Throwback Thursday Looks at the Really Gay Olympics

August 1, 2024
HANK ORSO

Well, it seems the pearl-clutching set off by the opening ceremonies of the Paris Summer Olympics is reaching a fevered peak as uneducated conservatives worldwide simply can't stop looking at and commenting on all the super gay stuff that went down. You've seen it all by now and hopefully laughed along with yer boy Hank here at the sheer ridiculousness of reactions to an ancient ceremony of athletic games, designed to honor the pagan god Zeus, that somehow didn't place Judeo-Christian theology front and center. As if Jesus and his 12 really good pals were the only ones to dine at a long table!

But we're not here to talk about conflicting religious beliefs, because religion is stupid and a myth. Instead, we're here to look at the gay origins of the Olympics and how we've come down (giggety) through history. Basically the original Games were super gay.

“the Olympics have gone woke and gay”
the original Olympics: pic.twitter.com/DJ0QFmUvgq
— ✨cyber plantae✨ ∿ (@cyber_plantae) July 27, 2024

Created around 3000 years ago (around 776 BCE) by the Peloponnese in ancient Greece, the people of the time gathered every four years to watch naked, oiled-up young men wrestle and run and a few other contact sports. Yup, that was pretty much it. Just a bunch of sweaty, beefy wrestlers and lean, taut runners doing their thing in the bright Mediterranean sunshine as 50,000 or so voyeurs gazed on in rapt attention. There's really not much to it to be honest. With homosexuality being a bit of an established thing depending on your station in life, such masculine displays with overt sexual tones weren't looked on as anything odd. Hey, they were honoring the horniest of all the horned-up gods, so some obvious sexual flavor was de rigeur!

In order to protect their flopping junk from getting injured, wrestlers would tie their penises to their thighs, causing them basically to look like or actually be in a constant state of erection. Also, sex was going down in the gymnasiums. Poet Theognis of Megara wrote about as such: “Happy is the lover who, after spending time in the gymnasium, goes home to sleep all day long with a beautiful, young man.” This is validated by Ancients historian David Stone Potter who said men were banned from gymnasiums for attending just to pick up guys.

Try as I might, I couldn't find a video from those ancient Olympics. Maybe I should try AI! But oil wrestling is a huge sport in Turkey, so let's enjoy some of that!

The first known gay athlete to compete in the Olympics was Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac, a French equestrian who won a bronze medal at the 1900 Games.

A few days too late to be topical, but – after years of obsessing about dandy/aesthete/poet/Proust inspo Robert de Montesquiou, I have only just learned that he got a bronze medal in an equestrian event at the 1900 Olympics and ... I had to tell someone. pic.twitter.com/G5ZJa2mN6A
— James J. Conway (@James_J_Conway) August 10, 2021

The first out gay Olympian would be Robert Dover, the self-described "Jewish gay boy on the US Olympic team, in the equestrian sport of dressage.” He would go on to win four medals over the course of six Olympics before he was waylaid by a serious back injury in the late nineties.

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A post shared by Robert Dover (@dovers_world)

Over the years more than 320 known LGBTQ+ athletes have won medals. The most decorated is the British Paralympian equestrian (what's with all the horses?!) Lee Pearson, with 14 golds and 17 medals in total.

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A post shared by BBC SPORT (@bbcsport)

The able-bodied gay Olympian with the most medals is Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst with 13 medals, 6 of which are golds. 149 LGBTQ+ athletes have won gold medals over the years.

Since the 2020 Seoul Summer Olympics, the "Rainbow Olympics" because of the sheer number of openly queer athletes participating (185!), out Olympians have become almost ubiquitous as each year more and more seem to appear, celebrating not only their countries and their sport, but also their lives. We see this in such moments as with Tom Daley sharing his win with his husband and children watching.

Tom Daley realises his dream of competing in an Olympics in front of his children ❤️#TelegraphSport | #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/aU7zQgTDWE
— Telegraph Sport (@TelegraphSport) July 29, 2024

We've been there from the beginning, and despite internet trolls who are in a state of apoplexy at all the "gay s**t" at the Olympics because they don't know basic history, much less decency, we'll be there strong and proud for as long as athletes gather together and people want to watch.

Now, let's take another look at that Lady Gaga performance!