[The Godfather]

Now, given that women get steamy over him, and men want to be him, it will be interesting to see how the hispanic community changes its retrograde perspective. The outing of Juan Gabriel did little towards respecting h's, as the most juvenile Spanish speakers still kinda use him as a joke (though he is highly respected among intelligent people).

What do you think? Will Martin continue selling CDs, despite the vanished sex appeal? Will Latin Americans unconsciously forget about his outing and keep on thinking of him as they did the day before yesterday? Will droves of Hispanics come out of the shadows? Will they suddenly negate prop 8? Will Ricky use his good image to fight for any of this?

[Eug]

He's ghey?!? Oh the humanity!!!

Seriously though, I'm not sure anyone really cares. Rightly or wrongly, the assumption by a good chunk of the population for the last 5 years was that he was ghey.

[voodoo]

Dog bites man, Ricky Martin is teh gey. I've been more surprised in my days.

[SpaceMonkey]

She bangs!

(Straight version)

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Add this to the big shocker coming outs such as Lance from NSync, George Michael, and Boy George.

Sometimes we are surprised however like with doogie howser!

[Hawkeye_a]

Was there any doubt ..... really ? lol

meh...who cares.

[Shaddim]

eh, whatever.

[Sealobo]

is he launching a new book or a resurrecting album soon?

[turtle777]

I don't get what the news is

-t

[MrsLarry]

I vaguely remember him coming out already? Am I just crazy?

RICKY MARTIN GAY - SHOCK HEARD... NOWHERE

[Oisín]

This really has me confused.

I mean, everybody’s already been more or less aware that the man’s gay for the better part of a decade, and suddenly now he decides to confirm? What’s been the point of all the ambiguous secrecy and part-denials for the past decade? I really don’t get it.

Originally Posted by The Godfather

Now, given that women get steamy over him, and men want to be him

Please! Women might get steamy over him, but men don’t want to be him. Not unless they’re men who also get steamy over him.

What do you think? Will Martin continue selling CDs, despite the vanished sex appeal?

Was he selling any CDs before this? And has his sex appeal vanished?

Will Latin Americans unconsciously forget about his outing and keep on thinking of him as they did the day before yesterday? Will droves of Hispanics come out of the shadows? Will they suddenly negate prop 8? Will Ricky use his good image to fight for any of this?

Probably, probably not, probably not, and probably not.


(María still has a great beat to dance to.)

[OldManMac]

IIRC, his career took a dive a few years ago. He's now writing his memoirs, as if a person his age has anything to write about other than his music career (which is all public knowledge to begin with). If I were more of a cynic, I'd say that this is just an attempt to make headlines, so he can push his book.

[The Final Dakar]

Maybe he just became single.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

This really has me confused.

I mean, everybody’s already been more or less aware that the man’s gay for the better part of a decade, and suddenly now he decides to confirm? What’s been the point of all the ambiguous secrecy and part-denials for the past decade? I really don’t get it.

Are you joking? 90% of the people I know that like him are chicks. If they knew he was gay there goes most of his market overnight.

He is now at the point where he has made enough money and his carreer died down enough that it doesn't matter anymore.

Same goes for Lance from Nsync. You know how many posters of him hung on teenage girls walls there was. Is saying he is gay really the best way to keep girl fans? Not to mention in the US most parents knowing that would have a Jesus fit.

And no there aren't enough gay men out there that like his MUSIC. We'd all be more than happy to do him though but that doesn't turn into record sales.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Are you joking? 90% of the people I know that like him are chicks. If they knew he was gay there goes most of his market overnight.

I don't buy that. The women I've met that like his music probably couldn't care less whether he's gay or straight, and in fact many just assumed he may be gay anyway because of stereotypes.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I don't buy that. The women I've met that like his music probably couldn't care less whether he's gay or straight, and in fact many just assumed he may be gay anyway because of stereotypes.

How many of his albums do they have or how many concerts they go to of his?

Ask them if they would not do either of the above with the new knowing that he is gay.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

How many of his albums do they have or how many concerts they go to of his?

Ask them if they would not do either of the above with the new knowing that he is gay.

Well, not rabid stalker type fans. Just a few acquaintances of mine that have 1-2 of his albums.

Maybe a different type of fan base?

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Well, not rabid stalker type fans. Just a few acquaintances of mine that have 1-2 of his albums.

That's not much of a market to lose.

The rabid ones that buy all his crap and go to his concerts are the same damn ones that are hearbroken.

But you go tell his agent that he should have done it 10 years ago and still have sold the number of albums.

Just ask Lance how his career is since

[Eug]

Who else in the band besides Justin Timberlake has been a huge musical success since Nsync?

Oh yeah, that's right. None of them.

But anyway, here ya go:

Ricky Martin: 'I was told my career would collapse if I came out'

But then again...

For the majority of pop fans and celeb-watchers, Martin's statement will hardly come as a shock.

His sexuality has been one of the worst-kept secrets in the music industry for years.

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

That's not much of a market to lose.

The rabid ones that buy all his crap and go to his concerts are the same damn ones that are hearbroken.

P.S. I just checked. He only has 3 studio albums in English anyway.

I don't personally know any Hispanics who like his music, so I can't comment there.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Ok Eug, you have my convinced with that. He should have just sang gay loves songs from day one as everyone already knew from the first album. Heck I am sure they knew by the sound of his voice.

Thanks as always Mr. Opposite Opinion for no real reason Man!

[Atheist]

Homosexuality is still rather taboo in Latin America. It's somewhat ironic when you realize that a good majority of Latin men will mess around with other men... but they would never identify themselves as homosexual. They make a big distinction between behavior and identity. To them a homosexual is a very feminine man who dresses in drag and is strictly passive (sexually). I can understand why Martin was hesitant to come out but I'm glad he did.

My Dominican neighbors can't quite wrap their brains around the fact that the two masculine men living in their midst are gay. It's almost comical to watch... but they treat us wonderfully. I suspect it's because we're gringos.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

P.S. I just checked. He only has 3 studio albums in English anyway.

Originally Posted by Atheist 

Homosexuality is still rather taboo in Latin America.

One of you two is wrong.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Are you joking? 90% of the people I know that like him are chicks. If they knew he was gay there goes most of his market overnight.

Yeah, ’cause everyone knows that the female fanbase disappeares immediately if you come out … like it did for George Michael or Elton John, for example.

For the record, 100 per cent of the people I know that like Ricky Martin (not just in the party-time “Oh, Livin’ la Vida Loca, let’s go dance to that”-like, but really like, as in having the albums) are gay guys. I know exactly two people who like him (or at least two people that I know like him). Back when he was huge, he had a huge gay following, just like Enrique Iglesias and all those other Latino loverboys.

Same goes for Lance from Nsync. You know how many posters of him hung on teenage girls walls there was. Is saying he is gay really the best way to keep girl fans?

Didn’t hurt him much here, from where I was standing. Teenage girls still had his posters up on their walls. Same with Stephen Gately and that guy from CITA he was with when he came out: all the boyband-fan girls I knew kept their posters up on the wall just fine (and I knew a lot of teenage girls around that time, mostly because I was a teenager myself).


Sure, if he’d come out at the top of his career, it would probably have hurt his career. But the speculation about his sexuality didn’t really start to take off properly till about 2000, when his career was already going downhill.

His career is pretty dead now, and it doesn’t matter much whether he comes out or not—but that’s been the case for at least five years, so what confuses me isn’t that he didn’t come out from the start or while he was at the top of the world, but that he waited this long, and then suddenly did it now, seemingly without any ‘provocation’ (à la George Michael’s little public restroom incident).

Thanks as always Mr. Opposite Opinion for no real reason Man!

Yeah, that would be you.

Edit:

Same goes for Lance from Nsync. You know how many posters of him hung on teenage girls walls there was. Is saying he is gay really the best way to keep girl fans?

And no there aren't enough gay men out there that like his MUSIC. We'd all be more than happy to do him though but that doesn't turn into record sales.

You don’t realise how incredibly self-contradictory this is? On the one hand, you’re saying that the women who listen to his music for the music and don’t care whether he’s gay or straight are an unimportant market to lose, and that the ones that matter are the ones who have his poster on the wall; and on the other, that gay men who just want to schtup him aren’t an important market because they don’t translate to record sales. Which is it, then?

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Yeah, ’cause everyone knows that the female fanbase disappeares immediately if you come out … like it did for George Michael or Elton John, for example.

Silly me, I thought they waited 15 years until they came out... just like Ricky Martin.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

You don’t realise how incredibly self-contradictory this is? On the one hand, you’re saying that the women who listen to his music for the music and don’t care whether he’s gay or straight are an unimportant market to lose, and that the ones that matter are the ones who have his poster on the wall; and on the other, that gay men who just want to schtup him aren’t an important market because they don’t translate to record sales. Which is it, then?

Sorry I think you misunderstand. One or 2 records is not a big fan to lose. He prob got $2 in the end.

But yes the obsessive fans with posters and hitting up concerts are the ones that will be heartbroken in most cases and dump his ass EARLY in his carrier cuz they are "in love with him".

But I am sure the 2 gay mens opinions posted here on the matter say coming out long ago would have been bad it doesn't hold a candle to random straight guy with gaydars who know better all along!

Everyone should come out. Nobody hates a gay!

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Silly me, I thought they waited 15 years until they came out... just like Ricky Martin.

They both waited, yes. But they also both still had careers (and have, at least in Elton’s case—not so sure I’d call what George has a ‘career’ anymore). And their careers didn’t die out because of their coming out.

But yes the obsessive fans with posters and hitting up concerts

So, the gay fans, then.

But I am sure the 2 gay mens opinions posted here on the matter say coming out long ago would have been bad

Make that one gay man’s opinion. I don’t think his ailing career would have suffered much if he’d come out six years ago, and I don’t think it would necessarily have been ‘bad’ even if it did negatively affect his already dying career.

[Eug]

I could see a coming-out-of-the-closet-epiphany killing Tommy Lee's music career. Ricky Martin? Not so much, esp. in the last 5 years when everyone assumed he was ghey anyway.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

It's somewhat ironic when you realize that a good majority of Latin men will mess around with other men...

And that fact comes from where?

That would be silly for them to do since my understanding is that a good majority of gay people have AIDS.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

And that fact comes from where?

That would be silly for them to do since my understanding is that a good majority of gay people have AIDS.

CAN OF WORMS allcaps

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

And that fact comes from where?

Since latin men are neither English or German, they'll obviously be inclined to mess around with other men. It stands to reason.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Since latin men are neither English or German, they'll obviously be inclined to mess around with other men. It stands to reason.

Sure they are. Lots of germans suddenly decided to "relocate" to South America in 1945

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

And that fact comes from where?

Personal experience.

That would be silly for them to do since my understanding is that a good majority of gay people have AIDS.

Not quite sure where you're going with that one...

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

Personal experience.

I betcha one of them was Ricky.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

That would be silly for them to do since my understanding is that a good majority of gay people have AIDS.

Just can't quite figure out if this is tongue in cheek.... macnn has ruined me on these things

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

They both waited, yes. But they also both still had careers (and have, at least in Elton’s case—not so sure I’d call what George has a ‘career’ anymore).

George doesn't really need one anymore.

He makes enough every Christmas to last through the year.

Edit: Ohgoddammit. Now I can't get that song out of my head. **** sleighbells.

[Oisín]

^

Well, you brought that on yourself!

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Captain Obvious 

Sure they are. Lots of germans suddenly decided to "relocate" to South America in 1945

We certainly gave our best: the gay Nazis.

-t

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

They both waited, yes. But they also both still had careers (and have, at least in Elton’s case—not so sure I’d call what George has a ‘career’ anymore). And their careers didn’t die out because of their coming out.

So that means you already know Ricky will maintain his career now that he's out just cuz Elton pulled it off. Alrighty good to know

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

So that means you already know Ricky will maintain his career now that he's out just cuz Elton pulled it off. Alrighty good to know

Uhh, no. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of what I said.

I said Elton and (to some extent) George had a (to me) understandable reason for waiting as long as they did: they still had actual careers to nurture. Ricky’s career has been dead for five or six years at least, so I can’t see much of a reason why now is somehow less destructive to his career than five years ago.

[The Godfather]

You could almost say that the timing of their coming out was calculated by their accountants, to maximize market cap.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

Not quite sure where you're going with that one...

Don't worry; neither is he.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Ricky’s career has been dead for five or six years at least, so I can’t see much of a reason why now is somehow less destructive to his career than five years ago.

Oh so now his career is dead. Before you said it wouldn't hurt his career.

So what are you saying exactly? That he should have been out from day 1 or after some random "Elton John" time buffer before and his career would have been fine.

Collect your thoughts and be sure to let us know.

[Oisín]

No, you just need to learn how to read properly and stop putting nonsense words in my mouth.

I’ve said all along that his career is already pretty much dead. Which is also the reason coming out won’t do much damage to it—there’s nothing left to do damage to.

Also, I said that Lance, Elton, and George’s careers weren’t significantly hurt by their coming out: Elton and George managed to hang on to their careers, and Lance did nothing after ’N Sync, so he wouldn’t have had much of a career anyway. But I didn’t mention these three to imply that coming out never hurt anyone’s career—I mentioned them to point out that coming out doesn’t always kill any given celebrity’s career, as you were implying.


So, just to try to put it very, very, very clearly so you’ll perhaps understand it:

Case A:
If Ricky had come out in 1999 or 2000, when he had a big career going for him, especially in Latin America, then it’s likely that his career would have suffered, at least in part.

Case B:
If he’d come out, say, five years later, around 2005 or so, when his career was already more or less dead, even in Latin America, it wouldn’t have had nearly as much impact, and the effect on his career would have been much less.

Case C:
Coming out now has pretty much the same effect (or non-effect) as coming out about five years ago would have [that’s Case B above], since his career has been more or less stagnantly dead for the past five years.

Therefore:

It surprises me that he wasted the past five or so years on denials, when coming out five years really wouldn’t have done more damage than coming out now will. That was my point to begin with, and I think everyone else in the thread except you understood it just fine without me having to put it into bullet point form.

[Spheric Harlot]

You'll have to excuse him.

The gay gene is clouding his mind.

(sheesh, I'm so not funny today. )

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You'll have to excuse him.

The gay Canuckistani gene is clouding his mind.

Fixed.

[turtle777]

WTF ? A serious ghey discussion in a thread about Ricky Martin ?

The Lounge has truly peaked.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Huh?

I must have missed it for the petty denseness that will presently devolve into petty bickering.

I'm pleased, however, that Doofy responded in kind to my lame post. Solidarity.

[The Godfather]

Any lounger reviews about his new CD?

[brassplayersrock²]

Woah, zombie thread bump.

[Chongo]