Pro Athletes Pose Nude For ESPN
Pro Athletes Pose Nude For ESPN
Boston.com reports:
Call it The Full Gronkowski. The extremely scantily-clad Patriots tight end, wearing only Hulk hands and a grimace, made the cover of ESPN The Magazine's "body issue" that will hit newsstands on Friday. The fourth annual special issue is billed by ESPN as a "celebration of the athletic form" and will feature 27 world-class athletes. In addition to Gronkowski, the issue also includes Blue Jays home run hitter Jose Bautista, US women's national soccer team forward Abby Wambach, and New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler. All 27 athletes posed nude for the issue's signature Bodies We Want photo portfolio.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2012/07/pro-athletes-pose-nude-for-espn.html
(Picture at the link is mostly nude, with a circle covering certain parts, but may not be safe for work.)
= new reply since forum marked as read
But I do feel it's something I want to say:
It's very ironic to me that a magazine that caters to American professional sports enthusiasts, among whom homophobia is very strong, and a majority of readers of whom are also mostly male, has published here a pictorial featuring male nudity, for purposes unknown. Yes, the editors choose to euphemise a clearly homoerotic feature in highbrow terms, but I'd argue this simply serves to underscore how popular American myths about masculinity continue to live and thrive ("real men don't eat quiche", one drop of homosexuality makes a man 100% gay, etc.).
Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed looking at the pictures. 
Of course, I don't mind admitting I'm gay, nor that I enjoy looking a nude men. K&R for that.
But in another thread and in a past month, my views were widely condemned here for having stated that I felt a majority of straight people were lying about their sexuality. My views are, of course, those of a layperson, and informed mostly by anecdotal experience, but this kind of feature would be a data point in supporting my views, as I believe it demonstrates that sports enthusiasts who enjoy looking at the nude bodies of members of their own gender are (duh) bisexual, i.e., not straight.
Off-rant/Off-soapbox. Snap. 
