be “known” and controlled. A male dominant gender system can’t afford feminine subjectivity in relation to the masculine sexual object because that fucks with men’s entitlement to personhood and power. In other words, it’s not men’s libido that makes them sexually objectify women. It’s the privilege and power conferred to them through a gender system that systematically portrays women as objects of sexual consumption.

Many feminists have been critical of the sexual objectification of women, and for very good reasons (those outlined above and others). As I’ve said before, one strategy for dealing with the gender structure of sexual objectification is to get rid of images that eroticize women’s bodies. As someone who has thoroughly enjoyed the World Cup precisely because of how fun and pleasurable it is to sexually objectify men’s bodies, I’m more inclined toward democratizing sexual objectification. Instead of getting rid of the visually erotic body, let’s de-gender the relationship between the sexual subject and the sexual object. Let’s produce and enjoy bodies of all genders as visually desirable. Hell, let’s make the whole culture more sexual and visually erotic, but let’s make sure we all can participate in creating and enjoying it.

I think we’re moving in that direction. Have you seen the Vanity Fair issue with photos of men of the World Cup in their panties or the San Francisco Chronicle article that features “Hotties of the World Cup”? I, and most of my friends have, and it just wetted our, um, appetites. Why are we seeing things like this? Because the status of women has changed and women are feeling more entitled to desire (Thank you, Feminism!!). If I’m right about men’s visual desire being a result, not a cause for the constant barrage of images of women as sexual objects, then as the status of women changes, the visual images that express and hail their desire will follow, and maybe, just maybe, everyone will be horny and happy all day every day.

Alas, Vanity Fair and “Hotties of the World Cup” are almost aberrations in the sea of sexually objectified women. So much more must change before adolescent girls are spending time in their rooms with images of naked men or I drive by a billboard for a strip club on Bourbon Street that features beautiful men who will dance just for me so I can imagine fucking them. I’ll keep doing my part to make those changes happen. In the mean time, this sexual subject is going to enjoy the hotties of World Cup soccer, ride the desire with pleasure and feel entitled to it, and look forward to the visual feast of the Tour de France.

America, You Are Getting Screwed.

Mon, 24 May 2010 13:54:35 -0500

Since moving to New Orleans, I have been experiencing the Mississippi Spillway which stretches for hundreds of miles and is Louisiana, as the vulva of the country. At the risk of essentializing “The Vagina”, I feel I must invoke the metaphor to write about this fucking oil catastrophe.

If you’ve never been “here”, let me give you sense of what it feels like.

Moisture is essential; water is life, and it gives birth to culture. Everything from fishing to food to song and dance springs forth from the flow. The fragrant air is intoxicating, but if contaminated, sickening. The Mississippi River is a passageway through which life flows in and out. The marshes and grasslands offer protection and are continuously and painfully stripped away by the hot wax of oil and greed. New Orleans is Louisiana’s clit, the tip and visible erotic pleasure-center where everyone who comes experiences ecstasy while the miles of nerve endings stretch out in every direction giving the entire continent pulses of pleasure and abandon. It is incredibly vulnerable. But that vulnerability is not natural; it’s the result of constant assault—a human made, cultural, material and social assault. It has always been, and even in the face of a “man”-made vulnerability, continues to be defiant, resilient, and oh so politicized.

BP and the rest of the oil industry are the johns and the federal government is the pimp. Federal, state, and local politicians pimp us out to put money and power in their own pockets while, by paying the right price, Big Oil gets to take what it wants and needs. And they-the pimp and the johns, do so with absolutely no regard for the needs or well-being of the body they use. The body—the living environment, including the people—is, however, a breathing entity. And though it appears as if it is just an object to be used, the people know what they are doing. They strike a bargain that, for the moment, benefits themselves but sacrifices the rest. You give me jobs, and I’ll give you whatever you want.

Invoking the vulva as metaphor suggests there is something feminine or female about this place and that masculine or male power is the problem. But don’t let that confuse the issue. This is about class and economics.

Profit for a few has been put ahead of the well-being of the rest of us and now, a global corporation threatens the survival of all who depend on, live in, or breathe the air and drink the waters of the Mississippi Spillway and the Gulf of Mexico. BP, the rest of Big Oil, and the politicians who reap a modicum of power and money from their coffers don’t give a damn about those of us who live here. Some fear you, my dear reader, don’t either. To paraphrase the words of Spud McConnell on local radio station WWL, Louisiana is the poor, ugly cousin of the rest of the country. They don’t give a damn. When the oil hits the Texas and Miami, the rest of the country will take notice.

But there is a part of me who doesn’t believe that. I saw citizens from around the world come to our aid after Hurricane Katrina. I saw the tears of compassion and felt the helping hands of people from every state and many countries. I believe that the people give a damn; the pimp and the johns don’t.

America, the Mississippi Spillway is your body. This is your beautiful, vulnerable, life-giving opening. Don’t let them in. Don’t let them continue to use you. Don’t think this doesn’t affect you. You are being fucked. Now what are you going to do about it?

The New Orleans Saints are Not Your Average NFL Championship Team and We are Not Your Average Fans

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:52:48 -0600

There is something rather queer about the New Orleans Saints. It really hit me when Drew Brees said on the Jay Leno show that his favorite television show is “Glee”.

I had been watching Drew Brees for three seasons and increasingly feeling that he wasn’t like the other cocky, good-looking, star quarterbacks of the NFL. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but for me, it was something about his blue eyes. When the camera comes in close on other quarterbacks, you don’t really see their eyes in the same was you see Drew Brees’s—the intensity and determination, but also something kind and, dare I say, vulnerable? What is that saying about the eyes being the window to the soul?

Midway through this 2009-2010 season, my partner and I started commenting on how Drew Brees seemed to have a different sort of masculinity than other quarterbacks. Sitting on the sofa drinking beer, eating Nachos, and aggressively cheering on the Saints, once in awhile, one of us would say something like, “It seems like he’s actually a nice guy” or “He’s not a show-boater”, or “He’s someone I’d like to hang out with.” On our sofa, in our household, these revelations about a man—a football player, no less, are what you call a ringing endorsement of an alternative masculinity. This sentiment turned into a full-blown crush for both of us when Drew Brees said his favorite television program was “Glee”.

And there’s more. Drew Brees says that coming to play for New Orleans was a “calling”. I can’t help thinking that he identified with New Orleans being knocked down, written off as out, but refusing to give up after Brees himself experienced a potentially career-ending shoulder injury, was written off, and, like New Orleans, refused to give up and came back stronger than ever to prove the naysayers wrong. Drew Brees identifies with, feels compassion for, and wants to take care of a city that had recently been on its knees. Interesting, don’t you think?

After winning the Superbowl and being named the game MVP, Brees took his son into his arms and, with tears in his eyes, kissed him and whispered something into the one-year-old’s ear. When asked what he whispered, Drew Brees simply said, “I just told him that I love him.” Brees also explained that his son was wearing head phones to protect his ears from the crowd noise. The cover of Sports Illustrated featured Drew Brees smiling, tears in his eyes, and holding his son. Not an aggressive, victorious grimace; a warm, loving, unabashedly joyful smile. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this is not exactly the NFL masculinity we’re used to seeing. Could it be a desire to nurture that I see in his eyes and mistook for vulnerability?

But there is so much more to this team than Drew Brees’s eyes, loving relationship with his son, and penchant for musicals that focus on the interpersonal drama of a high school glee club. Saints linebacker, Scott Fujita has stated on more than one occasion that he supports gay and lesbian rights. When was the last time you heard an NFL player come out publicly to support gay and lesbian rights? In the wake of CBS deciding to air the Focus on the Family-Tebow anti-abortion commercial, Fujita also said that he is for abortion rights. You should hear people in New Orleans talk about Fujita. His support of gay, lesbian, and abortion rights doesn’t compromise his masculinity or his appeal; it enhances it.

But New Orleans Saints fans are not your typical football fans. Look at the crowd at any home game. Its diversity in terms of age, race, and gender makes it different from other home game crowds. Only in the Superdome during a Saints home game will you see men of all ages and races in costume (real costumes —not just the war paint of team colors), elderly, African American women who have season tickets and always come to the game together as a group, lawyers and CEO’s in suits, academics in NFL jerseys, and children of all genders--all coming together as one to cheer on a football team. Saints fans talk openly and with pride about crying when they lose and when they win. A couple of days before the Superbowl, there was a buzz about the magical number 44 (The Superbowl is 4 years and 4 months after Hurricane Katrina, the Saints won the NFC Championship 4 minutes and 44 seconds into overtime, Obama is the 44th president, and so on). Rather than being the hard, statistical, fact-flexing badge of “real” fandom in pro sports, Saints fans were talking about numbers in this Superbowl as mystic and magical. And who can forget that one of the largest celebrations of the Saints was the "Buddy and Bobby's Brawd's Bunch-of-Men Dress March". Thousands of men donned dresses, heels, wigs, and make-up to honor Buddy Diliberto and celebrate the Saints first trip to the Superbowl. As I watched the men parade down the street, it struck me that they weren’t mocking femininity in the way men usually do when they dress as women, say, for Halloween. They were football fans—Saints fans who costume on a regular basis, sure. But NFL football fans that also happened to be wearing dresses. We use French spelling to queer words and express city pride, for godsake! Geaux Saints!

If you’re not yet convinced that there is something rather queer about the New Orleans Saints, look at how the players and coaches frame their success. Noam Chomsky has talked about America’s obsession with football as training in irrational jingoism. According to Chomsky, team sports teach a population to blindly follow authority and support the violent annihilation of the enemy or “Other”. I never heard any of the Saints players, or fans for that matter, talk about annihilating the enemy or the other team. It has always been about lifting up New Orleans and showing the world that the people of New Orleans are resilient. From the beginning of the season to the post-Superbowl interviews, all of the players and coaches consistently talked about “doing it for the city and people of New Orleans”. It’s as if the team were supporting the fans rather than the other way around. Not Generals and soldiers leading a militaristic assault on another city, the New Orleans Saints were framing their season and Superbowl in terms of healing and nurturing. Indianapolis as the opponent receded into the background because it was never about beating the Colts; it was about healing and nurturing the city and people of New Orleans.

And therein lies the difference between this team and all those that have come before and those that will come after. The Saints’ geographical and cultural home is the city of New Orleans. New Orleans, the American home of Mardi Gras --a city-wide, two week celebration of turning convention on its head. Where costuming is de regueur and voodoo is as present in everyday life as any other religion. Where the pleasures of the flesh like food, drink, and sex are ritualized and raised to a spiritual calling. Where contradiction is not only tolerated; it’s expected and celebrated. In the words of poet Chuck Perkins, New Orleans is

…where former slaves pay homage to the first Americans by masking in suits of rhine stones and bright colored feathers  that transform security guards into Indian Chiefs doing rain dances on Congo Square where the drums drum and the wine drink and the big chief sing somebody give me a quarter cause pretty big chief want some water

if you can envision the souls of yesterday living in the music that rises from the cracks in the sidewalks New Orleans is your dream With a heart as soft  As the spanish moss Dripping from centuries old oak trees…
(Chuck Perkins, “New Orleans”)

You see, New Orleans is not your typical American city, so it’s no surprise that the New Orleans Saints are not your typical football team and Saints fans are not your typical football fans. In New Orleans, the feminine is not something to be rejected—it’s not the abject other; it’s the way we do things. We marvel at the “pretty” Big Chief as much as the physical dominance of our defensive line. We’re resilient in the face of adversity, playful, and love to dress-up. We live in our bodies and in the here and now rather than by the clock and abstract notions of success. We see relationships with family and community as more important than money or power. We are willing to help each other and are not ashamed to receive help when we need it.

The Saints players and coaches live here; they get it. It’s obvious to me that the soul of New Orleans flows through their veins in the way they talk about the city, the fans, and what it means to them to be Superbowl champs. It’s about being nurturing through victory, using skill to support and build up rather than tear down and dominate. It’s about doing a decidedly masculine thing in a rather feminine way. It’s football in drag. You can’t get more queer than that!

I grew up in Chicago and in a family that treated team sports like a religion. I learned well that there was no place for femininity, sympathy for an opponent or losing home team, or playfulness when it came to team sports, especially football. The Chicago Bears were serious, masculine, jingoistic business and I was as good at and enthusiastic as the next person about embodying Bears Fan. Watching sports, especially football, has always been one of the places where my masculinity struts its stuff.

My sports fan masculinity is different in New Orleans. In New Orleans, my football masculinity can finally be dolled up in the feminine drag performance it has always been craving. Where else can a woman wear false eyelashes, a tutu, gold sequined bra and panties, and a Drew Brees jersey while talking with men at the table about Shockey’s last catch and forward motion, Bush’s ability to return a kickoff, and Drew Brees’s eyes, and, when the Saints’ defensive line blitzes, yell “Get him!” with as much virility, conviction, and enthusiasm as any Bears fan and not get a second look?

New Orleans. That’s where.

New Orleans. The home of the World Champion New Orleans Saints.

New Orleans...the place where I, a queer, feminist, football fan, is finally home and cheering for the home team.

Geaux Saints!

Vive New Orleans.

Rhino: The Male Equivalent to Cougar?

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:24:41 -0600

In one of my first blogs, I ruminated on the label “cougar”. A cougar is an older woman who unapologetically fucks younger men. As I indicated in that blog, I have no problem with older women (me, for instance) getting it on with significantly younger men (to protect the innocence of youth, let’s say, hypothetically of course, Jake Gyllenhaal) and, as I discussed in that blog, there is something deliciously transgressive about the gender and power fuck of such couplings. I wrote that there was not a specific or derogatory term for older men hitting on younger women. Perhaps that was true when I wrote that blog, but it is true no longer. We now have the term “rhino”. According to the urban dictionary, ‘rhino’ is now the term used to refer to older men who hit on younger women. Why ‘rhino’? Because these men are, according to these websites, “usually both horny and ugly”.

When I first heard this term, I have to admit that a part of me smiled with glee at the idea of older men who hit on younger women as horny and ugly and therefore ridiculous. It didn’t help that I had just wrestled with the mental gymnastics of dealing with a partner’s romp with a significantly younger woman.

I wanted to find out more, so I Googled “rhino”. While there were many websites that included photos and lots of interesting information about rhinoceroses, there was nothing on horny, ugly, older men. So then I Googled, “cougars and rhinos”. Voila!! Jackpot! Several recent posts about the new term “rhino” popped like magic onto my screen.

Suddenly, my gleeful grin dissolved into a frown of disappointment. This coupling of the rhino and cougar was entirely too pervasive. Every single site, without exception, included something about “rhino” being the male version of the “cougar”. I knew something was up, put on my thinking cap, and thought about the emergence of this “male version” of a derogatory term used to contain the potential gender and power fuck of confident older gals riding young stallions into submission.

In an article I wrote and that was published in a sociological journal called “Theory and Society”, I argued that current gender arrangements depend on images, rituals, customs, and rules that establish masculinity and femininity as complement/opposites so the masculine part as situated as superior to or dominant over the feminine part. Masculine Sexual Subject/Feminine Sexual Object. Masculine Assertiveness/Feminine Compliance. Masculine Protection/Feminine Vulnerability. You get the picture.

As I argued in the article, these ideas are not so much a reflection of how we are. Instead, they’re a symbolic blueprint for how we should be and how we should view and set up the social world. When women engage in behaviors that are supposed to be reserved for men, there are ready and handy labels to get her back in line or get everyone else to shun her. The woman who acts on her own sexual desire—slut. The woman who is too aggressive—bitch. The woman who desires the feminine sexual object—dyke. The label “cougar”, I think, is a version of this. I called these “pariah femininities” because they are behaviors or characteristics that, when embodied by women, are perceived as contaminating to normal social relations. They are a refusal by women to play the feminine, inferior complement to men and they go against the blue print that situates men as having sole access to masculinity as superior and dominant.

In the article, I also talked about male femininities (borrowing from Judith Halberstam’s idea of female masculinities). When men embody characteristics or behaviors that fall on the feminine (and inferior) side of the masculine/feminine equation, they too are ostracized. The man who is compliant? Wimp or pussy. The man who wants to be the sexual object, especially to men’s desire? Faggot.

But ‘rhino’? How does Rhino, as a negative term reserved for men who are doing precisely what men are supposed to do, fit into this picture? It’s neither a male femininity nor a pariah femininity. It’s not feminine at all.

I have an idea.

Perhaps ‘rhino’ emerges as a façade of gender equality when really nothing has changed. We all know that older, especially rich dudes wooing beautiful young women are not perceived by anyone as ridiculous—when they succeed, they got what everybody wants. Sort of like the caricature of the monocled upperclass asshole; that upper class asshole still has all the money. Classic example of taking something that is potentially subversive, giving it a masculine counter-part that is in no way counter-hegemonic, and saying “See?! Gender equality!” Sort of like the “male slut”.

It’s interesting, and I don’t think a coincidence, that the explanation for the label ‘rhino’ is because they’re ‘horny and ugly’. Putting aside the question of whether or not rhinoceroses are horny (what?), this reasoning still situates the older man as the masculine sexual subject—he’s horny. For what is he horny? The younger, feminine, sexual object. He might be ugly, but he is still a man. Doesn’t much reflect or encourage any real change.

So what about being ‘ugly’? If a man has enough money or status, it doesn’t matter if he is ugly (have you seen some of our elected officials who are getting the ladies or those “hot” rock stars?). Money and status give even ugly men power and the right (duty?) to be the masculine sexual subject and get the hot, young, girls. Again, what is presented as the “male counterpart” to a pariah femininity is a façade of equality that keeps the gender dynamics of sexual subjectivity and sexual objectification neatly in place.

I’ll be curious to watch and see if this label ‘rhino’ catches on, and if it does, what sort of meaning it will take on and how it will be used. Will we start to see ‘rhino’ porn sites where ugly, older men are displayed and fucked as “different” from normal sexual objects? Will we see a television series called “Rhinoville” where ugly older men are rendered completely ridiculous and obsessed with women? My guess is no. No because those images would fuck with the blue print that guarantees masculine privilege and status. As I argue in the Theory & Society article, any stereotype or derogatory label is tolerable as long as the “normal” (heterosexual, white, middle class) guys get to keep all the goodies. You know, just like the “male slut”.

In the end, I wouldn’t want to see rhino porn sites or a television show that makes older men seem ridiculous. I don’t want that sort of gender “equality”. Real gender transformation will happen when we don’t put age or class or gender constraints on who can take pleasure in being the sexual subject, the sexual object, the top or the bottom. Let’s not strive for (or smile with glee at) equal degradation. Let’s come up with a new blueprint; new rules, rituals, customs and images that acknowledge and facilitate the erotic potential for playing with power rather than defining ourselves by it.

Tiger Woods Polyqueer?

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 17:30:45 -0600

US Weekly is reporting that Rachel Uchitel, one of the women claiming to have had an affair with Tiger Woods has email messages from Tiger revealing a fantasy of catching her in a threesome with Derek Jeter and TV actor David Boreanaz. As Susie Bright notes in her blog, there is not only a masochistic, but also a homoerotic component to men fantasizing about catching or watching other men fuck their partners.

There is absolutely no question in my mind that the desire to watch other men get it on with a woman partner is a queer desire, but I want to suggest that it might not always necessarily be homoerotic or masochistic. It can be, and perhaps often is about homoeroticism and masochism, but I think there are other possibilities and fantasizing about or being turned on by watching your partner willingly and enthusiastically get fucked by a couple of hot men could be something else altogether.

That Tiger Woods chose the specific men (Jeter and Boreanaz) in his fantasy and that it was a threesome involving two men tells me that it’s not just about the girl (Duh!). It’s not a stretch to presume that Tiger might have some desire to see Jeter and Boreanaz in an erotic exchange together, but it is not just about the boys either. As Susie Bright reports, many men who have this fantasy say that the presence of the woman partner is a key part of the turn-on. The presence of a woman and at least two men makes the exchange a threesome with plenty of hetero action but also with a world of homo possibilities. That it is a fantasy or interaction involving a partner suggests that there are probably some really interesting identifications going on. What if the big turn-on is the multiplicity of identification? What if a man doesn’t just identify with the men (homoerotic) or as the person walking in and feeling humiliated (cuckold)? What if he is turned on by the movement and genderfuck of multiple and fluid identifications—with a woman getting fucked, with the men’s desire for the woman, with the person watching men’s bodies, with the person watching a sexy woman, with a person getting it on with desirable men, and/or with the men fucking a desirable woman? Rather queer if you ask me.

What goes unsaid in many discussions of the watching-my-partner-get-fucked scenario, and I think obfuscates the potential for queer, is the erasure of desire for plurality. Might Tiger’s fantasy be less about masochism and/or homoerotic desire and more about the sizzling mixture of multiple desires and identifications that comes with non-dyadic sex? Perhaps Tiger has a thing for threesomes or group sex in addition to or more so than a desire for other men, his mistress, being the cuckhold, or cheating on his own wife.

And here’s another thought: Perhaps Rachel Uchitel has expressed to Tiger a desire for threesomes with two men—famous men (for she seems to have a penchant for famous men). Perhaps boy-on-boy is her thing and Tiger was simply giving her what she wants when he wrote the fantasy. I have gotten more than a few email messages, texts, or in-person stories from my partners that include a lot of boy-on-boy-on-girl threesome action. Sometimes these were gifts to me, not necessarily a reflection of my partners’ true desires or sexual experiences. Tiger’s email might have been about pleasing Rachel Uchitel as much or more so than an expression of Tiger’s fantasy life. Or, even better, it could be that desire for plurality (specifically with Jeter and/or Boreanaz?) is one of the things that Tiger and Rachel Uchitel share and is a staple in their erotic life together.

Once we entertain the possibilities that 1) people can desire and seek something other than dyadic sex, 2) sexual desires and identifications don’t fit into neat and tidy categories of homo or hetero, and 3) boy-on-boy-on-girl can be an erotic staple for straight girls, straight boys, and couples of all genders and sexualities, a world of possibilities opens for fantasy and desire and for what might have been going on with the email Tiger Woods sent to Rachel Uchitel.

Of course, none of us will probably ever know what was going on between Tiger Woods and Rachel Uchitel because we, as a culture, don’t talk about straight men (especially athletes) and their queer desires.

On any given day, you can find me thinking and fantasizing about the erotic dynamics and possibilities of boy-on-boy-on-girl desire and sexual relationships (see my fiction page), but today, I am having a fantasy about some hot one-on-one action involving Tiger Woods and Barbara Walters. It goes something like this: Tiger Woods tells all in an interview with Barbara Walters--that he loves fucking women, often fantasizes about men, finds the idea of a threesome with a woman and another man a huge turn-on, and that he is not gay or straight. “Barbara,” he says with tears in his eyes, “I’m polyqueer.” Barbara looks on with compassion, pauses, and says, “What the fuck arw you talking about, Tigew?!”

At least it would get the discussion going…