Without the use of horse blinders, it would be virtually impossible for Vilma, or anyone else, to go more than 20 minutes without a penis, or six, crossing his line of vision. NFL TEAMMATES SPEND at least 20 hours together in the shower each season. And if there's one universal certainty in a sports shower, it's this: Everyone's looking.Д®SPN The Magazine: Accepting Openly Gay Football PlayersДЇormer Division III linebacker Scott Cooper talks about his acceptance in the locker room as an openly gay football player. Getting clean next to a gay teammate is probably one of the more ordinary things that happens in the team shower. 'Imagine if he's the guy next to me and, you know, I get dressed, naked, taking a shower, the whole nine,' then-Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma said in February. The refrain has always been: I'll accept a gay teammate, I just won't shower with one. When stinky teammates strip down to their most vulnerable state, it conjures, for some, a range of emotions: their most awkward memories (middle school gym class), deepest insecurities (size), purest symbolism (baptism) and most ignorant defense mechanisms (homophobia). But this was unprecedented in an NFL locker room, our culture's ultimate temple of masculinity.

Sam wasn't the first, of course: Jason Collins showered with his Nets teammates after coming out last year. There's just something sacred about the ritual of the team shower, we were told - the outside world would never understand. The barrier that Sam strolled through in June was long considered an unbreakable cultural obstacle to acceptance for gay players, even in a society in which, according to Gallup, 78 percent of people under 30 support same-sex marriage. This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's

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