Page 579 - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - Vol. 1

Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer 559
hunky players like Dick Blood and New England Patriots’ Russ Francis
who could fold out of Playgirl for days exhibit their talents on the pro-
wrestling circuit. Lovingly photographed by Sports Film International,
the slamming is for real. The quality of color film is exceptional. The
mail-order service, trustworthy. It is also straight and clothed in wrestling
trunks and lace-up boots. Send $1 for the current catalog. The product is
a turn-on for men into man-to-man confrontation.
TOUGH IS AS TOUGH DOES

Sports is a way to practice competition, a way to learn physical/politi-
cal/moral self-defense, even if only expressed through busloads of men
heading Tuesday nights to South San Francisco to roller skate. More
than pirouetting, the Folsom Street men turn the rink into a poppered
roughhouse of rollerball. [Every Tuesday night, the big motor-coach bus,
parked on Castro Street across from the Castro Theater, sat with its motor
running as it filled up with men carrying skates and bottles of poppers
for sniffing while skating around the roller rink.] The politicizing of gay
men has caused an increase in aggression as expressed on the fields, the
courts, the rinks, and the baths. Since Anita Bryant, more gay men are
into combative sports and sex than ever before. This phenomenon seems
a definite sign that gays are in training to counter the attacks so unreason-
ably launched against us. Trained physically, we build the endurance to
resist morally and politically those who would have us not live a lifestyle
different from theirs.
Sports literally gives gays another arena in which to speak out and
communicate to a nation that prides itself on understanding sports.
Recently in New York, an organization of gay athletes announced a
$100,000 national advertising campaign against Florida citrus products
the day after the Florida Citrus Commission’s decision to renew Anita
Bryant’s contract. Craig Liebermann, a spokesperson for the International
Union of Gay Athletes, said the bulk of the money for the campaign was
donated by professional athletes whom he would not identify.
So far, Anita and company has only been hit with a fruit pie and a
gaycott. Her jock husband better warn her what fury can be conjured at
halftime in a locker room.
Her next hit could be a well-placed gay upper-cut to the chin.
Now that we’re all in training . . .

III. Eyewitness Illustrations

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved—posted 05-05-2017
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