Have you ever wanted to show your love for something, but were afraid that people might take it the wrong way?
We’ve all been there, worried to declare our affection to the abstract concept of a nation state, but worried that it might sound a little… I don’t know… gay?
Now I know what you’re thinking, how on earth could anyone possibly think that sending love to a plod of arbitrarily defined land is in any way correlated with being attracted to people of the same gender as you?
But alas, we all know that anyone saying they love a country is just using it as a gateway to come out as gay.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen friends test the waters with a seemingly innocuous comment like “Wow, Spain is pretty cute, right?” or “I guess I can see why people would be interested in Chad (the country) now that you mention it…” before moving to said country with their new boyfriend.
Thankfully for any of you straight folk out there who happen to have a soft spot for a particular set of borders, there is a way to express this without also being forced into one of those gay marriages you keep hearing about.
Some Russian fans in France wanted to show respect to their hosts without making it weird. And they definitely succeeded in not drawing attention to themselves with this fashionable decal which reads ‘To France with love’, before clarifying that they are ‘Russian Heterosexuals’…
Relaxing with some real Russian men. From St Petersburg, seemed pleasant enough, bit vague about the signage #Lille pic.twitter.com/qE5Pn5emEC
— Paul Kelso (@pkelso) June 15, 2016
Sure, it may seem really strange and massively insecure to slap the tag “heterosexual” on pretty much anything in a world where being straight is assumed as default.
Some of you might point out that the assumption of heterosexuality is even more pronounced in football, where only a handful of male footballers have ever come out of the closet. Try to think of some right now (but don’t think too hard, in case they turn you gay too, of course).
But as a bisexual man, I think it is extremely helpful for heterosexuals to have to identify themselves as such so that I can know the kinds of people I am dealing with. By doing this, a group of insecurely straight men have accidentally shone a light on this very issue (and as we all know, light has a tendency to refract and become a rainbow).
Here’s hoping this becomes the norm.
