Daily News Sexy Singles: No Gays, No Eagles

This week the Philadelphia Daily News ran their annual Sexy Singles feature, in which they show off local men and women, nominated by family or friends or co-workers or even by the singles themselves, because they're attractive and single. I complained about it last year, and interestingly enough, I still get occasional hits on that particular page according to my Feedjit widget. Is it because of having "sexy singles" in the title or because of the picture of one of last year's Sexy Singles, Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley?

Overall, things haven't changed from last year. Of the 35 men and women, there are 5 employees of local TV or radio stations -- which surely leads to lots of mentions on those stations -- and the usual assortment of fitness trainers/models/actors. By my count, 22 of these people are either already celebrities (the TV/radio people, athletes, a contestant on the "reality" show "Chopped" on the Food Network) or are trying to be (shopping a TV pilot, graduated from broadcasting school, tried out for "The Amazing Race"). It goes against the idea that these are regular people who might happen to meet and fall in love with you or me.

I'm particularly out of luck: for the second consecutive year, no one is openly LGBT.
(I say "openly" because there are some profiles that don't explicitly mention "what he's looking for in a woman" or "what she's looking for in a man" or past relationships or other indicators of their sexuality. In theory a couple of these people may not be straight.) Two years ago the Daily News included a fitness gym manager who was gay, and in an accompanying "favorite sexy single" poll on their website, he had just 9 votes at the time I wrote a blog for Outsports about it. Maybe that scared them off. That, or I guess everyone in the local LGBT community is either in a relationship or not very pretty.


And this year, unlike the last two (Bradley in 2009 and Todd Herremans in 2008), no Eagles made the cut. The Eagles are no longer sexy? Shocking! There are two pro athletes on the list, but they're both indoor lacrosse players for the Philadelphia Wings -- which, although they draw decent crowds to the CoreStates First Union Wachovia Wells Fargo Center, isn't exactly a major league team in a popular sport. Their pictures are below.

John Christmas

Bob Snider