Vicious anti-gay language was the norm, he says.
The "Impossible" singer hit headlines this week after a public Twitter clash with fellow 2012 contestant Lucy Spraggan over his use of anti-gay language.
Most worryingly for the sport, seven in ten fans who'd attended matches in the last five years had heard anti-gay language and abuse on the terraces.
Recent YouGov research for Stonewall found that more than seven in 10 teachers say anti-gay language in broadcast media affects the level of homophobic bullying in schools.
Both Clementi and Ravi were impacted, albeit in different ways, by a society that is still far too accepting about the use of anti-gay language.
But the use of anti-gay language in school is almost endemic with 99 per cent of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people hearing phrases such as 'that's so gay' or 'you're so gay'.
Some leaders' anti-gay language has a conspiratorial tone that feels borrowed from the anti-Semitic diatribes of another time: gay people are portrayed as in thrall to alien values and particularly dangerous to children.
In any other sector of work this would be unheard of – yet for years in football it has been quietly accepted, with anti-gay language on the pitch an unwelcome guest at many matches.
MTV also ran a hefty slate of promotional spots for other shows on the channel, including "Teen Mom 2" and "I Used to Be Fat," along with some of its own public service announcements on subjects like online harassment and anti-gay language.
As a petition to drop James Arthur following the exposure of his use of anti-gay language gathers pace, I can't help but feel it's necessary to highlight the difference between an unrefined bigot with the inability to self-censor, and a true homophobe.
"We always knew middle school was a time when kids struggle with their identity," one middle-school counsellor told the New York Times, confessing that her school was "totally unprepared" for openly gay students, "but it was easy to let anti-gay language slide because it's so imbedded in middle-school culture, and because we didn't have students who were out to us or their classmates.
