Candy has to explain how to parse sports
When I was in college, I took a summer course in the Anthropology department called “Sexual Meanings”. People would ask me what it was about, and I’d say “Oh you know, we talk about society and culture and sexuality and for example what it means when a woman wears plaid pants.” The response was invariably a sort of breathless, “what does it mean?” and I’d say “I don’t know, that’s a joke.”
I don’t know what it is about softball. I didn’t have many friends who played softball, so I can’t say how true its reputation as lesbian magnet is. But saying “she played softball” is kind of like saying “he did musical theater”; people make assumptions that may or may not be true.
Meanwhile, both my sister and my friend Amy played rugby in college, which makes me feel like I know something about it when actually, I probably don’t. I’ve seen it, though. That’s got to count for something.
Very funny, loved it 🙂
True story, I spent ten minutes after reading this thinking that rugby was lacrosse. And I was hard-pressed to figure out the differences between “rugby” and softball.
One of the girls that was on my high school’s softball team later came out as a lesbian. My husband was extremely active in musical theater.
Stereotypes: 1
Breaking stereotypes: 1
Plaid pants: 1000
The pants win again.
I can’t promise that this is representative, but the two female rugby players I know at my college are both lesbians. According what they’ve said, well over half the team are as well. So, yeah…
there’s a figure skating joke here somewhere… but i can’t find it.