Gaymes People Play

Darts Entertainment: Barroom pastime or Olympic-level feats?

When my partner and I traveled to Chicago last July, the purpose of our journey was to experience the world famous Gay Games. He had the honor of attending as an athlete contestant, while I tagged along as the proverbial athletic supporter. Although this was to be my first Gay Games (which many abbreviated simply to “Gaymes”), I was of course familiar with this event, with its parallels to the less gay-friendly but more well-known Olympic tradition. Unlike the conventional Olympics, however, the Gaymes seek to provide a setting where gay men and women can compete without the homophobia that so often characterizes the world of sports. Still, I figured that when it came to the athletic contests themselves, the Gay Games would resemble the Olympics pretty closely. And, true to those expectations, the Chicago competitions did include events like basketball, diving, swimming, track and field, triathlon, wrestling, powerlifting, and other traditional sports.

But the list of sporting events didn’t end there. This gay version of the Olympiad also featured competitions in ballroom dancing, country-western dancing, pool (billiards), and darts. (Yes, darts.) Since when did leisure barroom activities get elevated to the level of spectator sport? It’s as if it wasn’t enough just to have gay men and women compete in physical games. There had to be allowances for some really gay sports — or at least activities that seemed more at home in a gay bar than a sports stadium.

But if the Gay Games lineup seemed a little light in the loafers (or Nikes), consider the competing spinoff version of the games, World Outgames, which included not only country western dancing and choral competition, but also categories for the bear and leather set. For example, of the leather arena, the official web site states, “Recognising the importance of the leather culture as an integral part of the LGBT community, the Outgames … includes a competition with gold, silver and bronze medals for winners of the categories of Mr. Leather, Ms Leather and Slave.” I am not making this up.

The Outgames site tries to distance itself from calling these Olympic sports by listing traditional activities under “Sport Disciplines” and the more novel competitions as “Cultural Disciplines.” But the fact remains that the organization is still giving gold, silver, and bronze medals to people not just for fancy dancing but for being really good slaves. Not to mention bears, cubs, and bear chasers.

At first blush, the idea seemed to cheapen the whole enterprise, as though gay men and lesbians had to bring a little bit of the ghetto with them wherever they went. But a similar phenomenon goes on in many of the worlds that populate the universe of specialty Olympics. For example, my boyfriend’s parents just participated in a local version of the Senior Olympics, where they competed in such activities as golf, Canasta, and denture cleaning.

Okay, I made that up. In fact, I am hard pressed to find any examples in which specialty Olympics so radically adjust the lineup of acceptable sports to suit their subcultural niche.

But what the heck. Gay people have always been innovators, the creative crowd who puts their own special stamp on whatever they do. So why stop at darts and country dancing? If they want some truly gay games, how about a few of these:

Brunch press: Competitors vie for points by ordering the most elegant yet healthy of dishes, exhibiting flawless table manners, and drinking copious quantities of cocktails while exchanging the most intimate secrets of other people’s lives.

Standing and modeling: Participants put themselves in a social setting without appearing actually to socialize with anyone. Points are awarded for fashion sense and a look of studied indifference. Points are subtracted for furtive approval-seeking glances and unnecessary smiling.

100-yard cruise: Similar to the S&M competition, participants seek to lure naïve volunteers into approaching them using body language alone. Volunteers wear signs indicating their “hotness” level and attracting hot volunteers while blowing off or being invisible to troll-level volunteers earns the most points. Getting a hot volunteer to buy you a drink is usually a winning move, but points can also be earned for having the volunteer spontaneously approach with conversation and/or a phone number. Contestants who are caught actually staring are immediately disqualified.

Tearoom triathlon: This tripartite event tests the agility and stamina of even the most hardened barthlete. Events include blowjobs in toilet stalls, a masturbation marathon, and a creative collection of watersports.

I started to write this little ditty with the thought that maybe the Gay Games had gone a bit too far. But how can you come up with anything more ridiculous than giving Olympic medals for being a cub or slave? Perhaps once again, gay culture has become its own best parody.