I said last year that I think the annual Daily News Sexy Singles feature had jumped the shark. Well, two weeks ago this year's collection arrived, and my mind hasn't changed.
For the second year in a row, the count of singles was down to 20, although this year they did have a Sexy Singles party. The list is dominated, as usual, by models and people who are at least slightly well-known. Four people work in local TV or radio. One is best known for a stint on a "reality" TV show called "Bad Girls Club." There are four models, one of whom is the daughter of Kathy Sledge of "Sister Sledge" fame. (Two others, to be fair, are only part-time models.)
Also on the list is the woman whose ex-husband recently sued her for a share of her ginormous shoe collection and two people who have jobs in government that I'm guessing aren't civil service jobs (chief of staff for a state representative and a manager in a division of the Parking Authority -- heh heh heh, bet that makes her really popular).
And hey, the Eagles are back! And with a former NFL player also in the group, last year's NFL representation is tripled! The Eagles on the Sexy Singles team are both cornerbacks: Trevard Lindley and Curtis Marsh. Marsh is pictured here, in one of the pics from the newspaper. Very fine, I must say. The ex-NFL player didn't play for the Eagles -- and oddly enough, the profile says: "Don't email him just yet, though, ladies," because he's in a relationship. In other words: he's not really single.
That leaves five people that I classified as "regular" people, and even some of
them have connections. One works part-time as a host at Phillies games, and another owns a PR firm that includes Michael Vick's wife's business as a client.
And for the fourth consecutive year, none of these people -- celebrity or otherwise -- are openly LGBT. The last time they had a gay man in the list, this blog didn't even exist. I wrote about it on Outsports because Eagle Todd Herremans was a Sexy Single that year. Surely some gay men and women were nominated, right? It's absurd that 112 people over the last four years have been named Sexy Singles and EVERY ONE has been straight (at least publicly). They can include someone who's actually in a relationship -- and thus, NOT SINGLE -- but not an eligible gay man or lesbian.
This isn't something I'd cancel my subscription over but it's annoying. Although the feature itself has become increasingly shallow and celeb-fixated (and, after all, there's no chance in hell that an ordinary person would have a shot with some of these "famous" people), that doesn't mean they shouldn't have some LGBT representation.
I actually thought of someone I know who would make an excellent Sexy Single. He's good-looking, intelligent, thoughtful, involved in making the community better...now that I think of it, maybe he wouldn't make an excellent Sexy Single, not by their current standards. But if he's single next year when the Daily News calls for nominations, and if he gives me permission, I'm sending his name in.
(A link to my 2011 post on this is right at the start of this post, so here are the posts from 2010 and 2009.)
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