Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Allure and Mystique of Figure Skating

As I sat watching figure-skating with my GIRLFRIEND, I was distracted opening a beer with my teeth when suddenly my ear was caught by her sudden outburst:
"Why are the figure skating outfits so GAY? How can they still be so gay? It's such a stereotype! Look at this guy! He looks like Fag Dracula!"

In my capacity as the voice of tolerant reason, I had to point out that only a percentage of male figure skaters are gay. At the age when these kids have to start training, they're all far too young to have any real understanding of sexuality or orientation. So by the time they reach competition age, how many gay ones you end up with is purely pot-luck. The only way it could be otherwise would be if the gay gene conferred some athletic benefit, such that the young gay up-and-comers would have a performance advantage over the non-gay skaters. That would lead to a disproportionate number of straights "washing out" of the sport, not being able to "hack it" head-to-head against the genetically superior gays. But if this were the case, one would have to ask why this hypothetical gay-gene athletic boost only manifests itself in the fey end of the spectrum of competitive sport? It doesn't add up - the science just isn't there to support such claims.

Yet I had to admit that she had a point. These outfits were gay beyond reason. I did my best to explain it away: the outfits have to be gay. They can't be somber! The glittering spangles, the bold swoopy lines, the brightly colored diaphanous shreds that trail in the air - these all add visual pop to the spinning jumps and maneuvers of the program. A skater who went out there in a drab monochrome unitard would suffer for it. He'd be at a competitive disadvantage. He could put in just as much hard work and practice, but his routine would yield a less fabulous effect - just because his plain outfit lacked the snap and contrast to add visual interest to his twirls and pivots.

She admitted that made some sense. But neither one of us is convinced that that's the real whole story here.

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