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Jewish World Review May 6, 2005 / 27 Nissan, 5765 The fuzzing of virgin and vixen By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's not the Texas bill against lewd cheerleading that gets to
you. It's that a law was needed at all. Am I missing something, or has the
culture just gone nuts?
For some time now, cheerleaders have been shaking their booty at
high-school games. They bump and grind. They bend over and stick their rears
into the air. Friends who teach in the Dallas suburbs have been talking
about the phenomenon for years.
You have to wonder where the school administrators have been all
this time. And lacking their intervention, why didn't the parents put a stop
to the raunchy shows? Could these be the same folks writing their
congressmen about the bad influences from Hollywood?
The adult supervisors don't seem to mind that modest, pleated
cheerleading skirts have given way to short numbers with slits to the hip.
Common sense says they would, but when common sense goes on vacation,
no-brainers have to be chiseled into law. That's why Rep. Al Edwards of
Houston sponsored a bill to ban "sexually suggestive" cheerleading in the
public schools.
The issue is not prudery. There should be a place in our society
for stripping, pole dancing and all manner of adult entertainment. I support
the right to free expression — for grown-ups.
Children are another matter. Adolescents are children. Some
older people think teenagers are grown-ups — and the teenagers definitely
do. But they're not. It's odd. The girls aren't allowed to order beer at a
bar, but they can simulate sex acts before the student body.
In a perfect world, high-school students would not engage in
sex. Teenagers (I generalize) haven't an ounce of sense and even less
ability to withstand peer pressure. A moment of unprotected sex can lead to
pregnancy or, tragically, to deadly disease.
An active sex life in high school is bad even for sex. The girls
enter their 20s as tired women of experience. They've been denied the
longing and romance that could have enhanced the sexual experience later on.
Many high-school students do have sex, and we have to deal with
that. But the very least grown-ups can do is stop sponsoring activities that
arouse the students further.
How did we get to this point? When did rah-rah-rah become
ooh-la-la? The watershed year is probably 1972. That's when the Dallas
Cowboys football team traded pom-pom girls for busty broads in hot pants.
Needless to say, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders were a great
commercial success. By mixing girlishness with cleavage and high white
boots, they perfected the classic formula for titillation. Six years later,
their example inspired the X-rated "Debbie Does Dallas" — about girls
wanting to be Cowboys cheerleaders.
The fuzzing of virgin and vixen makes the cheerleaders'
performances at ordinary Cowboys games seem far sexier than Janet Jackson's
nipple flash at the Super Bowl. (A pornographer would have starved trying to
make a living off the Jackson incident.)
To protect the Cowboys' "family friendly" reputation, the
managers established a strict rule of no fraternizing between the
cheerleaders and the players. So it appears that the pros cheerleading for
Dallas may have more supervision than the high-school girls copying their
hip movements.
The cheerleading world now stands divided between the newer
dance model and the older athletic style. Athletic cheerleading is more
gymnastic and often involves military-type formations. The cheerleading
squad at University of Michigan sports events offers a fine example.
"Dance" covers a lot of ground and can include, one supposes,
ballet. But in the case of cheerleading, it means gyrating to "Shake That
Thing."
Back in Austin, state Rep. Edwards has taken some barbs for his
bill. He's been accused of wasting the legislature's time on what seems a
small matter. One high-school coach noted that the cheerleaders in Louisiana
wear "almost nothing" and "the fans in Louisiana love it."
I bet they do.
Yes, in the cosmic order of the universe, high-school
cheerleading is small stuff. But it is part of a big problem: the
sexualizing of America's children. That parents and educators let
high-school girls perform erotic routines at public events simply shows how
oblivious grown-ups have become. Why don't they just set up a pole in the
gym afterward, and charge admission?
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
