ReadingLipps

There is a story out there right now about a gay dating site's ad being rejected by CBS for obvious reasons I needn't cover. But I've already seen the gayest Super Bowl ever: in England...

As a student I studied abroad in Bath, UK. My roommate, Elliot and I had been living with an elderly couple named Mary and Charles. On Super Sunday we crawled downstairs for the 2am kickoff between the Denver Broncos and the Green Bay Packers. An aging John Elway had been the loser of a previous Super Bowl and was seen to be too old to win it all. He proved to be a warrior and led his Broncos on to victory.

The thing is, the 2am timeslot in England is primetime for Gay sex chat ads. Plus, there was some strange feed that the Brits seemed to give a damn about, cutting in and out whenever they wanted.

As Elway charged his team down the field some English twit would interupt, "You are watching the American Football Championship Super Bowl on the BBC, we are going to cut away for a sponsorship break." then they'd cut to gay ads, in the middle of a play. Young men showering, pulling their shirts off, cheesy rainbow backgrounds all souring our most American moment. "Call now and ask for Thomas" they would beckon. These were not the Super Bowl ads we had in mind.

There we sat. Our manliest national endeavor punctuated by a minute and a half of the gayest thing you could see away from the internet. It was quite humbling and I'm sure someone at the BBC had a good roll on the floor laughing about that one.

I watched until Elway's heroic run that pushed the momentum in the Bronco's favor but it was 4am and I had to get up in three hours. To his credit, Elliot watched the entire game, and all its impromptu gayness.