His day job involves jumping from ten metre high boards, risking injury from the board, the water or the bottom on the pool on every occasion. Last year he simultaneously balanced the weight of public expectations for the 2012 Summer Olympics with his A Levels and the never simple, albeit tedious, complications of being a teenager. That Tom Daley is brave is not a revelation.
His YouTube video, in which he announced that he was in a same-sex relationship, did reveal two things. The first is the degree of his bravery. Daley's commercial success is, in part, dependent on his physical attractiveness to females; it guarantees the sales of his calendars, in which a fully clothed Daley is a rarity, and adds to the viewing figures of his competitions. His appeal to women and girls alike feeds into a fantasy in which he is the pinnacle of youthful fanciability. He is many girls’ dream boyfriend.
Consequently, Daley's announcement that he is in a same-sex relationship risks undermining his consumer appeal. It is a risk feared by many gay and bisexual men whose appeal is based, to a greater or lesser degree, on their physical attractiveness. To be in any way gay quashes the vision of a fantasy boyfriend, an effect hardly mitigated by his seeming bisexuality (Daley himself does not borrow from the tortured cannon of sexuality terminology). It is a biological necessity that will remain true for eternity: women outnumber gay men. This has impacts on the consumer market and could feasibly impact on Daley’s current popularity and future earnings.
The second revelation regards Daley’s social utility. By throwing in the line "I still fancy girls," Daley has done more than just muddy the water of the public's appreciation of his private life, he has focused the eyes of a generation on to the least understood group on the sexuality spectrum: bisexuals. Bisexuality is neither a group with which many people willingly identify nor one with which many people have sympathy. Often seen as having the best of both worlds or suffering from chronic indecisiveness at best and rampant promiscuity at worst, they neither benefit from the assuredness of being in the heterosexual mainstream or the purity of the homosexual minority.
This maligned status of bisexuals was briefly demonstrated by LGBT news website PinkNews.co.uk. When first reporting Daley's YouTube video, deputy editor Joseph McCormick immediately reported that Tom Delay had come out as gay (McCormick admirably acknowledged and apologised at length for his mistake). That he leaped to thinking that this young man, previously seen dating women, must have come out as gay - after all, who comes out as anything else? - is a small insight into the extreme bipolarity to which issues of sexuality are subjected. Daley has cast welcome light on this, becoming the most prominent member of the cultural mainstream to openly discuss his bisexuality. In doing so he has helped normalise it for thousands of hitherto silent young people who crowded around their laptops and helped make his announcement the most watched YouTube video of the day.
Perhaps more surprising, Daley’s news romped to the top of the BBC News website's most read stories. The following day, it made the front pages of multiple national newspapers. Those that did it best - specifically The Times and The Independent - led with a photograph. It depicted a smiling Daley with his announcement simply a caption to an image of joy. That he made the front pages is a sign of his status; that he delivered his news is a sign of his courage; that we're all talking about it is a sign of his social contribution. But most importantly, that he is smiling is a sign of his happiness.
