People who know me know that I am a completely hopeless romantic. My favorite movie is Love Actually. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the Collin Firth – Jennifer Ehle version of Pride and Prejudice, but I cry every single time I watch it when Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett finally get together. The same thing happens when I reread David Copperfield by Charles Dickens when towards the end of the novel David finally realizes that he’s loved Agnes for so long. Same goes for watching Patrick and David’s love story on Schitt’s Creek. I love romance and love and just watched Heated Rivalry for the first time because someone recommended it to me as a great love story. It absolutely is.

Something that I have long believed is that the world needs a lot more love. That means having positive representations of loving relationships between consenting adults in books, music, TV, and movies. Without giving away an spoilers, Heated Rivalry does that big time. There are multiple relationships between gay men depicted in the story that are incredibly moving. While watching it there were multiple moments when I “got all up in my feels” and found myself crying while watching. Sometimes tears just welled up and rolled down my cheeks. At others, I was literally sobbing. Wrecked by love.

The facts that I as a straight man even watched the series and found it to be so moving would make a lot of dudes cringe. They’d mostly be self professed “manly men” who are fans of toxic masculinity culture and would thus express their derision at my “softness” and flowing tears. Or they’d be fundamentalists who would be disgusted that a show, and the book it was based upon, would even be on television. They’d likely want to ban the books from America’s libraries while proclaiming that America is a cesspool of sin an depravity doomed to collapse because of the iniquitous gay agenda. It’s just theological horseshit dressed up as piety. I know that because a long time ago I was once one of those types of Christians. Fortunately, I have long since repented of that bigotry I was taught from the pulpit of baptist churches.

There aren’t a lot of depictions of romantic love in the Bible. The Song of Songs is a notable exception and it is a collection of erotic poetry about lovers who are most likely unwed – so much for purity culture. Another possible exception is the story of David and Jonathan’s love found in the Hebrew Bible. I, like others, believe that they were in love. In 1 Samuel 18:1-6 we see the start of this powerful love between the two young men. They make a covenant together and their love is described as extremely powerful for they both one another as one another’s own souls. Then Jonathan undresses before David and gives him the robe he’d been wearing.

I once asked some rabbis about this passage and they said that David and Jonathan were lovers. One even said that the passage mentioned above actually depicts a marriage because it contains a gift, a vow, and a blessing. Later in 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan and David arrange to meet in secret. Once they are alone they begin to kiss one another and weep together (1 Sam. 20:35-42). Finally when Jonathan is killed in battle, David in lament proclaims that, “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” I love my male friends, but have never felt, nor proclaimed that my love for them surpasses that of a woman.

There are parallels between David and Jonathan’s story and the fictional story of Shane and Ilya in Heated Rivalry. While the biblical texts about the former merely hint at a romantic/sexual relationship between the upstart David and Saul’s heir, there is no such ambiguity between Shane and Ilya. The passion, sexual tension, and love between them is palpable. Like David and Jonathan, they verbally express their love, meet in secret to kiss, and they definitely disrobe in front of one another. Their love even surpasses that of their love for women. Parallels.

This kind of representation matters. It shows that love is far bigger than just what is found in heterosexual relationships. It also matters because so many athletes in men’s sports are kept in the closet because there remains so much hatred, bigotry, and idiotic notions of masculinity within our culture. Love is beautiful. Love is ubiquitous among humans of all sexual orientations. That love should be celebrated, especially in a world with so much cynicism, hatred, warfare, bigotry, et al. Heated Rivalry does just that. I can’t wait for season two.