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The first ever time I read about LFL, I thought it stood for Ladies Football League. I pictured women in shoulder pads and helmets and you know, football. Well, I was right about all of that except for the “Ladies” part, and from the title, I’m sure you know what is coming.

Yes, LFL stands for Lingerie Football League, and it is, as the name suggests, women playing football in their lingerie.

Attractive women in lingerie playing football? It probably does not take wild imagination to realize why it attracts a primarily male audience.

Judging from the highlights, the football part is real and it is definitely not just a strip show designed to appeal to men’s pleasure. In fact, judging from everything I’ve been reading, the women players love it—many of them have actually been playing for free.

But this just does not seem quite right to me. I think it is awesome that there is a league that supports women football players, and I most definitely understand the need to distinguish from NFL and drive in profit, but dressed in that? Does that really help promote women’s football? And what kind of message is it sending out to society?

This reminds me of Eddie’s post on “PETA porn” and my other post on, well, “news porn.”

So now that we are also throwing “football porn” into the mix, is this really what we want from our society? If not, how do we ensure that the “market pull” does not turn everything we know into something like that? (I personally don’t think high school teachers in bikinis teaching trigonometry is a good idea.)

And if you agree with me that LFL is not that great of a concept (and if you disagree with me, I would love to hear your point), how do we also approach the fact that the women players seem to have zero problems doing this? Even if a less scantily clad version of women’s football exists, I am guessing that many of the players would rather play in lingerie and be watched than play in an empty gym.

(On a more unrelated note of the day, should little kids play football like this?)

According to a recent Reuter’s article, a New York artist was arrested on lewdness and indecent exposure charges for painting (on) a nude model in the middle of Times Square.  His lawyer argued that that public nudity is acceptable in the name of art, and as a result, an interesting compromise has been reached.

Charges against Mr. Andy Golub (the artist) will be dropped if he agrees to:

1. Only paint bare breasts during the day.
2. Instruct the model to keep her g-string on until after dark.
3. Not violate conditions 1 or 2 for the next 6 months.

This contract raises two interesting questions.

First, what should be considered art?  Click on the following video to decide for yourself if Mr. Golub’s models constitute “artwork.”

Mr. Golub argues that painting nude bodies is more dynamic then painting a canvas.  For him, the nakedness of the model is essential to conveying his expression.  But, a line needs to be drawn on which cultural and moral taboos are “art” and which are simply bad taste and taboo.  For example, birth is a similar cultural taboo to nudity (it is not meant for public eyes outside of health class).  A recent Telegraph article, however, announced that an American artist was planning to sell tickets to this “private event” by staging the birth of her child as an “artistic performance” in a New York art studio.  If nudity is an acceptable medium of art, does giving birth also qualify?  Do the boundaries of art transcend those of social mores?

If we accept that painting new models is a legitimate form of artistic expression, then the issue becomes why it is necessary to enforce the “g-strings off after dark” rule.  The specificity of the agreement raises more concerns.  Is nudity inherently offensive even as a form of art?  Is nudity less offensive after dark?  Are certain body parts (breasts) more taboo to display then others (genitalia)?  Although some distinctions regarding nudity are normative, for example, a naked statue in public is less offensive than a naked human, the restrictions of this agreement seem arbitrary and very contrived.

Regardless of the New York statue, one thing remains constant: nudity has been and will remain a thematic element of art.  From Michaelangelo’s Thinker to Boticelli’s Birth of Venus, nudity has always made a striking artistic impression.  Perhaps in the light of the 21st century, the medium has advanced from canvas and marble to real human bodies.

PETA poster from 1994. Photograph: Rex Features. Source: The Guardian

But it seems like the folks at PETA are kicking it up a notch. NPR reports that PETA is planning a website that will “feature ‘tantalizing’ videos and photographs” (read: pornography) leading to its usual animal rights messages. Never mind that “tantalizing” summons up images of that medium-rare filet mignon oozing with the last drops of life force, it’s easy to see why this new initiative is questionable. The obvious objection is that using an immorality to promote an ethical viewpoint reeks of hypocrisy. Moreover, from a practical standpoint, this new enticement is bound to be a turn-off for “mainstream” audience, adding further to the perception of PETA as a fringe movement.

But are there really no justifiable reasons to put naked bodies on the line for animal rights?

Consider this: if one PETA argument is that humans and animals are really more alike than different, then what is more effective an illustration than human bodies eliciting and performing what are often called our most animalistic desires? Also, PETA’s new idea could function as a sort of meta-critique. If the public finds pornography objectifying, exploitative, disgusting, grotesque, and—in a word—offensive, then why wouldn’t it harbor the same sentiment toward the literal eating of animals, among many other evils that humans perpetrate on animals? Here the opponent would argue from the alleged differences between humans and animals, to which the PETA advocate could point to the juxtaposition: naked human, naked animal, wherein lies the difference?

Of course, opponents can point to cognitive ability as the decisive line between humans and animals—an old argument now. And maybe all PETA is going for with the new website is mere provocation, rather than some weird postmodern argument. But it suffices to point out the inextricable relationship between morality and the regulation of desires, regardless of which indulgence one prefers.

Photo credit: www.womenonthefence.com

The other day I ran into a professor from Auburn University whom I personally know very well. By chance, we started talking about the recent live sex demonstration in Northwestern University and it was obvious to me that she was absolutely horrified by the thought. She told me she read it in the Chronicle of Higher Education and suggested to me some things from there. When I got home and started browsing through, I saw this.

To summarize (these all happened within four days of each other):

-A student in UMass made the claim in her column that drunk flirtatious women who dress scandalously in a party should take responsibility if she was raped.

-A Northwestern professor allowed a live sex-toy demonstration in class to show female orgasm is real.

-A basketball player in BYU was dismissed from the team for having pre-marital sex (violating the BYU honor code).

-A How to Better Masturbate Guide was distributed by Skidmore College’s Center for Sex and Gender Relations.

As you can imagine, there are many outcries and discussions going on related to all these topics. What I find intriguing is the involvement of the college institutions and their approaches.

On one end, we have masturbation guides floating around and on the other, a dismissal for pre-marital sex.

So how involved should the academic institutions have over their students’ sex lives? Their goal is to educate and inspire young minds, and how much involvement does that mean in terms of something like sex? I think it’s safe to say that most universities do not really want a prominent sex culture to exist among its student body, but the reality is that many do.* So what should the institutions do?

The Northwestern demonstration case is particularly interesting. Though it received mostly positive feedback from those in the classroom, it created protests from angry “moralists” who want to protect the integrity of a university. Is having a live sex demonstration “ethically bad?” And why so? What is it exactly that makes an optional demonstration sex bad when it is for education purposes?

I think this is a great time for the students and administrations in universities to talk about sex.

*This reminded me of a quote from a famous Cal president Clark Kerr: “The three purposes of the University? To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.” (I believe he was joking)

Before reading any further, take a look at the following Youtube video.

(Don’t feel obliged to watch the entire clip; a minute or less should suffice.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcx4ppod4b8]

Disturbed? Intrigued? Angry? Surprised? Turned on?

These are the mixed reactions that daggering has elicited. And if you know anything about dance history, you’d know that this isn’t the first time a society has had a negative reaction to a new dance move. Elvis’s mild (by today’s standards) pelvic thrusts were enough to make producers show him from the waist up, in fear of a public outcry. Is daggering just another dance style that society simply hasn’t grown accustomed to yet?

Not exactly. In the case of daggering, there’s more to it than the simple claim of inappropriate hip movement. Jamaica’s Broadcasting Commission is the group behind the ban of this kind of music, which often contains references to daggering and could be considered lewd itself.   The JBC’s basis for restrictions on this music is the spate of broken penises that have occurred from this erotic dancing.

Yes, the Jamaican government is stepping in to prevent broken penises. I don’t necessarily disagree with the restriction of this music on public radio; I wouldn’t want this lewd content available to my five-year old cousin. In fact, up until very recently this music has been limited to Jamaican dance halls; the public playing of this genre is new to Jamaica. Raula Brown, an Atlanta-based Jamaican DJ, told Newsweek, “That kind of music has always existed in Jamaican culture, but the only place you could hear it or experience was in the dancehall.”

But why are they focusing this law on broken penises? I don’t believe it’s the government’s responsibility to protect men from a tear in the covering of the erectile tissue. You might as well enforce laws against rough sex. This is a personal and (although painful) minor injury for a man, and the government has no business getting involved in this respect.

If the Jamaican government is acting on behalf of public health, then why don’t they just say so? They should be solely interested in the effects this musical content has on younger ears, not on adult penises.

But what if this isn’t the case; maybe the Jamaican government is intentionally exaggerating the issue of the broken penis in order to have a basis for this ban on daggering music. Then the question is why do they feel the need to come up with an excuse? Is for the betterment of society not reason enough? I know that I would support this ban for the sake of protecting children from exposure to it’s content, but this stance makes me seem pretentious. Who am I to tell another culture (one that I’ve never experienced and therefore could not truly understand) how to raise their kids?

Please take a look at this and tell me, what was the speed limit?

Okay, you might have answered that one correctly, but what if it was not censored?

What speed limit?

What if you saw this on the street while driving 40 miles per hour?

What street?

(I did the conversion and you would be speeding in this case, assuming you didn’t slow down to…um….not run over the lady of course…but slowing down is what we are aiming for, right?)

So…I know I am currently speaking to the segment of population that hasn’t stopped reading this and flown to Denmark yet, and for that you have my thanks. But anyways, what if something like this happened during a news broadcast?

Ever heard of Megyn Kelly? and yes, she is a Fox news anchor (for all my Democrat friends, let’s keep the political jokes to a minimum). So now back to my straight male readers, imagine her giving the news, and don’t worry, she will be more covered than the Danish lady. How much news will you be able to absorb?

So just very recently, two researchers from the University of Indiana conducted a study related to that specific question. Essentially, what they found was that men retain much less information when there’s a sexier anchor.

SHOCKING, right? As an engineer, I sometimes marvel at what science can tell us.

So what does this all mean?

I do not blame the news channels for increasing number of “hot” news anchors out there. Let’s face it, we don’t need another scientific research to tell us that on average straight men are more likely to stop at a news channel with sexy anchors while channel surfing. News channels are for-profit, and they are trying to increase their ratings. If we regulate the anchors’ appearances, shouldn’t we also anchor all the distracting (well, at least to me) color schemes that fly around? And I’m sure we’ve been hearing a lot of “attractiveness discrimination” in, ironically, the news. So that is one ethical issue in itself.

But now we have this research results – we know that our suspicions are true. What is the ethical thing for news channels to do? News is meant to inform the public, but this research clearly shows that “sexier” women aren’t doing that as efficiently. Sure, we can tell the news anchors to all put turtlenecks on, but should we? And should we police who can anchor?

So does that mean the most ethical thing to do is to have “reverse attractiveness discrimination?” No news channel will do that – but that’s not the point, should they do that? Or perhaps any of this shouldn’t matter?

It seems to me that the news channels should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as the materials are kept PG and there are no sexism and discrimination issues. The viewers should know what they are viewing and should be able to decide for themselves what to watch (that’s the point of channel surfing).

And who knows? Maybe these anchors will attract some people who usually don’t watch the news.