Days of Grace (39 page)

Since contracting AIDS, but especially after I became committed to fighting its spread, I have had to learn a great deal about homosexuality, especially male homosexuality. For a long time, unprotected anal intercourse between men was the number-one cause of the transmission of AIDS in the United States. Out of sympathy for AIDS sufferers who are gay, but also in seeking to be an effective AIDS educator, I have set myself the goal of trying to understand the culture of homosexuality in all its diversity and complexity; I say “trying to understand” because only a gay person has a chance of fully understanding the culture, I am sure. I have made it my business to open myself to instruction and guidance on this difficult issue by homosexuals themselves, mainly through books, essays, newspapers, and television shows. I have also tried to examine my own feelings about homosexuality, and to confront the possibility of my own personal, subconscious anxieties about the subject. Knowing that one of my uncles had thought of me as gay made me more alert to the complexity of the issue.

In my lifetime, I have had two confrontations with homosexuals. Both were invitations I declined. The first occurred when I was visiting the home of one of my aunts in Montclair, New Jersey. I was sixteen or seventeen years old at the time. One night, around eleven or so, I was trying to hitchhike a ride home on Bloomfield Avenue when a man stopped and picked me up. He seemed pleasant enough at first, but at the second or third traffic light he made his move. To my consternation, I felt his hand settle on my thigh. I moved my leg, but his hand returned. By the fourth
or fifth traffic light I was out of the car. I walked home that night.

My other encounter was about three or four years later, at the Seattle airport. The UCLA tennis team was en route to Los Angeles after playing in Seattle in 1962, probably against the University of Washington. We visited the World’s Fair, where coach J. D. Morgan took us all to the restaurant in the landmark “space needle,” high above the grounds, to eat lunch. Then we drove to the airport. I was in the men’s room, in a stall, when I heard heavy breathing outside the door. I looked up and saw a man peering down at me through a crack. I hollered at him, “Get out of here!” He left quickly. I, too, left the room quickly, and returned to my friends.

I had no difficulty resisting both men. I do not believe I felt any attraction to them, and I do not think that fear of censure kept me from becoming involved with them. Certainly my upbringing, especially my religious instruction, discouraged any involvement in gay activity, but I do not recall feeling any personal interest in gay life. After I left UCLA and began touring the world as a professional tennis player, I entered an environment sometimes hostile to gays. In my first few years on the tour, the locker room was ruled by the Australian players, undoubtedly the finest in the world as a group, and an engaging lot. In almost every area they set the tone, and that tone was the
basso
of stereotypical masculinity. In Australia, where I lived for several months in the 1960s, I found a country dominated by men who thought of themselves as rugged individualists, and masculine to the core. Women there seemed to be mainly second-class citizens who existed to serve men sexually and in any other way that men wished. Homosexuality was beyond the pale. Genially, to be sure, the Aussie players brought this intolerance to the locker room, where a known homosexual would probably not have been tolerated. To admit publicly that you were homosexual would have required bravery of an exceptional order. No male tennis player I knew was ever so brave.

A few players, usually
not
Australian, were crudely homophobic. To gain an edge in a match, or simply to be mischievous, perhaps, Ilie Nastase would sometimes affect what were supposed to be the typical mannerisms of a gay male; Nastase would put his hand up, then let his wrist fall loosely, or he would mince about the court to let you know what he thought of your masculinity. Few players ever went so far. However, terms of derision having to do with homosexuality were commonplace in tennis. In practice, you might tell a friend, after a weak shot, “Oh, you looked a little light on your feet on that one!” And of course there was the common British expression “poofter,” which means a gay man. A few players used that term all the time.

I never knew a gay male tennis player in the professional ranks. I knew at least two men who played a tangential role in professional tennis and were gay, but I knew of no gay players. Of the two men, neither ever admitted it publicly. One was a tennis organizer on the European circuit who every year helped to stage a talent show or “follies” for charity, involving tennis players. The other person I knew much better, because he was a high-ranking employee of an important tennis players’ organization. An outstanding worker, he gave no obvious outward sign of homosexuality, at least in the way many people look for such signs, according to stereotypes; he was quite “manly” and aggressive. Even his direct superior had no idea that he was gay. But he fell sick with AIDS, and then everything came out, as it often does under those circumstances. He died of AIDS.

IF HOMOSEXUALITY
is limited on the men’s tour, it certainly is not on the women’s. Two of the most famous players in the history of the game have not only admitted that they are gay or bisexual but have also become involved in bitterly contentious, highly publicized situations involving other women who had been their lovers. Two swallows do not make a summer; but several top women players over the last twenty or thirty years have definitely been gay. Some people insist that no difference exists between the sexes
here. If an accurate accounting were taken, they argue, one would find as many gays among the male players as among the female players. The women players are supposed merely to be more open than the men about their homosexuality. In my experience, this is simply not the case. Professional tennis players, men and women, do not have to be consistent in this way, any more than the top female figure skaters must include many lesbians simply because there appears to be a considerable number of homosexuals in the ranks of top male skaters.

This question of the prevalence of lesbianism among the women players interests me from more than one angle. On the surface, lesbianism appears to have little to do with AIDS. The transmission of bodily fluids is not as much of an issue among gay women as it is among male homosexuals, or among heterosexual men and women. However, in December 1992, according to a friend of mine who is a physician concerned with AIDS, a medical conference heard a fascinating report on a study which asserts that as many as 80 percent of lesbians may lead a sexual double life, having male and female lovers separately but concurrently. This means that the lesbian population is almost as much at risk from AIDS and other sexual diseases as is the heterosexual community. The discovery of this lesbian double life, I am told, has come as a shock to researchers and other experts on the subject of homosexuality among women.

Why does lesbianism appear to have more of a place than male homosexuality in professional tennis? The subject is fascinating, and should be explored carefully, rather than remain the stuff of gossip and innuendo; but no one, as far as I am aware, has been doing so. In the absence of facts, suspicions abound. Over the years, I have heard several parents worry openly about their young daughters and their alleged vulnerability in the locker room. They have seemed far more concerned about the dangers posed by other women than by the dangers posed by men, especially older men in positions of authority, such as coaches. Many
years ago, when one of the superstars of the last generation was about fifteen, I remember her mother loudly insisting on the right to accompany her into the locker room to ensure that she was not being sexually recruited by anyone there. The parents of several other young players were no less assertive. Many of them demanded that the Women’s Tennis Association actually guarantee the safety of their young daughters in the locker room.

What impresses and troubles me above all in looking at this general question is the fact that women professional tennis players seem to be under far more acute psychological strains and stresses than their male counterparts. Whether sexual behavior is affected by these acute stresses and strains is open to debate; but the increased pressure is clearly present, and distressing. The women’s tour is not simply a mirror image of the men’s tour plus skirts. There are some crucial differences between the two camps, and some of these differences are paradoxical, at least in part.

On one level, the women are far more sociable than the men; and on another level, they are the opposite. The women players are much more involved in union and association activity than the men. The top women’s players, individuals such as Martina Navratilova, Gabriela Sabatini, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Steffi Graf, and Monica Seles, for example, are much more likely than their male counterparts to turn out dutifully for union meetings, public-awards ceremonies, and the like. In comparison, the men tend to be undependable at best and sometimes downright loutish when challenged about a sense of responsibility. (This was not true of my generation of professionals, but it certainly is true of many of today’s male players.)

Paradoxically, however, the men seem to be on much friendlier terms with one another than the women are. McEnroe or Connors might explode on the court; but the explosions, no matter how vulgar or profane, seem to be relatively controlled and do not reach the locker room with anything like a similar force. The impact of competition on the women—polite as the players generally are on court, in
contrast to the men—seems to be much more insidious and destructive. According to Graf in a recent issue of
Tennis
magazine, few friendships exist among the women players. Graf spoke of an almost poisoned atmosphere among the players. “I always had only male friends in the tennis world,” she declared. “The rivalry among women tennis players is overwhelming.” She contrasted this to the men’s tour, where players routinely squabble on court, then go out after the match to drink a beer and talk. Male stars practice together, but not the women. Graf apparently has never once practiced with Sabatini, although they played as a doubles team at one time. As for inviting Sabatini to take a stroll somewhere, “she would probably just stare at me.”

Why should the women be less friendly to one another than the men? Interestingly, I have found exactly the opposite to be true about men and women players at the amateur level. In both tennis and golf, women seem to care much more about their friendships with other women than the outcome of their matches together. I have seen this difference repeatedly on the tennis court and the golf course. Aggressively seeking dominance and almost careless about the possible consequences, men tend to challenge one another with macho posturings. Women, on the other hand, seem to take exquisite care not to offend one another and jeopardize their friendships. Frequently, they may even play beneath their top level of skill in order to preserve peace. Not so on the women’s tour, according to Graf and several other commentators.

The dynamics of competition among women are excellently discussed, as far I can judge, in Laura Tracy’s book
The Secret Between Us: Competition Among Women
, which I rushed out and bought after hearing it discussed on National Public Radio when the work appeared in 1991. Tracy’s “secret” is that while women have been socialized by the ideal of femininity (which is not to be confused with feminism) to deny that they are competitive and to resist being openly competitive, they have no choice as human beings but to be competitive for jobs, material possessions,
family affection, lovers, and so on. However, the denial of the reality of competition usually forces women to act subversively and destructively, especially against other women, as they make their way through life. Competition becomes a clandestine and often self-destructive activity, one that preys on and exacerbates the elements of vulnerability in a woman.

“Women have been taught that competition is unethical, even immoral,” Tracy writes. “We’ve been socialized against full participation in our economy and our history. We’ve been taught to be
secret
competitors, and our secret has kept us subordinated members of our society. Most of us recognize competition only when it’s practiced by another woman. Even worse, many of us often don’t realize we are
in
a competition until we’ve lost it.”

Like men, women compete to get what they want. Unlike men, however, women typically are haunted by fears not simply that they will
seem
selfish, or greedy, or envious but that they will actually
be
selfish, greedy, and envious. “Men don’t have this problem,” Tracy argues. “When men compete with each other, they compete to identify with a masculine ideal embedded in their competition, to be strong, tough, aggressive, independent—and separate. Unlike a woman, a man can make his competition impersonal because he can detach it from the man who is his current antagonist. Although we may not admire some of the ideals offered to men, all these ideals encourage men to become self-determined individuals.”

Obviously, the pressure of professional tennis, where huge sums of money are at stake, creates an environment substantially different from the rest of the world for women. Not only is there no way to escape competition in the tennis world, but competition is of the essence—that is why the women are there. Moreover, competition in this sport is accentuated. Unlike in a team sport, where victories and defeats are shared, the one-on-one nature (in singles play) of tennis demands a sustained competitive drive in anyone who would win consistently. Champions must have
the celebrated “killer instinct.” But even years of training to win tennis matches probably cannot eradicate in a woman the ideals of femininity that still prevail in the world at large despite the teachings of feminists. And there is money, lots of money, in femininity. Advertisements featuring Andre Agassi exploit his agressive and rebellious image to sell sports gear, while Gabriela Sabatini’s image is used to sell a perfume. Chris Evert, who exudes femininity, seems to be the ideal tennis player where advertisers are concerned. Thus, women tennis players must lead a double life if they wish to succeed both on and off the court, according to the normal terms set by society.