Recently, a video of a male cheerleader dancing with the ladies from the Minnesota Vikings cheer squad made the rounds on social media, receiving a rather hostile welcome. Perhaps because the Corporate Wokeness Epidemic has lost much steam in the last year or so, a gaggle of social media users began criticizing the rather flamboyant gentleman, pointing to him as a gross example of the NFL’s insistence on pushing its pro-LGBT agenda on fans who just want to watch their team in peace.
As is the way of social media, the reaction to the reaction came swiftly. Emily Leibert of The Cut referred to critics as “the most fragile members of the NFL’s fanbase.” Joe Nelson of Sports Illustrated lamented the “hate and disrespect” the two men on the Vikings cheerleader squad have received. Likewise, countless X users have insisted that the revulsion people have expressed over the viral clip is a nonsensical manifestation of bigotry towards gay men.
While I don’t think hardened progressives who would rejoice over drag queens gyrating on a football field are operating in good faith, I imagine that many who questioned the initial backlash are genuinely confused by it, in particular the many females who have spoken up. As any man who came of age while attitudes towards homosexuality and gay marriage began to change can tell you, women often struggle to understand the straight man’s response to rather flamboyant displays of performative homosexuality. The disgust strikes them as juvenile and mindless. But perhaps the Case of the Dancing Viking Cheerboy can offer such women some clarity.
“I don’t get it,” women will often think. “It wouldn’t bother me if a butch woman decided to play rugby with some guys. Why does it bother men so much if a gay guy wants to do girly stuff with the girls? Why do straight men respond to gay men this way when I don’t have that kind of reaction to gay women?”
As logical as it may seem, however, equating gay men with lesbians is ultimately a category error and a failure to understand how most men and women view their own sexuality. To better understand the male mindset, therefore, women should look for the right comparison in another sexual demographic.
Why do so many men find the idea of homosexuality repulsive? It’s because we are having a natural response to unnatural behavior. Men pursue and use their strength to win women. Men are physically designed to give their bodies to women sexually. Conversely, women allure rather than pursue. They appeal to men with their beauty more than their strength. Their bodies are designed not to give but to receive the man. So, when a gay man uses his body receptively, when he leans on his beauty, and when he attempts to be alluring, he’s behaving like a woman sexually.
How, then, does a woman behave like a man sexually? By taking on the masculine traits. By pursuing, by dominating, by expressing a kind of sexual aggressiveness in which she offers herself to be received by men. This behavior doesn’t really describe gay women. It describes promiscuous women, especially the kind of women who weave their promiscuity into every aspect of their personalities. This is the sexual demographic that more virtuous women typically find to be the most distasteful, and they do so for the same reason that many men find flaming homosexuals distasteful — because this is an inversion, a twisting of what they see as the natural and ideal state of things.
Consider that, in the realm of sexual slurs, the most biting thing a guy can call another guy is “fag.” The most biting thing a girl can call another girl isn’t “dyke,” but “slut,” which should make clear that female promiscuity is the closest analog to male homosexuality.
Likewise, it’s important to remember that the objection to the man dancing with the lady Viking cheerleaders is not that a man was cheerleading. No one would have been bothered by a man, gay or otherwise, leading chants of “defense” or tossing a tiny female cheerleader into the air. Rather, the objection is that the male cheerleader is performing as though he were a female, and a sexualized one as that.
NFL cheerleaders are obviously more popular with NFL fans than the women of the Bolshoi Ballet, not because they’re better at dancing (they aren’t), but because they’re better at being sexpots. For good or for ill, and as a Christian, I’m in the “for ill” camp, cheerleaders dance at games to be objects of male desire. When a guy goes onto the field and performs the same moves, whatever his motivation, he’s therefore taking part in the “Find Me Sexually Attractive!” dance, something virtually none of those men asked for but that was imposed on them by woke PR people who are hostile to them and the product they love.
So, ladies, don’t think men are immature or hateful when we don’t want men frolicking on a football field with the ladies during timeouts. We’re responding the same way you would if you were trying to enjoy something distinctly female-oriented, only to have it tainted by the intrusion of female sexuality’s most distasteful forms.
Imagine that you’re trying to watch a sweet, wholesome Hallmark Christmas movie and the chestnut-farm-owning heroine keeps boasting to the handsome widower about her high body count. Or imagine that you’re trying to enjoy your favorite true crime podcast but the host keeps pausing every 5 minutes to read ads for strip clubs or OnlyFans accounts.
That’s what the dancing Viking cheerboy is for the dudes.