Sporn-ery

June, 2006 - While burrowing away with my sports articles, gay pride, and training for both wrestling and a few track events at Gay Games VII, a friend shared a link to an Out Magazine article written by Mark Simpson. You know the guy, he 'invented' the term "metrosexual," to describe straight men who've become Queer-Eyed and fashion-conscious.

Well, apparently Simpson thinks he's coined a new term for the interpolation of erotica and athletics. He calls it "sporno."

In his pedantic article, Simpson sees a few magazine articles and David Beckham's "metrosexuality" as a form of erotic, even pornographic mix of jock adoration, yada yada. Basically, he typed a long blather about the Stade France calendars (see photo above) and other notably sexy pics we already know about. But at $1 a word (Out's going rate), I'm sure it helped to write at length.

That's odd, because I coined the term "sporn" six years ago in my first article exploring a more clear and direct case of sex meeting sports. In This article, This article, and oh, yes That article, I've showed how fitness magazines, actual porn actors, and straight Brazilian soccer stars offer up a much more "spornographic" context for the topic. And in This article, several examples compare silly, stupid, and strange sexual aspects of sporn.

WARNING: The following links are X-rated!
Daze Reader annotates my articles for Nightcharm(writing as Jacques Strappe), and about a porn star in a fake sports show. All of these are reprints of Bay Area Reporter articles. Some were also published in XY magazine.

Odder, Simpson never acknowledged my having blended the two words (in a more efficient manner) years before he started another round of "scholarly" career resuscitation.

Amusingly odd was when, only days later, a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting System emailed me to be interviewed, paired with Simpson, to comment on his term. Oh, joy. So, I went to a local radio station to tape it, and had my say, after listening to Simpson say, well, not much.

Odder still, Out.com's comments board for Simpson's article has yet to post my response, which I thought would clarify a few points. But I guess they're too busy laying out more underwear photo shoots and finding a new editor to falsely claim to be dating a major league baseball player.

Whatever. I'm a little too busy writing about thousands of real LGBT athletes, and how a few sexy magazine ads don't effect them, or their ability to transcend the voyeuristic pontifications of those with little or no experience with the real world of athletics.

Listen to my interview on CBC Radio, about Sporn - erotic aspects of sports, and homophobia in athletics. A fun discussion (download the interview CLICK HERE for the Real Audio file).

Too bad Simpson and my interviews are seperated. I still think I 'layeth down the smack,' to coin a WWE term, on this pundit who's obviously done nothing but leaf through a few magazines and overstate the obvious, while knowing far less about the wide realm of queer jocks.

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