Does 'coming out' affect careers?

[RSS News]

Pop singer Ricky Martin has revealed he is gay, ending years of speculation. Is his announcement relevant?

(Feed provided by BBC News | Have your Say (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm))

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Of course it affects careers. How many openly gay footballers are there? Or openly gay actors?

[vyborg]

Do you mean, now that RM is openly gay he will be able to produce proper music?

[RedScare]

Everyone's thought he was gay for years, dude....

[Wobblie]

It just displays the growing contradictions within a capitalist society. We have a population here in America where the majority support marriage equality and people can live their lives as homosexuals/bisexuals/transsexuals/etc. with little fear of endangering their lives. However, simultaneously we have a state that upholds legalized heterosexism. This is because capitalism creates the material conditions for people to live in homosexual relationships, and yet has a natural impulse to push against it. We no longer marry for only political/economic reasons or because our lord/master tells us who to marry, and we don't have to fear retribution from the church for being in these relationships.

Capitalism creates the material conditions under which it is possible to move away from your family and the church to live your life relatively free from judging eyes. This allows for a whole new exploration of human relationships, including gay monogamous/polyamorous relationships.

The contradiction arises here. Capitalism relies on the current population of workers to create the next generation of laborers, and hopes to do so in the cheapest way possible. Thus the nuclear family arises as a cheap way to insure the creation and nurturing of the next generation. Gay relationships challenge this system, and question all sorts of gender norms that capitalism has come to rely on.

His coming out so publically puts these contradictions on display. That we live in a time where people are much more open and tolerant of other sexual preferences, while the state (in the interests of the capitalist class) opposes all relationships outside of the nuclear family.