1 in 3 Jocks Have Had Gay Sex

A new study of homosexuality among sportsmen in the United States shows that more than a third of former high-school football players said they had had sexual relations with other men, suggesting that homophobia in team sports may be on rapid decline in the US.

Sociologist Dr Eric Anderson found that 19 in a sample of 47 men, aged 18-23, had taken part in acts intended to sexually arouse other men, ranging from kissing to mutual masturbation and oral sex.

The men were all football players who previously played at the high school level but had failed to be picked for their university's team and were now cheerleaders instead.

Anderson said the study was not biased by talking to sportsmen who were now cheerleaders. Those he interviewed were selected to represent men that considered themselves traditionally masculine, typical football players.

Dr Anderson, who was the first openly gay male high school sports coach in the US, said that an increased open-mindedness about homosexuality in society and less stigma concerning sexual activity with other men has allowed athletes to speak more openly about these sexual activities.

The sexual acts described in Dr Anderson's study does not include acts of 'hazing' or team-bonding that often include pretend-homosexual acts, UK Gay News reports.

"The evidence supports my assertion that homophobia is on the rapid decline among male teamsport athletes in North America at all levels of play," he writes in his study.

"[..] I find informants actually engage in sexual activity with other men. But this does not mean that they are gay [..] my informants do not feel that their same-sex sex jeopardizes their socially perceived heterosexual identities, at least within the cheerleading culture. In other words, having gay sex does not automatically make them gay in masculine peer culture."

"Men have traditionally been reluctant to do anything associated with homosexuality because they feared being perceived gay," Dr Anderson said. "But as more men are open about their varieties of sexuality, it becomes less stigmatized to be gay or to have sex with men. It is increasingly not a problem to act in otherwise non-traditional ways.

"I see this in other areas of my research too, including how men behave in straight nightclubs, where I find that university-aged men dance as much with each other than with women, and how heterosexual men are increasingly free to wear clothing styles or colours that once were taboo for them.

"This isn't something that would have happened ten or twenty years ago. Times are changing and they are changing rapidly for men of this age."