![]() ![]() I think they have gone beyond this gay thing. Now I am lucky that people just see me as a great player and a nice person. She says she understands why more gay sportsmen and women don’t come out, even though the culture is more liberal than it was in the Seventies and Eighties. She has since spoken out about her experiences as a lesbian, telling The Guardian’s Louise France that being gay was something her fans have had to overcome: In the commodity-driven culture that is tennis, the authors imply, there’s no room for a narrative that falls outside strictly defined norms. “As long as the lesbian tennis player can live the same life of leisure as other professional women athletes, all is well, it seems,” they write. But by doing so, Forman and Plymire warn, they’re abandoning any truly progressive possibilities for a rare out tennis star. “By coming out as a lesbian and fitting certain stereotypical notions of masculine lesbianism,” Plymire and Forman write, “Mauresmo allows the press, advertisers, and women’s tennis symbolically to demonstrate their sympathy with women’s issues while differentiating the real lesbian from other strong women on tour.” They characterize her as a “butch hero,” one whose potential threat to the social order is contained within a narrative of glamour, strength, and triumph that paints her coming out as a glorious act of courage and every win as a doubly significant strike against a harsh public.įans who discuss Mauresmo online defend her and express the wish that she’d be embraced by the tennis establishment. Mauresmo’s sexuality is lesbian, though, and it’s been celebrated. Think Anna Kournekova, whom Jeanette Winterson ironically noted “is so weighed down with tabloid adjectives – ‘pouting’, ‘sizzling’, ‘tasty’-it’s a wonder she can lift her racket.” “Certainly, Mauresmo is not the only woman player who is better known for her sexuality than her tennis,” they write. It also calls one of tennis’ most infuriating failures-its insistence on capitalizing on the sex appeal of women players-into question. To Forman and Plymire, it’s an example of “a moral panic over the lesbian body,” one that’s been part of the sport since Billie Jean King came out in the early 1980s. She was repeatedly described as bulging, muscular, and intimidating-and Davenport’s bitter mention that playing her was like “playing a guy” was repeated in coverage of her game. After she beat top seed Lindsey Davenport in 1999, she came out as a lesbian-and her body became a rhetorical battleground. Mauresmo is a two-time Grand Slam champion and Olympic silver medalist who is also known for coaching Andy Murray. It is very brave of Amelie as a lesbian to enter coaching a top ATP pro which is traditionally a male role.After she beat top seed Lindsey Davenport in 1999, Amélie Mauresmo came out as a lesbian-and her body became a rhetorical battleground. Amelie presence in Murray's coaching team seems to threaten the SEXIST straight men who know that a lesbian is NOT intimidated or afraid of them. Young straight men many of them feel they must dominate and control situations they don' like it if a woman REFUSES to accept patriarchy and male dominance over women. Amelie is a nice young woman but as a lesbian she knows how some straight men like Murray's assistant coach and trainer are also threatened by her. Amelie will be 100% professional she is probably unaware that her presence has upset Murray's sexist male assistant coach and trainer. ![]() Andy isn't going to admit it of course because then people will ridicule him. There is probably a curiosity factor from Murray's point of view. As much as some people on this board deny it some young straight men are drawn to lesbians. I think if there is any kind of feelings it will come from Andy Murray he is a young straight male. ![]()
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