Told I've seen some people explaining that some of the laughter was at the shock value, but all in all I thought it was just thoroughly distasteful, not only against A Widdy but against women. Sums up that groups 'I'd bang her' and 'hanging out the back of that' attitude though.
It reinforces what I was saying yesterday about how we see excerpts of conversations and then interpret them for ourselves. I didn't take wholly the same from the JB and Shane conversation, although a lot on social media have said the same.
I took it that Shane was asking JB's experiences/beliefs from growing up here in the 60s and 70s, from a family army background and being a professional footballer through the 70s and 80s. I took it that John was explaining how the prevailing general attitude towards homosexuality was throughout his youth and his sport and it's true that a great swathe of hetero men promoted the belief that gay men were universally predatory and no man would be safe from their advances. It was even a source for 'jokes' back at that time, this stereotypical image of camp butch, or limp wristed feminine homosexual men. Somehow I can't imagine JB's world has previously included him getting to know gay people as just people going about their every day business and this might possibly be the first in depth conversation he's had exploring such topics.
Still today football is not receptive to openly gay players
www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/12/18/openly-gay-footballer-liam-davis-have-not-had-one-problem-football/
I took it that John was being honest about attitudes he was socialized to even though he 'knows it's wrong' He wasn't saying this is how I think and I'm right or entitled to think it.
www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/236889/Top-footie-teams-full-of-gay-players
He's generally a calm and measured thinker, who experienced horrible racial abuse throughout his career and so I think that conversation was more complex than the snippet we saw and that these days with his work within footballing communities, he will be learning and considering the wider discriminatory attitudes more than he ever has before.
This was reported by the Pink News Discussing the conversation later with fellow housemate Malika Haqq, Courtney said that John had given her a ‘well-considered answer.’
Courtney said: “He was straight-faced and honest. It was more than you could hope for.”
I think there's a wider context to what we were shown, and it was clipped to stir up just this kind of response to JB, who after all said this, which was reported in the Daily Mirror
Barnes said he would like to use his time on the show as a platform to shine a light on racism, which he suffered as a player, as well as sexism and homophobia in society.