Off the Field: The Men of the Sandbach Rugby Club

I was recently sent this video about the members of the Sandbach Rugby Club in Cheshire, UK. If you check out the link, be advised the video isn't appropriate for work (unless you're a porn star), but it's not exactly gratuitous either. The cameras follow the young men around on a night of drinking and flirting and carousing after winning a game. Pretty humdrum stuff, you're probably thinking. But what makes this video interesting is that these heterosexual frat boy-types are not drinking and flirting and carousing with the local girls. They're drinking and flirting and carousing with one another.

Despite the open sexuality and incredible good looks of these fellas, I wasn't drawn into this video as a form of low-rent porn. I was drawn into it as a study of human sexuality. I can hear now (as is reflected in the You Tube comments alone) the protestations of gays and straights alike. Gay men are exclaiming, "Come out of the closet already!". Straight men are asserting, "That's disgusting! They went too far!". My response is in neither of these categories.

You see, I felt proud watching these guys. I was more appalled by the bar-diving and 330 pints consumed throughout the night than I was by the unabashed display of sexuality. Young people drink. A lot. This is an unfortunate reality and far be it for me to judge it. My feelings of pride came into the picture when I realized that these guys, all of whom I would venture to say are heterosexual, are grasping a very important and healthy concept: Sexuality is fluid. It is in constant flux. It is never cemented or nailed down if we are open to it. Society demands that we label it; our hearts do not.

And is it really such a stretch to believe that these young men, living and working in such close quarters and undeniably bonded, would be open to the possibility of expressing their feelings in a physical manifestation? I think not. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. I salute these guys for not buying into some butch-jock stereotype and doing their own thing. In spite of the hardcore partying and daredevil antics, I actually think they are pretty mature, having already understood lessons that the rest of us can't even let into our fields of possibility. Society will place its restrictions upon them soon enough. For now, let them have this.

Play on, Sandbach Rugby Club! Play on!