when men love men and make vids about men for other men

[lobelia321]

Continuing my investigation into the weird and wonderful world of men loving men. So I roamed you.tube and came up with some intriguing samples of teh man/man lust.

Now men are weird. Here are the types of pics posted on footballslash by women for women:
• men in each others' arms
• men kissing other men
• men jumping each others' buns in one huge manfleshpile
• men fondling each other
• topless men
• close-up of pretty manfaces

Totally not weird, right? Now here are the types of vids made by lads for other lads:
• men running round in long shots, i.e. visible only as tiny stickmen on a field of green
• endless replays of goals
• endless replays of footwork, tagged with labels such as 'Ronaldinho's golden ball', 'Ronaldinho's golden feet', 'Kaka's magic'
• epic hero music
• flashes of close-up

The men adore the men, this much is clear. There is total hero worship out there. They treasure the men in action: running, shooting, manoeuvring, coming. They are bizarrely uninterested, though, in the post-orgasmic post-goal manpiles and the mankisses. I only found one vid that showed footage of a topless guy. I can't tell whether the latter is by a gay guy; most of these vids are, I would hazard, totally by straight men about straight men for straight men. What is slashy (slashy??!) is, heh, not the video itself but the whole erotic economy of man/man/man exchanges.

Here's a sample of vids made by men for men:

Ronaldinho's golden balls vid. A good example of the kind of vid I described above. All about the ball action. The sambaesque music somewhat irritated me but then, I'm not much into Latino music.

Ronaldinho rap vid, with rude words in a rap song that is in itself a study in male-on-male adoration (here's a guy singing about cock and prick, and this song is chosen by another guy to accompany clips of yet another guy kicking round a ball: ah, the homoerotic circulation of it all) Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, here I come! (She wrote on male homosocial desire.) And Claude Lévi-Strauss, here I come, too! (He wrote about women used as a token of exchange among men; who mattered was not the woman but the man/man relationship: totally Troy.)

Cristiano Ronaldo angsty vid! Total hero adoration. Lyrics: 'I gave you my heart, I gave you my soul. Loving you, kissing you'. Also footage of topless C. Ronaldo. End credits: 'Never lose faith, cause we all go through pain.'

Kaká vid. Also features bonus footage of Drogba (Ivory Coast)! Plus edited shot-reverse-shot sequence of Frank Lampard and Kaká blowing kisses at each other (111). The caption reads: this is a kaka vs lampard compilation and i didn't made myself, so enjoy it lads. Proof positive: this is guys talking and vidding to guys.

Comments

[ook.livejournal.com]

Someone on my Friends List has been doing a series of slash posts featuring members of Japan's football team. It's amazing how handsome some of the men are...and how slashy the photos can be. :)

Thanks for the links to the videos! :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Where, where, where are these sexy Japanese footballers? Link??????

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Hee, very funny!

Housemate C is not into football at all, but just happens to be hanging around in the living room at the end of the match. "Is this where they take their shirts off?" he asks. "That's the only bit I like."

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

It would be an interesting survey: what is the percentage of gay football fans? It does seem to me to be quite a heterosexual culture, even homophobic culture at times. I mean, how many gay footballers are there? It's a total no-no. As I guess it would have to be, what with all that kissing and hugging -- they have to be supermacho straight to justify all that slobbering.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

And just think of it: shirt-taking-offing is a bookable offence. That's how careful they have to be about policing the heterosexual boundaries. Because clearly, if they weren't, the blokes'd be all over each other and never get round to playing.

Clearly.

[(Anonymous)]

Sweet collection, thanks for finding these.

What I find piquant in football rps is while this is a world of total homoerotic worship of all things manly, it's also one where male bodies are vulnerable: bought and sold, exchanged, transferred, objectified and commented on in loving detail by (older) male commentators and managers, dressed up, marketed, bashed up and garlanded etc etc like the boy bands of popslash. But unlike boy bands, this isn't to do with their being marketed to a female audience. Perhaps frps is often responding to that vulnerability in men who in all other ways operate like the masculine ideal.

[made-up.livejournal.com]

that was me, a dolt.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Sweet collection, thanks for finding these.

> What I find piquant in football rps is while this is a world of total
> homoerotic worship of all things manly, it's also one where male
bodies
> are vulnerable: bought and sold, exchanged, transferred, objectified
and
> commented on in loving detail by (older) male commentators and
managers,
> dressed up, marketed, bashed up and garlanded etc etc like the boy
bands
> of popslash. But unlike boy bands, this isn't to do with their being
> marketed to a female audience. Perhaps frps is often responding to
that
> vulnerability in men who in all other ways operate like the masculine
> ideal.

I just posted this in here again so I could reply because your original comment was anon. *g*

This is so interesting! The thing about bodies being marketed, and subject to oldermen's jurisdiction. Very patriarchal, in the true sense of the word (as in pater familias, the older man who controls the family, incl. all the young men). And your point about the vulnerability -- oh, I love it. It is totally the way in for slash. And the difference and similarity to boy slash. None of this had occurred to me but I love it! Men for men and men for women.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Also, P.S. it is so much about bodies, isn't it? More than even boy bands. Their very profession is totally physical, and when the body is broken, this is a disaster (Michael Owen!).

[made-up.livejournal.com]

So much about bodies. There's something so terrible and hot hot hot about the moment of injury - like your boy crying his way off the other night. Poor Michael crawling off the pitch, then collapsing with one arm flung over his face, with the camera ruthlessly prying into every corner of him. Unpleasantly, I have always enjoyed the idea that my particular focus of attention, Steven Gerrard, kept getting injured because he grew too fast when he was 18. He'd been small and suddenly he developed this tall, gangly frame. He's much more graceful now, but when I first fell for him he was constanly veering between beautiful athleticism and gangling disaster. He was also all scowling, inarticulate, skin-headed boot boy, always getting red cards, with these intense moments of sweetness and happiness when he scored. And then he grew up, smoothed out, grew his hair a bit, learned how to give an interview, and became captain of Liverpool, fortune and glory.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love what you write about injuries! It's the perverseness of wallowing in somebody else's wallowing. I keep replaying in my mind how C. Ronaldo dug his face into the grass when writhing on the ground, as if seeking refuge in Mother Earth. And yes, you are so right: the camera loves it. Which means the men must love it, too. The men who love men love seeing the men they love injured. And then the injured men who are loved and filmed adopt various poses and gestures of manliness, as the flinging the arm across the face. C. Ronaldo kept doing this pouty-thing with his mouth, presumably to stop himself bawling. Didn't help, though. *melts* And then the kindness (and lustfulness) of the physios and coaches and whatnots who always rush up and put their arms around the men to steer them off the pitch and who are just so delighted that they can get their hands on one of the Stars Whom They Worship. *has total love attack*

[made-up.livejournal.com]

shall I indulge in a piece of shameless self-pimpage and link you to a story I wrote a loooong time ago about injuries?

I shall: http://www.opengoal.tv/injurytime.htm :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! Have bookmarked in del.icio.us and will read tomorrow when my parents have left! Because I've got to have something to do during those empty matchlessly matchless hours...

*stares at blank TV screen with bereft look in hollow eyes*

And hooray for the cropped torso icons! :-)