I completely disagree most vehemently with this author. To put it mildly, he doesn't have a flaming clue.
Imagine, a 15 year old schoolboy, confused as hell with his emerging feelings, thrust abruptly into the public spotlight, and a world of very serious and sometimes official hateful homophobia!
Is going to tell the world he is Gay?
Little wonder he kept this to Himself!
Who can know what goes on in a young man's mind, or what effect ensues, from bible banging stone age advocates, perniciously preaching from a pounded pulpit!
Then we wonder why the suicide rate among young males 15-30, is so bloody high!
Yes his sexuality, is his own bloody business, as is how much he was paid to revel his darkest most confusing secret?
Good luck to him!
I hope we can all of us, appreciate just how brave Thorpedo was in coming out, and hope that he can at long last, please himself!
At least that way he will know he is pleasing somebody; and hope, with the best will in the world, the man finally finds a measure of true happiness, wherever and with whoever that lies.
Enough with the endless recriminations already!
If those making all the judgement calls or adverse comments, just learned to mind their own dam business; Ian Thorpe wouldn't have had to hide or be hurt; or indeed, for all we know, made seriously suicidal!
Drink and depression, two sides of a symptomatic coin!
If I could just walk a mile in this man's shoes, before making any comment?
I'd be a mile away before I started to critique him, and be standing in a pair of shoes several times too large!
Rhrosty.

Standing up for minorities against blatant discrimination, knowing you are likely to "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous oppression" always takes courage.

"Society should only ever change its ways because it is reasonable and logical to do so and not because it has been emotionally manipulated into it."

Quite so. And it is reasonable and logical to deprecate the persecution of homosexuals, to legalise gay marriage, to extend official tolerance to any kind of private behaviour between consenting adults, and to work towards a world where people like Ian Thorpe don't have to 'come out' because there will be nothing for them to 'come out' from; their sexual preferences -- or yours, or mine -- will be regarded as nobody's business but their own and their partners'.

Ok, now it's my turn to "come out". I'm heterosexual, male & married a female. I feel like so much better now, almost like a hero.
When I get even more brave I'll reveal my whiteness also.

Individual
I am heterosexual, female, and married to a male. And white.

Nobody has ever questioned, insulted, ridiculed or discriminated against me because of my race or sexuality. The day when my homosexual friends can say the same, and indeed when they can marry their partner of choice, will be the day when announcements like Thorpe’s are no longer needed. It can’t come soon enough, but it’s not here yet.

I'm male and heterosexual and married a female, your post made me smile, but in reality it could be heterosexual/homosexual and married to a female, I am sure you would not tell the media or anyone else of your liaisons, your wife would not probably see the joke at all, perhaps keeping the male liaison quiet and not telling the world would be the best way to go, keep in mind there are many men in marriage who are having the best of both worlds all due to that little word "quiet"

I am heterosexual, married to a woman and feel great sympathy for those who cannot be open about their sexuality and make a formal legal commitment to the partner of their choice.

However, I understand Thorpe got $400K for his interview in which he admitted his sexual preferences. Even though the item appeared in a Murdoch-owned newspaper it might be true. Maybe Thorpe is really heterosexual and thought the money might be a good nest egg for his girl friend and him. I would be tempted to come out as gay for $400K.

What the hell, most of us will still love him, he's always going to be a champion. What he does now in his spare time is up to him. Like for the rest of us, hetero AND gay. I wish him well.

Joe

David F we would all like to cumout anywhere or with anybody for 400k

Ojnab,
Cum on, you can't be serious :-)

Nobody has ever questioned, insulted, ridiculed or discriminated against me because of my race or sexuality.
Rhian,
isn't that what queer.org are doing to us all the time ? Aren't they the ones who always bring up the subject ? Aren't they the ones who can't just go through the day without drawing attention to themselves ? Do you really think they'd be the subject of the treatment you mention if they just kept things to themselves ?

I still don't see why we need to know anything at all about Thorpe's sexual preferences. You don't need to be brave to hold out your hand for $400,000. I would have said that "smart" was a better description.

David

I agree entirely with the author.

I couldn't find a TV channel that didn't have gushing commentators trying to outdo each other to show off their compassion, understanding and fulsome agreement that Thorpey did some wonderful thing possibly equivalent to curing cancer or just solving Middle East peace.

Not one had doubts. Now that's when we mere mortals sit up and pay attention. If all the commentators on all the stations all agree on something - run for your lives. They HAVE to be up themselves. They HAVE to be commentating to impress their fellow commentators and not engaging their brains to their primary role, which is not to appear perfectly in tune with the latest PC directive from lefty central, but to reflect a wider perspective, dare I say, from those distant places real people live.

I wish more people could see it the way me and my friends do.
Which is basically who gives a .... It is a non story. Pointless. No one cares.
So what if he is gay! So what if he is straight!
What business is it of anyones?

In what way does that define him and his life?
I thought he was a swimmer. A bloody good one too.
Thats what I will remember him for. Not that he was gay or a hero for coming out or any of that garbage.

LGBTIQA+ activists don't represent homosexual people, they're just another demented shade of internet bigot, they have invented a word for us "Cisgendered" and they've created the "oppression' narrative out of whole cloth:
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140316044801/s4s/images/0/0a/Die-cis-scum.jpg
How retarded are LGBTIQA+ activists?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wMu2seXrus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1gortW-Zs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdXAY7h0cYk
The answer to every one of the questions put forward in those videos is "We didn't ask and we don't care"

It's a long time since I studied medicine or Anatomy; but when I did, I discovered we humans have three brains.
The first being a reptilian brain, overlaid with a mammalian brain, and covering that, the cerebral cortex.
The reptilian brain, referred to in the Latin as the Ganglia Obligarto, control all the automatic, autonomous responses.
Things like flight or fight and appetite, sexual attraction, preferences and arousal!
You don't think about arousal, it just happens when your receive the right signals.
For we men it is erotica; for women, it's being caressed, held, with all the erogenous zones being introduced to tactile stimulation.
There are just four centres in the back, lower half of the Ganglia Obligarto, that control all these functions, with the sex drive often being more powerful than the survival instinct.
Two of these centres are allocated to normal female responses, two others, to normal male responses.
We all of us start life in the womb as female fetuses.
Those of us destined to be male, are at the mercy of the female incubator, and her hormone reaction/supplies.
Sometimes nature doesn't quite complete the conversion, other times, for reasons not yet known, can go a little too far!
So males can be born with normal female sexuality, or orientation, or females, who have normal for some males, reactions and or attractions.
Sometimes in bisexual people, all four centres can be engaged full or part time, and there is some literature, that strongly suggests, very precisely burning out the inappropriately firing control centres, is capable of reversing inappropriate orientation!
Showing pictures or stimulating arousal, then running an electrical current through the entire brain, is some sort of "Dr Mengals", hair-brained/abysmally ignorant attempt, to use aversion techniques that may say work with Addiction, have all been dismal failures, and nothing like the very precise burning out of inappropriately firing control centres. {Yet some of these so called Doctors, still have a licence to practice!?]
None of the is this inappropriate arousal is a matter of choice, just what for the subject, is normal human arousal!
Rhrosty.

Dear Rhrosty,

Your post was interesting. I looked up cerebral cortex.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex contains:

"The cerebral cortex is derived from the pallium, a layered structure found in the forebrain of all vertebrates. The basic form of the pallium is a cylindrical layer enclosing fluid-filled ventricles. Around the circumference of the cylinder are four zones, the dorsal pallium, medial pallium, ventral pallium, and lateral pallium, which are thought respectively to give rise to the neocortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and olfactory cortex.

Until recently no counterpart to the cerebral cortex had been recognized in invertebrates. However, a study published in the journal Cell in 2010, based on gene expression profiles, reported strong affinities between the cerebral cortex and the mushroom bodies of ragworms.[31] Mushroom bodies are structures in the brains of many types of worms and arthropods that are known to play important roles in learning and memory; the genetic evidence indicates a common evolutionary origin, and therefore indicates that the origins of the earliest precursors of the cerebral cortex date back to the early Precambrian era."

Apparently the cerebral cortex is not restricted to humans or even vertebrates.

What business is it of anyones?
mikk,
exactly, so why do THEY throw it into our faces at every given opportunity. We're not homophobic as such, we're getting sick & tired of having to constantly listen to their crap, no pun intended. Why can't they just go about their daily life & be done with it ? I can make it through my day without forcing everyone to take notice of my heterosexuality ?

"I wish more people could see it the way me and my friends do.
Which is basically who gives a .... It is a non story. Pointless. No one cares." Mikk.

I agree completely.

I always respected Thorp's ability as a swimmer, but could not stand the fawning adulation, as I did not think much of him as a bloke.

Looks like I was right there.

The problem with this was, that anybody
who thought this was unusual or shocking
are the ones with the problem, not Thorpe.

Frankly I couldn't care if he had a fettish for elephants.
HO! Hum!. Yawn.

This was the media trying to fill empty time space.

Thorpie, Darl, get over yourself,
nobody cares.

Don't blame you for accepting the big story fee
though. If they're willing to pay it might as
well take it.

He'll probably get engaged to a nice girl soon & get even more money for being a telling hero !

Who really cares a stuff whether Ian Thorpe is gay
Who really cards a stuff that George is one year old
Who really cares a stuff that Kate is up the duff.
How about some real and truthfull reporting by TV & Newspapers of people who are worth reporting about, not the super rich

Ojnab,
you mean report about victims of crime or pensioners doing it tough or limp-wristed magistrates or victims of Labor supporting bureaucrats etc etc. ? You mean boring stuff like that when you can have such important issues like kate's dress or sport ?

Individual I look forward to the next world breaking news that George is well endowed.