It isn’t.įootball fans in England have long been assumed to be straight and male. It would be applied to other situations and, most crucially, other clubs.
![gay sex club sing gay sex club sing](https://img1.10bestmedia.com/Images/Photos/354755/Oz_55_660x440.jpg)
If the term were empty of meaning, as some attest when trying to defend their continued singing of it, it would be applied to spaces and contexts that have no association with queer history. And if a joke relies on gay sex as the target of the punchline for it to land it is necessarily homophobic. In fact, it wouldn’t land at all without it. The “gay” part is not incidental, it’s central. The subversiveness of the queer element, then, is what makes it specifically insulting when sung in this context, and historical associations with queer people is what makes Chelsea, unlike Manchester City, for example, the target. The idea of (often closeted) men picking up young queer boys for sex - or straight boys who have turned to sex work out of poverty - is meant to be the joke at the heart of the chant. The joke is not that they sell themselves, it’s that they sell themselves to other men, and that all of this is meant as, at best, insult. The term “rent boys” is gendered, and that’s crucial. While sex work is certainly demonized in popular culture, the punchline of this particular chant is specifically to gay sex. The punchline of the chant, or joke, is then meant to be that Chelsea players (and the cub’s male fans) sell themselves for sex with other men. And Chelsea was associated with LGBT people, historically Chelsea was a queer-friendly place where it was possible to pick up male prostitutes. That new money especially angered fans of Liverpool and Manchester United, more established clubs with more established history. It also serves as a reference to the club gaining the money of Roman Abramovich. It would not work if there was no association between the area the club is in and gay people. That history is why the chant is associated with Chelsea, specifically. Chelsea was one pocket of London where, in the 60’s and 70’s, one could go out and feel at least relatively safe as a queer person. When someone queer is openly themselves in public, historically and today, it is an act of bravery, as every LGBT person knows there’s always a chance they will face abuse - verbal or physical - for simply being who they are. A recent spate of homophobic beatings in Liverpool speak to this fact. It is still not now, in 2021, safe to be openly queer everywhere. While there were other places one could pick up male sex workers in this period, Earls Court in Chelsea was one of the more well known, and it existed as such because the area also contained a number of bars (and other spaces) that at the time and since have been frequented by queer people looking to have a drink in a space where it is safe to be openly queer.
![gay sex club sing gay sex club sing](https://img.haarets.co.il/img/1.5511702/1018316866.jpg)
Many young boys came to London in the 1960s and 1970s and struggled to make ends meet, turning as a result to sex work as a means to pay their bills. From its earliest usage, it was culturally tied to the West End in London, an area which includes Chelsea. It’s an old slang term, one that re-emerged in English popular culture in 1969 but was used colloquially before then. Put simply, a “rent boy” is a young male prostitute, generally of lower-class and not charging overmuch for his services. As with anything, intentions don’t matter if what your actions do is cause harm.
![gay sex club sing gay sex club sing](https://awsimages.detik.net.id/community/media/visual/2020/09/02/tersangka-pesta-gay-di-kuningan-jaksel_169.jpeg)
This article, then, is my attempt to pay it forward: someone explained it to me, and I hope this can be a helpful gloss that can be used for anyone who maintains a willful ignorance so as to be able to keep singing the song whilst claiming they aren’t expressing homophobia while doing so. I’ll even admit that I sang the song up until perhaps 2012, when I was kindly informed of its meaning and stopped singing it. Rather than trying to convince anyone for whom that isn’t enough, though, this article is intended as a resource for anyone who has felt frustrated trying to explain the homophobia inherent the chant to someone who insists they “don’t mean anything by it.” For most, being told a homophobic song is alienating to queer supporters of any club, including fellow Liverpool supporters, would be enough to stop singing the song. It should be enough, and given those who did attempt to start the song on Saturday after being told of its homophobia by Kop Outs and Jürgen Klopp himself ahead of the match were, by most reports, quickly shut down, perhaps it even will be. I want to state this up front, because I wasn’t sure whether I should write it at all and by doing so risk giving those who continue to sing the chant more attention.īeing told that something is homophobic, that it’s hurtful to both many Chelsea fans as well as many within the Liverpool fanbase, should be enough to stop anyone singing it. This article is not intended to change anyone’s mind.