The other night, former and probably future NBA coach, smart guy and endearing grump Jeff Van Gundy, now a color commentator for ESPN, blurted out, I HAVE A MAN CRUSH on CHRIS PAUL on national sports television. (Paul is a brilliant, precise, genius of a point guard, and listed at six-feet tall but probably a tad shorter, a welcome scaled-down anomaly for an NBA superstar.) Everywhere in the sports and political world, manly men are suddenly shouting their mancrushes to the skies. I’d be willing to bet that Chris Matthews has even on Hardball and then flashed his wry smile.
Why, gentle but still masculine (or rugged, but still feminine, or neither) reader, do I seem so perturbed by this new ability of men to show affection for other men? Well, a bunch of reasons, and then vague gut-level repulsion that’s hard to explain.
(The photo is of my longstanding crush, Stephen Colbert, in case it’s hard to make out. P.S. I’m not gay! No, I didn’t feel the need to add that, the point is that that’s exactly what "man crush" screams: P.S. I’M NOT GAY!!!)
First off, the way man crush is used is just as homophobic – emphasis on the fear as opposed to hatred part of phobic – if not more so, than the more traditional male avoidance of any reference to love of fellow man. Note, if you will, urbandictionary.com’s protest-too-much definitions http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Man+Crush, all of which make it crystal clear that a man crush is not sexual. Have you ever heard a heterosexual woman say she has a woman crush (or even a girl or chick crush) on, say, Rachel Weitz? I doubt it. What I hear women say is they just plain "have a crush" on another woman. Why? Because women just aren’t afraid of homosexuality to nearly the same degree that men are. Women also have a much easier time kissing, embracing, touching each other, as we all know. Of course, this is much more true in the U.S. than elsewhere, as I’m sure is also obvious to many. European men, South and Central American men, at least the ones I’ve known, they hug and even kiss the boys with abandon. (And when I say hug I don’t mean the hug-with-protective-handshake-barrier thang neither).
Am I just being a crank, again? Is the rise of man crush among the macho just a new version of homophobia or a step in the right direction? (Any amusing sightings, or rather, hearings, of the term welcome!)
See also: mancrush.com, whose top five currently are Jesus, Bret Favre, George Washington, Elvis Presley, and Thomas Jefferson, which I don’t know exactly what to make of.
