Rugby players at one of London’s leading universities have stripped in a bid to tackle homophobia in sport and raise money to counter gay domestic violence.
The men’s first team at King’s College posed in some of the best known locations on the Strand campus including the 19th century neo-Gothic Maughan Library, Quadrangle and Council Room, and is selling a calendar of the naked shots.
All money will be donated to Broken Rainbow UK, a domestic violence and abuse charity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
The calendar comes in the wake of the London School of Economics men’s rugby club disbanding last year after homophobic and misogynistic leaflets were distributed to prospective members.
The pamphlets referred to women as “slags” and “crumpet” and said “homosexual debauchery” would not be tolerated.
Rugby players strip down
It led to accountancy firm KPMG pulling its £22,000-a-year sponsorship of the university’s athletics union.
Barney Lynock, head of the men’s first team at King’s College, said: “We hope to remind people that action still needs to be taken against homophobic, prejudiced sentiments that plague the sporting world, but also to be proactive about these problems, and in doing so change the unwelcoming stereotype that is often attributed to sporting clubs, particularly at university level.”
The calendar was produced by King’s student newspaper Roar News.
A spokeswoman for Broken Rainbow said: “We think it’s a brave step taken by Roar to choose us as their charity, as the issue of domestic violence and abuse within LGBT communities is often overlooked and made hidden even within the community itself.”
