Latest news with #taboo
Daily Mail
12-08-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Secretly gay footballers are arranging 'fake girlfriends and fake marriages' - and there are gay couples in Europe's top leagues - claims Germany's first player to come out
A retired footballer, who was the first male player to come out as gay in Germany, has claimed that secretly gay players across Europe's top leagues are arranging 'fake girlfriends and fake marriages' in order to hide their sexuality. Marcus Urban, 54, came out publicly in 2007, some 16 years after he kicked a football for the final time, and is now spokesperson on LGBTQ + issues within the sport. On August 18, Swiss broadcaster Andreas Boni's book, Mensch Fußballstar, translated to Human Football Star, will be published. German legend Lothar Matthaus and FIFA president Gianni Infantino are among many big names from within the sport who speak about 'taboo' topics within the book. Prior to its release, German media outlet BILD has managed to obtain an extract from Urban, in which he discusses how and why gay footballers continue to hide their sexuality from the public. He suggests that there are homosexual couples within the Bundesliga, but their own 'fears', not the opinions of the media, are stopping them from coming out. 'It used to be said that the media and fans were to blame for no one coming out,' Urban said. 'I think today it's just the fears of the players and the people around them, at least where we are, in the heart of Europe. The 54-year-old believes there are gay couples in the Bundesliga but they are hiding due to their own 'fears' 'I think almost all the media would support it. I also honestly believe that the fans are no longer the problem. The clubs hardly are either. It's more about the internal climate these days. 'And then there are also business ventures within organized gay football. Fake girlfriends are organized, fake marriages are arranged. 'At the same time, there are agencies that organize sex encounters. They also make good money from this. But the players' agents also sometimes organize this for their clients and then have the players in their hands. 'There are also gay couples in the Bundesliga, and they're very nice and very pretty. And maybe the day will come when they come out.' Last year, it was reported that a group of professionals across Germany were set to publicly declare their sexual orientation. Urban, who is the co-founder of Diversero, a global community for diversity, expressed his hope for the plans to come into fruition at the time. However, they never did, and Urban believes that the players in question were given guidance against revealing their sexuality by advisors close to them. 'The players are repeatedly thwarted in their desire for freedom,' he continued. 'There were some who wanted to come out. For example, we planned a day of coming out on May 17, 2024. In the end, no one dared. 'There are still too many people around them who advised them against it. Media lawyers, advisors, family – people who are basking in their money and fame and projecting their misguided pseudo-care and their own fears onto the players.'
The Guardian
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
You can mute – but you can never leave. Why have WhatsApp groups become so stressful?
It's the new last taboo. Officially added to the list of topics you absolutely must not discuss, along with politics, money and religion: the WhatsApp side group. Apparently nobody told Melanie C from the Spice Girls though, because she has just revealed far too much about theirs. 'There are subgroups within the group,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life magazine. 'I definitely know there is a chat group that doesn't contain me, but somewhere else we keep Ginger or Posh out.' Staying up to date with your side chats – not least ensuring each message you send doesn't go on the wrong thread – is the most anxiety-ridden full-time job most of us have ever had. A friend of mine has a group with five mums from her daughter's class, and another whittled down to four of them, then more with three, two and one. How she keeps track without the use of a murder investigation board with red strings pinned to photographs is genuinely a mystery. The latest data tells us what we already knew: WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world with more than 3 billion monthly active users. I think at this point I'm in a group with all of them. There's no faster, easier, more convenient way of staying in touch and making arrangements – and that's the problem. It's so quick and simple to set up a group that any social situation including more than two participants seems to result in one being formed. Often the conversation goes on, whether out of desire or politeness, long after the event has passed. This method of interacting can lead you down some ludicrous avenues, such as the recent debate I found myself in about whether 'hearting' an invitation means you're simply thanking the person for their kind offer or formally accepting it in a legally binding manner. (For the record, it's the former, right?) Complicating matters further is that we're not only in groups with our mates, but also those we know only barely, or sometimes not at all. I'm on a local WhatsApp group, formed to support quarantining neighbours in 2020, that's now a forum for questions that could have been Googled, passive-aggressive comments, and generous offers of free furniture people can't be bothered to take to the tip. It's filled with characters I've mostly never met but feel intimately acquainted with, and I have several side groups with friends on my road discussing the more controversial posts. Even the profile picture is divisive – one member's cat, Daisy, who half the street love and enjoy sharing sightings of, and the other half (secretly) hate because she defecates on their doorsteps. Recently a newcomer who'd left his back door open in the hot weather reported that Daisy had strolled into his house and started eating his dinner, with photographs to prove it. My phone got so hot through side-chat action I was worried it might explode. Worth it. It's fast becoming second nature to double check that each message is being put on the correct thread before posting, like the modern equivalent of the adage 'measure twice because you can only cut once'. Deleting, even if you're so lightning quick nobody had yet read it, leaves a notification that's such a clear admission of guilt you may as well have not bothered. Imagine what everyone would be saying in the side chats about you then! I took a vow of silence on our school chat when a fellow mum's husband read ours over her shoulder and observed sagely: 'No one comes out of this looking good, do they?' Legend has it that another class has a note pinned to the top of their group with the rules that must be abided by within, including, 'No LOLs.' The author's ears must have been warmer than my phone the day she typed that. And anyway, there's only one real law when it comes to WhatsApp groups and subgroups – muting the thread is fine, but actually exiting is not the done thing. Whatever you preface your farewell with, those you leave behind will get the message '*Your name* has left the group', with all the hair flicking and flouncing out that implies. Etiquette-wise, it's a no. You've made/been added without consent to your WhatsApp bed, and now you will lie in it for the rest of your life. A la the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
You can mute – but you can never leave. Why have WhatsApp groups become so stressful?
It's the new last taboo. Officially added to the list of topics you absolutely must not discuss, along with politics, money and religion: the WhatsApp side group. Apparently nobody told Melanie C from the Spice Girls though, because she has just revealed far too much about theirs. 'There are subgroups within the group,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life magazine. 'I definitely know there is a chat group that doesn't contain me, but somewhere else we keep Ginger or Posh out.' Staying up to date with your side chats – not least ensuring each message you send doesn't go on the wrong thread – is the most anxiety-ridden full-time job most of us have ever had. A friend of mine has a group with five mums from her daughter's class, and another whittled down to four of them, then more with three, two and one. How she keeps track without the use of a murder investigation board with red strings pinned to photographs is genuinely a mystery. The latest data tells us what we already knew: WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world with more than 3 billion monthly active users. I think at this point I'm in a group with all of them. There's no faster, easier, more convenient way of staying in touch and making arrangements – and that's the problem. It's so quick and simple to set up a group that any social situation including more than two participants seems to result in one being formed. Often the conversation goes on, whether out of desire or politeness, long after the event has passed. This method of interacting can lead you down some ludicrous avenues, such as the recent debate I found myself in about whether 'hearting' an invitation means you're simply thanking the person for their kind offer or formally accepting it in a legally binding manner. (For the record, it's the former, right?) Complicating matters further is that we're not only in groups with our mates, but also those we know only barely, or sometimes not at all. I'm on a local WhatsApp group, formed to support quarantining neighbours in 2020, that's now a forum for questions that could have been Googled, passive-aggressive comments, and generous offers of free furniture people can't be bothered to take to the tip. It's filled with characters I've mostly never met but feel intimately acquainted with, and I have several side groups with friends on my road discussing the more controversial posts. Even the profile picture is divisive – one member's cat, Daisy, who half the street love and enjoy sharing sightings of, and the other half (secretly) hate because she defecates on their doorsteps. Recently a newcomer who'd left his back door open in the hot weather reported that Daisy had strolled into his house and started eating his dinner, with photographs to prove it. My phone got so hot through side-chat action I was worried it might explode. Worth it. It's fast becoming second nature to double check that each message is being put on the correct thread before posting, like the modern equivalent of the adage 'measure twice because you can only cut once'. Deleting, even if you're so lightning quick nobody had yet read it, leaves a notification that's such a clear admission of guilt you may as well have not bothered. Imagine what everyone would be saying in the side chats about you then! I took a vow of silence on our school chat when a fellow mum's husband read ours over her shoulder and observed sagely: 'No one comes out of this looking good, do they?' Legend has it that another class has a note pinned to the top of their group with the rules that must be abided by within, including, 'No LOLs.' The author's ears must have been warmer than my phone the day she typed that. And anyway, there's only one real law when it comes to WhatsApp groups and subgroups – muting the thread is fine, but actually exiting is not the done thing. Whatever you preface your farewell with, those you leave behind will get the message '*Your name* has left the group', with all the hair flicking and flouncing out that implies. Etiquette-wise, it's a no. You've made/been added without consent to your WhatsApp bed, and now you will lie in it for the rest of your life. A la the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
News.com.au
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Heigl praised for honest bladder reveal
One of the world's most well known actresses has been praised for throwing her weight behind speaking about a topic that is typically considered 'taboo'.
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Forever Home: This property show felt like it would drag on for ever
Not so long ago, two topics above all were taboo for the British. You never asked people about money, and you never mentioned sex. Anything else was fair game. These days, sex and money are all anyone ever wants to talk about, particularly on TV. But many other ordinary and innocent topics have somehow become off-limits. It is not done, for instance, to ask a young couple whether they intend having children. That isn't just impolite, it's weirdly illiberal, as if the very idea that a woman might want to be pregnant is rampant male chauvinism. Presenter Helen Skelton, meeting 29-year-old Jess and her partner Colin, 33, was immediately eager to know the budget for their house renovation, on Forever Home (BBC2). But throughout the three-year rebuilding project, she didn't once ask whether the pair intended having a family — nor why, since it was currently just the two of them, they wanted or needed a four-bedroom house. Of course, they could have told her to mind her own business. But that's a phrase you don't hear nearly enough these days either. The question of children was all the more pertinent because, bizarrely, both Colin and Jess had a historic family connection to the building, near Welshpool, close to the English border. Formerly a pair of semi-detached cottages, it had been home at different times to her grandfather, and also to his grandparents. That's quite a coincidence. It's easy to see why the couple, who were living in London when they first met, felt an affinity to the place. But we don't watch shows like this to be left guessing about buyers' motives. The presenter's job is to ask questions even if they seem intrusive, which is why Kirstie Allsopp has been so successful on Ch4's Location, Location, Location for 25 years — she has no inhibitions. Helen Skelton lacks the brass neck. Property shows, as other Ch4 formats such as George Clarke's Amazing Spaces (pictured) have proved, work best when they feature several projects. Rapid editing and plenty of soundbites hold our interest. This programme lacked all that She told us at the outset that major renovations were her passion, because she'd tackled a similar rebuild at her own home. But apart from a handful of snapshots, we saw and heard nothing else about that either. Once again, we were left guessing. It's also difficult to know what co-presenter Patrick Bradley was meant to be doing. The architect from Northern Ireland is a chirpy, garrulous character, but Helen informed us he was on hand 'to give creative design ideas at every stage of the build'. This didn't happen. Patrick suggested moving the garage doors from the front to the side of the property, but that was about it. From start to finish, what with knocking down walls, ripping out fireplaces and building a glass-walled extension, the work took three years. Before we were halfway through, it felt as though Forever Home was going to drag on — well, for ever. Property shows, as other Ch4 formats such as George Clarke's Amazing Spaces have proved, work best when they feature several projects. Rapid editing and plenty of soundbites hold our interest. This programme lacked all that.
