With Olympic fever running rife, it occurred to me that sport really seems to be a straight man's way of being gay.

Let's look at footy as an easy example:

* We have a bunch of guys with the kind of physique that belongs to a stereotyped gay man.
* They run around in shorts that were once so short that the only other place you'd ever see such a tight fit was in a gay bar.
* Dressing in drag seems to be a great amusement to them.
* They spend their time chasing another man's ball and slapping each other on the butt.
* They seem to love being the centre of attention.
* Girls flock to them like fag hags.

In tennis, we have the whole wrist action thing going on; while in rugby, the men spend their time in either a group hug or lying on top of one another like an orgy.

Squash involves locking yourself away in a private space; and the homoeroticism of wrestling is just too extreme to discuss in public.

In lacrosse, they fondle their sticks while bending over which, oddly enough, brings me to pole vaulting. But we won't go there…

Without getting any more crass, I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. In almost every sport, there seems to be a few analogies that can be drawn to make me wonder about the subtext of our sporting obsessions.

If I were to think hard enough, I'm sure the girls have equivalent nuances, but since our media is dominated by, presumably, heterosexual males, no one else gets enough of a look-in to be sure. Female and mixed sports get nowhere near the coverage of men's sports, just as the International Gay Games get bugger all coverage (pardon the pun), despite the Gaymes being one of the world's largest sporting events for the past 25 years (yes…even bigger than the Olympics).

When it comes down to it, air hockey at your local bowling alley seems to be the only safe bet to remain truly heterosexual. But oh, those bowling shoes! Seriously - could there be anything more gay?

R Solway
Netherby