Look what happened when Adam Lambert kissed a male guitarist in a performance at the AMA's, still don't think it would have caused as much controversy here though as it did is the USA.

Of course Cowell would never encourage openly Gay behaviour or want the finalists to be honest about it. The man has issues and is not comfortable with that issue. Not even Louis is openly Gay.

What would you have them do? Strut on stage like they're auditioning for Funny Girls?

Not everybody wants to wear their sexuality on their sleeves you know. Quite frankly, as long as the contestants are comfortable with it, I don't know what your gripe is.

I couldn't disagree more about your surmising about the general message being that you can't be gay in the entertainment industry. The Xfactor has a total laissez faire attitude to homosexuality in my opinion.

They'll all be terrified of what happened to Austin Drage. I have no certainty as to Austin's sexual orientation, but his non affirmatives to Simon's excruciatingly embarrassing questions after his performance gave the impression he was gay, and he crashed out of the competition the next night.

Simon asked him if he'd liked dancing with the hot female dancers and which one was his favourite (to which Austin gave no reply), then Simon moved on, saying "ah, it's because you have a girlfriend so you don't want to answer....you do have a girlfriend, don't you?" (no reply).

For a young man in these competitions to give any indication he is gay - he loses votes from his core audience, the young dreamy females.

I agree, that's also why girls never have to change the lyrics cause lesbians are hot and all...
Tbf though it's not like people didn't complain about Frankie, that definitely backfired on them.



This would all make sense if not for one thing:
Craig could simply sing a song that has the appropriate lyrics in the first place or a neutral one.
It's not like there isn't a massive pool to choose from.
Instead he chose a song with lyric that fit his sexuality and then changed it to not fit his sexuality anymore.
That's not the smartest thing to do.

It totally depends on who the target audience is. If you're trying to appeal to One Direction type fans, I think male acts are asked to think twice about coming out, as it essentially kills their target audience. I often wonder if this is what happened with Joe McElderry.

Will Young was able to come out and still be successful, because he appealed to a slightly older audience.

I don't think the contestants are always comfortable with it, I have a feeling they get pressured and advised. Ofcourse I don;t want them to be over the top and camp, unless thats who they are naturally. Thats a stereotype that they made Johnny Robinson play up to. They can be true to who they are and be a role model to kids watching this show who have so few gay role models in mainstream media and make them feel its ok for them to be different from the "norm". Pretending and making yourself fit in sends the message that being gay is something that should be hidden because its a disadvantage.