Over the past half-century, the expression of sexuality has become ubiquitous in most sectors of American society. From the free love movement associated with the 1960s to Harvey Milk’s agitations for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights in the 1970s, “sex” is no longer an expletive in United States culture. Recent television shows like Modern Family and The L Word celebrate those whom Milk sought to represent, and earlier programming like Maude exemplified female self-actualization and self-discovery. However, as gender and queer studies have expanded in the past five decades, certain arenas have lagged in terms of attitudes toward sexual understanding.
The world of competitive sports is known to be a hyper-sexualized and hyper-masculine realm, but sex and gender add a new dimension of complexity. Structures of sexuality work to maintain overarching social standards; scholar Jayne Caudwell finds that when an athlete challenges those paradigms, fans respond negatively. Whether the stories of such occurrences concern behaviors, such as promiscuity, or inborn traits like sexual preference or gender identity, ardent fans and casual readers alike tend to respond with shock, disdain or despair when their heroes fall from grace.
This qualitative analysis utilizes the works of Kenneth Burke and Judith Butler in examining reactions to controversial stories regarding American professional golfer Tiger Woods and South African runner Caster Semenya. A variety of continuously-updated, Internet-facilitated sources such as blogs are used as the primary texts for research into the mindset of the American sports fan. This allows for a diverse slate of root materials for the analysis, as well as a more assuredly accurate portrayal of fans’ voices in the interest of determining the causes and implications of sports fans’ reactions to stories concerning athletes’ sexuality.
