Friday, January 11, 2013

Lingerie is Legendary. I Don't Get It.

I seriously can't believe I just wrote all of this. Just for the record, this is just a post where I'm literally messing around with the topic. If my writing is sloppy, that's not my problem. Plus, I don't mean to be funny here. It's just...a funny topic that I thought I'd try to write about. Plus, this is more along the lines of a PG-13 post. Virgin eyes, beware.

I'm well aware of the professional sport they have called the LFL--the Lingerie Football League. A lot of men are fans of it, and personally, I wouldn't want to be on the field with some of those women. They're deadly, and I obviously had enough of that crap with female athletes when I was a soccer goalie. Women are evil. Don't ever marry them, men. They do have the capability of killing you.

I'm not a man, so the reason why I'm talking about this is beyond me. Let's set things straight here: Never in my life would I think of writing about such an awkward branch of a popular sport. It isn't really televised during the day (from what I know you can find stuff online) and it's not public knowledge unless, well, you're a knowledgeable person who is "in with the times."

With that part said...

It has been announced recently that the LFL underwent a re-branding of sorts. Well, that's a fun idea. After expanding immensely over the past three years or so, they should be able to upgrade for the ladies' sakes, right? Well, I can't tell with this sort of an "re-branding."

In order to reach out to a larger audience, the first L in LFL got a rename: Legends.
Commence a squint of confusion toward the screen. Yes. They're replacing "Lingerie" and making it "Legends." What is so legendary about this league? That's where I'm scratching my head. To be honest, nothing I ever wore underneath my clothes could be considered to be of legendary status, but that's beside the point. Why not use Ladies? Isn't that the most logical word of choice there? I don't know, maybe they couldn't because someone out there has the rights to it, but still. It's understandable to change the name if you're going to market this stuff into Europe, Australia, and to the lesser-informed American people, but could you at least put an L there that makes more sense? That's just my opinion, y'know.

Secondly, they're not exactly wearing lingerie in the game anymore, hence the removal of Lingerie in the league name. The wearing of lingerie will be replaced by the wearing of "performance wear" and more refined shoulder pads to prevent injury.
Is that it? Really?
The last time I checked, the head, shoulders, elbows, and knees aren't the only things that can get hurt when you play legit tackle football. Plus, the last time I checked, this is football, and the women can get messed up pretty badly in this game. From the photos I've seen, they wear a little over half of what the men wear in the NFL. Heaven help you if you get crushed in the sternum with a helmet or something. But wait! You need to show cleavage! That's what the game is all about, right? Ugh.
Plus, the "performance wear" they speak of still resembles a bra and boyshorts. I'm sorry, that still counts as lingerie in my eyes. Even WWE's Divas back in the gritty era of 'rasslin' wore more than the ladies of the LFL do now. Speaking of, female wrestlers take just as much of a beating than the LFL athletes, and you can see the damage it does to the women in the long run. When it comes to a hard-hitting sport like football, you need to have protection. That alone is a life lesson, people.

Photo from: NBC Sports
Seriously...what are they looking at? Whatever it is, it looks like they wanna throw a stiletto at it.

When it comes to sports and sex appeal, I guess it could be a slippery slope. It's understandable that they want to focus more on the sport itself, but when you mix pancake batter a bit too much, it can really fall flat. Grant it, I'm pretty sure there isn't anything truly feminine about beating the living crap out of someone on a sports field, but hey, men like it anyway! I bet if they were out there in potato sacks, there would still be some sex appeal in that, right? There's my point: I don't think it matters what they wear, whether it be barely-there-performance-wear or full-on uniforms. Watching women do something in a man's world could make men of a certain age go nuts. For example, men still watched the US Women's Soccer team and still thought they were hot. Boom. Sports and sex appeal. Point made.

Amid my arguments, there is actually one thing I agreed with on their re-branding: they are redesigning any team logos that present "sexy" female silhouettes. I'm actually cool with that. Putting a silhouette of a possibly-naked woman on a logo isn't really marketable in sports. Honestly, it would make you look tacky and well...perverted.

In the past, the league has come under criticism for their campy style of play and their promotion of the league. Some women have even gone to the point of quitting the LFL because of cases of sexism and lack of pay. Frankly, I wouldn't blame them in a league where it has a really small following and is too high-risk for the pay they could have been getting. Aside from this, it sounds like the league has cleaned up their act, so to speak, over the past two years. If they really want to make this sport marketable outside of the country, they really have to make sure these women are getting the proper TLC they need.

We've been through the whole issue that women's professional sports have really fallen flat in the United States except for the WNBA, but hopefully their expansion in gaining interest outside of the country will help them boom. Of course, the amount they wear in the league will be taboo in many areas, but hopefully the good things will outweigh the bad in that. Heck, the LFL's "successes" thus far have almost looked like an oil rig spewing liquid gold because there are other guys making leagues based off of their ideals. The Bikini Basketball League was just founded last year (dear Lord) and there's also a Bikini Hockey League, which was meant to be the answer for men that were upset over the NHL lockout. There are no words for this.

If you don't mind, I really don't feel like talking about this anymore. I thought this would be fun, but now I almost feel kind of confused as to why these leagues exist. I almost blurted out "Oh my God, men are pigs" out loud twice, and that's pretty bad considering that there are probably many men that read this. Heck, you might have even liked that I wrote about it. I don't know. You can comment on this later thanking me or something.

Well, this was awkward. Hope you enjoyed the read.

--AZ

Sources Used: (1, 2)