Michael Medved Wants To Get Fucked By Tim Hardaway (and Chances Are That Hardaway Wants To Do It):
To parse the layers of sexual repression and self-loathing in Michael Medved's latest "column" is to confront the horrible rage of the unfulfilled libido, the unmitigated hatred of hidden desire. See, Medved, who has long been the standard bearer for the "Stop the Fucking" brand of moral conservatism, writes that "Tim Hardaway was right" for when the ex-basketball player spoke of his sad longing to get fucked in the showers by his teammates by talking about how much he hated gay people, calling himself "homophobic." Which means that Hardaway's a man who's spent a lot of time naked in showers wondering if other men were looking at his johnson.

The very idea of this skeeves the fuck out of Medved, a man whose balls are so filled with unejaculated semen that it looks like he has cantaloupes in his pants. Medved says, "[M]any (if not most) Americans no doubt share his instinctive reluctance to share showers and locker rooms with open homosexuals." If this led to a larger discussion about sexual desire and irrational fears that lead to prejudice, it'd be fine. But, no, Medved wants to stay in the dripping wet shower room with the large, nude men, many of whom so tower over Medved that they could use his head as a nutrest.

After dismissing those who would compare such prejudice to racism, Medved unleashes this paragraph, which must be read in full to entirely grasp the strange visions that Medved must have while masturbating on a statue of the Virgin Mary and then licking it clean:

"Tim Hardaway (and most of his former NBA teammates) wouldn’t welcome openly gay players into the locker room any more than they’d welcome profoundly unattractive, morbidly obese women. I specify unattractive females because if a young lady is attractive (or, even better, downright 'hot') most guys, very much including the notorious love machines of the National Basketball Association, would probably welcome her joining their showers. The ill-favored, grossly overweight female is the right counterpart to a gay male because, like the homosexual, she causes discomfort due to the fact that attraction can only operate in one direction. She might well feel drawn to the straight guys with whom she’s grouped, while they feel downright repulsed at the very idea of sex with her."

So let's follow the bouncing ball of logic here: fat chicks are like openly gay dudes because they make straight dudes uncomfortable with their stares, and the problem is not the straight dudes and how they want to fuck, but the fat chicks and the gay dudes. Now, Hardaway, though, didn't just say he had a problem with the locker room. He said that he has a problem with the existence of homosexuality: "It shouldn't be in the world, or in the United States."

Medved excuses this, attributing deep-thinking to Hardaway: "When Hardaway says 'I hate gay people' what he suggests at the deepest level is that he feels revolted by the very notion of same-sex eroticism and that he’d prefer not to face the distraction of such thoughts in the locker room or on the court." Now, the Rude Pundit may not be as keen an observer of the basketball player's psyche as Medved, but he's pretty sure that what Hardaway is suggesting is that he hates gay people. Medved continues, "In this sense, the reluctance to team (in athletics or the military) with announced homosexuals isn’t bigotry, it’s common sense."

We could easily go down the tautological road that Medved has paved for us. We could argue that Hardaway certainly showered with closeted gay guys, that he had no problem standing there nude when female reporters, fat or not, interviewed him in the locker room. Sure, sure, that'd be a fine rhetorical strategy.

Instead, Medved's creepy concentration on the shower and locker rooms of the NBA (devoting almost his entire column to making us imagine glistening nude men rubbing themselves) bespeaks a desire that Medved dare not name, Haggard-esque in its implications for himself, his career, and his family. In fact, one might imagine that, after reading this, NBA players might feel uncomfortable showering with Michael Medved. Except perhaps Hardaway, who, c'mon, protests way too much, cowboy. And his apology was totally gay, all about examining his feelings and shit.

Hell, at least he didn't say "faggot."

Medved ends with these steamy images, that "a guy could shower with young female athletes...or that a gay guy could shower with young male athletes." Goddamn, who would've thought a Michael Medved column would make you wanna rub one out?

(Medved's scrawling was also covered by 100 Monkeys Typing.)

Update: Pre-Medved, Jon Swift made much mock of Hardaway.