Jimmy Saville

Slightly different world from acting or singing but I did read an interesting article the other day about the lack of "outed" footballers.  Whether or not such a revelation would help or hinder a sportsperson's career, you can sort of understand why they might want to keep it to themselves, not least because it's not relevant, but simply to avoid all the bloody hassle and taunting from terrace morons.

Even in a slightly less testosterone-fuelled environment (a sales company predominantly staffed by young blokes) I used to work with a fella who was gay, which he never spoke openly about, but the amount of innuendo and nudge-nudge, wink-wink that went on around it was ridiculous.  Quite pathetic really.

I can see the "not wanting something made public" thing being relevant, but there were posts after FB's original comment which seemed to imply that "having something to hide" made someone a bit suspicious somehow.  Probably just me being oversensitive, but no-one had seemed to bat an eyelid.  Maybe my hormones are making me see things that aren't there.

Personally, I couldn't care less about someone's sexuality (although I did fancy someone rotten in school and was very disappointed when I found out he was gay, but that's slightly different) and I do think that if they are famous for something else (e.g. being a sportsman) and don't openly lie, then it's their business.

As for Katie Price - any right to any privacy has long gone..................

AllNew wrote (see)

skotty - yes unfortunately. There a lot of ignorant folk out there. We took the in-laws to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the musical, last year. As you would imagine, in the audience there were a large number of gay men. My F-i-L made me sit on one side of him, and MrAN on the other, because he didn't want to sit next to a gay man. He was convinced they would make a pass at him. I did point out that he wasn't likely to be their type, but he wouldn't be swayed, I suspect he believes all gay men are uncontrollable sex pests. Alternatively, he might believe that he is sexually irrisistable to all of woman born (which knowing his arrogance about most things is a possibility).

Beware Of The Fish wrote (see)

AllNew wrote (see)

skotty - yes unfortunately. There a lot of ignorant folk out there. We took the in-laws to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the musical, last year. As you would imagine, in the audience there were a large number of gay men. My F-i-L made me sit on one side of him, and MrAN on the other, because he didn't want to sit next to a gay man. He was convinced they would make a pass at him. I did point out that he wasn't likely to be their type, but he wouldn't be swayed, I suspect he believes all gay men are uncontrollable sex pests. Alternatively, he might believe that he is sexually irrisistable to all of woman born (which knowing his arrogance about most things is a possibility).

I think some straight men are frightened because they assume that gay men think of them the same way they do about women.

i think you're spot on

i was going to say "nailed it" - decided to reconsider

Beware Of The Fish wrote (see)

AllNew wrote (see)

skotty - yes unfortunately. There a lot of ignorant folk out there. We took the in-laws to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the musical, last year. As you would imagine, in the audience there were a large number of gay men. My F-i-L made me sit on one side of him, and MrAN on the other, because he didn't want to sit next to a gay man. He was convinced they would make a pass at him. I did point out that he wasn't likely to be their type, but he wouldn't be swayed, I suspect he believes all gay men are uncontrollable sex pests. Alternatively, he might believe that he is sexually irrisistable to all of woman born (which knowing his arrogance about most things is a possibility).

I think some straight men are frightened because they assume that gay men think of them the same way they do about women.

Even if they did, it wouldn't mean that they'd act on it.  My ex wouldn't go into a bar which was rumoured to be a gay bar in case he got touched up/sexually attacked.  I've been in lots of bars where there are straight men, and never found that I was anything more than chatted up on occasion. 

Of the gay men I know, none of them would make advances on another man unless they were sure they were also gay - mainly to avoid offence, or worse, a beating.

Beware Of The Fish wrote (see)

I think some straight men are frightened because they assume that gay men think of them the same way they do about women.

By that logic, women should feel uneasy when I walk into a bar, since if I fancy one of them I might decide to assault them.  There is definitely this sense of something being sordid, because it's not the norm.  The Catholic church like drawing parallels between gays and paedos, which is quite ironic really.

...Anyway, Jimmy Savile - he never did fix it for me to be Spiderman.  I mean, how cheap and easy would that have been?  I crawl along a picture of a building and they turn the camera round 90 degrees! 

skotty wrote (see)

no, i was being serious for once.

 as said above there is nothing wrong with being gay, it is not equivalent to being paedophile or abuser so why the big secret?

i think all the secrecy and living a lie, wanting to be seen as being straight, is a bad example to young people who might be coming to terms with their sexual identity.

so why is it such a big deal if someone is outed?

Nam, that is true but the same can be said for dogging.  Just because someone is gay doesn't mean that they are into cruising or cottaging any more than a heterosexual is into swinging and dogging.  Also, if one were a swinger and/or dogger, would you want that to be public knowledge or feel happy talking about that with your parents? It's a personal matter and everyone has the right for it to remain so.

There are plenty of A sexual people who also feel they have to pretend to be "normal" rather than say that they would prefer a cup of tea and a nice sit down.  Our society is very sexualised with a skewed perception of what is the norm and there and plenty of people on the fringes who fear anything that doesn't fit in with that.

Badly Drawn Bloke wrote (see)

 Our society is very sexualised with a skewed perception of what is the norm and there and plenty of people on the fringes who fear anything that doesn't fit in with that.

I was only wee when I used to watch Jim'll Fix It. Even judged by the standards of saturday night light entertainment programming and judged by someone as unformed as i was, I thought JFI was pants. 

There was just something perfunctory about the way he managed the program and I felt the man had no warmth towards any of his guests.

The thing about Jim was that (to me anyway) he wasn't really very engaging or competent as a host (he didn't do much at all after JFI finished and TOTP was always a bag of old tut whoever presented it). 

His USP was that he was "unmistakable" - the way he looked, the voice, the cigar, the bling. Eminently capable of being instantly recognised even when someone did a crap impression of him. he may have been entertaining but more because people laughed at him than with him. I always suspected he had no real sense of humour whatsoever.

He had "front" but to me he had no real warmth or personality or "hinterland" - he was a very private person it seems, and hard to read. 

In the Britain of today everyone has to spill their guts at every opportunity to show how "human" they are - I think Jim resisted that and the lack of disclosure and the plainly "odd" behaviours obviously leads people to conclude there was summat dodgy about him.

Perhaps he was just a one-off or just odd. Perhaps that's just all he was.

I had to google 'dogging'.