And when the rainbow jerseys arrive it shall be complete

I always sniggered (quietly, behind my hand) about the amount of latent homosexuality in the Australian football codes. You know the line: all those fit, hard-bodied men, sweating together in and out of their tight shorts, gripping and wrestling each other for a living. It's got to be more than one-in-ten in the national leagues, right? But of course, the Australian male hegemony being what it (still) is, of course no-one is openly gay in professional football. Not in such a way that it was ever discussed.
Until now.
In case you didn't know, Matthew Johns, former NRL player has been stood down from his job for his part in a group sex scandal. Turns out it's fairly common practise for NRL players to have group sex with a woman - "team bonding" is a phrase often let slip here, like a sly testicle from ill-fitting shorts.

I'd like now, if I may to set a reading exercise (does the fun never end?!). Read the following passage taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Defiant rep star says group sex romps will keep happening'. At the end, I'm going to ask an open question which I believe, if I'm right, might just change the ugly, ugly face of Rugby League in Australia.

THE comments of one senior NRL representative player indicate how difficult it could be to change the sexual behaviour and attitudes of elite league players.

He warned group sex among NRL players would continue regardless of a warnings from chief executive David Gallop that unsavoury sexual acts would put their contracts at risk. The representative player told the Herald that his colleagues were left stunned by Gallop's hardline stance when no player had been convicted of sexual assault, adding that the caution would quickly be forgotten.

"It's fine for David Gallop to come out and say you can't have group sex but the last thing blokes will be thinking about on a Friday night at the club is David Gallop," said the player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I don't know how a chief executive can come out and say we can't have group sex if it's consensual. It's like discrimination because that is a person's private life. It's like saying you can't be homosexual, or you can't have such-and-such sexual preferences. How can he tell us what we can do in our private lives?

"We already have so many rules: we can't drink on these days, we can't go to these places, now we can't have group sex. About the only thing we can do these days is go to club functions, and just hang around other players. That's just isolating us more from the rest of the world, and it could lead to even more violent acts."

Are Rugby League players finally coming out of the closet?
Read the passage again, but this time bear in mind the fact that while these players appear to engage in a lot of group sex, there aren't any women mentioned. Based on this, I firmly believe that the NRL is on the threshold of throwing open the flimsy plywood doors, tossing aside the coathangers and shoe racks and announcing to the world "We're here! We're queer! We have group sex with each other!" Imagine that. Out, proud and scoring tries. I reckon the NRL fans and clubs would breathe a collective sigh of relief: no more scandals, no more 'How to treat women nice' classes, no more lies! Just good, honest, consensual sex between large groups of large men without the apparently tricky and complicated inclusion of a woman.
Of course, the game itself may suffer from the channelling of all that built-up homoerotic tension away from the playing field ...

Men are generally sneaky fuckers

Here's how it happened: I used to work at The Eagle On The Hill. This was a pub turned Last-Drive-Thru-On-The-Interstate turned fine-dining restaurent turned Schnittie-Tuesday-Local. It turned other things after I was fired for asking for too many Friday and Saturday nights off (every Friday and Saturday), but this story isn't to do with that.

EOTH had a great view over the Adelaide Plane. Evening dinner guests would always try to book the few tables which perched right by the window so that they would have something decent to gaze at other than one other wolfing down chicken schnitzels the size of paving stones. It could even be described as romantic and most nights there were a couple of bookings of 'table for two, rum for four'.
There was even a motel downstairs. You know what I mean. That's right: 'Room for the night, thanks mate. Send down another bottle of Nepenthe.'
Anyway, you get the tone. Romantic and affordable. The way to every man's heart, (but surprisingly few women).
This one night I was on front of house, greeting customers. My job was to say hello, show them to a table, pull out their chairs and (after pushing the chairs back in) take their drink order and any subsequent shit a nervous first dater might feel it necessary to dish out in order to feel like a big man.
These two didn't just arrive, they rocked up. Nobody 'arrives' in a Commodore ute with truck mud guards. He was resplendent in Ed Harry's finest party shirt and she had decided on a dazzling silk-look halter-neck gown complete with black lacy bra, all designed to perfectly accentuate the large piping shrike tattoo on her shoulder blade. A true South Aussie girl and well worth a night of wining and dining at the famous EOTH.

Now pay good attention because it's going to move quickly from here.

I smile.
I show them to the prime table, front row centre for the night lights of Adelaide.
I pull out her chair.
She sits.
I ask her what she'll have to drink this fine evening.
He tells her to get whatever she wants.
She orders a Bundy and coke.
I pull out his chair.
I ask what sir will have.
He remains standing.
Eye to eye with me he says, 'Large pineapple juice, thanks.'
He winks.
He grins.
He sits.
The end.

Men are generally sneaky fuckers.

* If you don't understand, ask a man over the age of sixteen. If he doesn't understand, he's lying.

***

GTH - Mele was close, but Miles takes it away. Two from two. Nobody else gets points because nobody accused me of being a sneaky fucker (even though I just about burst a damn kidney not laughing in the story above) for fabricating the entire tale of Johnny Wade: Stephanie Rice Picture Tearer Upper.

"... finally throwing the pieces into the air and yelling 'Snowstorm'."??

Come on! That's gold!