A Winter's Tail

FuelMix has crafted a hypothetical fable just for fags. Any implicit resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental, expedient or fortuitous, depending on one's point of view.

Like any good fable, there's a point to it.

Picture this:

Photogenic (highly closeted) Gay Athlete in his early 30s - let's call him PGA - is at the top of his sport, has a billion in commercial sponsorships, is a huge audience draw and has a carefully cultivated wholesome image. He gets married and has kids. Everything looks fine and dandy.

One nite, the existence of his secret gay life shatters the calm of the upscale gated community where he lives. Over the following days, it emerges that PGA has a boy pussy in every port. Some boy pussies were paid or showered with gifts, some have text messages to prove their encounters, some claim to have naked pictures of him and some claim to be part of a group of twinks and hunks supplied by a male escort agency on several occasions. Apparently PGA really liked drink-fuelled groups of 10 - 15 guys for whom he plunked down serious cash.

Media interest is intense. PGA is caught off-guard and utterly unprepared. His commercial sponsors are initially dumbstruck. Some issue messages of support, some pull PGA's image off their stores and off the TV, some cut him off. The wife mulls her options.

Analysis:

1. Endorsements of athletes are all about money and marketing. With the kind of money marketing involved, it is inevitable that the peddling of a wholesome image is par for the course, is done by agreement - and by committee.

2. With the global exposure inherent in major sponsorship, scrutiny of the golden boy, PGA, is de rigeur. After all, Head Office needs to be kept informed at all times. Is PGA pulling in the crowds when he shows up? Does he win? Does he look good wearing our brand? Is he signing autographs? Is he role-modelling convincingly? Does PGA need coaching on how to deal with media adoration? Does he need styling and grooming advice? Is he eating right? Is he working out in the gym enough? Is he getting enough sleep? Is his accommodation to his liking? The welcome fruit basket and mineral water?

3. In order for this stream of information to dribble back to Head Office and to service PGA's needs, there has to be a coterie of minders and flunkies around him at all times. Period.

4. There is no way that a high-priced commodity like PGA could be left alone for long. For liability and insurance purposes, every move that PGA makes is orchestrated, managed, facilitated, observed and recorded. They will form part of the evaluation when PGA's sponsorship agreements come up for renewal.

5. When PGA travels, he ain't gonna be staying at a 24 hour gay sauna or franchised motel. He'll be at some resort or on the Executive Floor of a 5 Star Hotel - with additional security to keep the groupies at bay and with hotel staff under strict instructions to make sure that the VIP decides to come back.

6. And if PGA hits a club, he ain't gonna be alone and it will definitely be gay-friendly.

7. So.... when a different boy pussy shows up in different cities and is buzzed into PGA's sanctum nobody knew??

7. So.....when 10 - 15 dudes from an escort agency show up for booze and sex nobody knew??

8. Did PGA slip out to the 7-11 across the street to schlepp crates of Corona and Carlsberg back to his suite, declined offers of assistance - and nobody noticed?? Or was the hotel's minibar specifically boosted for the occasion? And if so, by whom?

8. And just how would PGA pick up oooh, let's say, 30 bottles of Lube from the hotel pharmacy or from that gay sex shop in Fagland and get away with it??

9. Answer: He wouldn't. Some flunkie would do it. And if the flunkie refused, he'd be out of a job.

10. And just what would PGA's suite look like the morning after a 15-fag orgy? Nobody noticed the condoms, underwear and half dazed man meat lying around? Was Housekeeping instructed to shut up in anticipation of a fat tip on check out?

11. Did the coterie of minders and flunkies censor the feedback to Head Office so that it operated in the same vacuum that PGA thought he was in?

12. Who conned whom? Did PGA con his sponsors? Or, if image-marketing is a collective deal, did his sponsors con the public and con themselves?

13. And how should PGA be re-branded for the public and for his sport? How would other athletes in the same sport respond to his re-branding?

Insert your answers here.......................

End of fable.

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