Toronto Triumph: Titillation, Truth or Tragedy? Trivial!

The Toronto Triumph are the most recent addition to Toronto's list of professional sports franchises.  They are receiving a lot of attention but they are also receiving a lot of hate.  Why?

Well, the Triumph are members of the Lingerie Football League, that's why.  Guaranteed controversial, and for almost no reason.

First of all, the ladies of the LFL don't wear lingerie.  Lingerie doesn't belong in the same sentence as football, does it?  Their uniforms are skimpy to be sure but they're not lingerie.  Is that still too scandalous?  What are you afraid of?  That someone might be exposed to a bare...abdomen?  Is the midriff taboo now?  Women have been extremely candid about their appreciation of professional (men's) football players' uniforms, specifically because they are stretchy and clingy and show the definition of the, well, not the abdomen and it rhymes with 'glasses'.  Besides, lingerie has never been known to adequately cover football pads, and is too frilly and delicate to use in a game that involves tackling.  (That's right, they tackle, just like the NFL & CFL.)  Why?  Frilly makes it too easy to get a hold of your opponent in order to tie them up and ultimately to tackle them.  Delicate means that it would not remain clothing for very long.  While this might meet with approval from the audience, it is inconsistent with the reputation the league is seeking, namely that of a legitimate sport and not orchestrated burlesque.  Also, uniforms cost much less than lingerie, especially when you need multiple changes per game as you would with tearing, stretching and exploding lingerie.

Second, these ladies play football.  Do you suggest that perhaps they are not worthy athletes?  These women are packing more muscle than most men.  They are certainly athletes.  I daresay they are more athletic than some (perhaps many) Major League Baseball players.  They play it hard and fast just like the men that play professional football.  The men deal with the constant threat of breaks & bruises, strains & separations, detachments and dislocations, not to mention tears, twists and other trauma.   All this without so much as a peep from the public.  I suppose this argument can go both ways: either we should increase our concern for the men to match our concern for the women, or we should give the women the same break we give the men.  However, either way should you agree that our concern should be equal for both sexes.  The women have just as much right to a low-quality of life post-retirement as the men do.

I haven't even touched on the most severe type of injury that is common to football -- the brain injury.  The men's pro leagues have been tweaking the rules regularly to help minimize the threat of brain injury, but it still happens.  With the increasing frequency with which we receive data about retired players who suffered from dementia and depression (including suicides) as well as balance, coordination and memory issues perhaps we should get them all off the field until we can improve the safety of the game.  Sounds good, but it's never going to happen, not even if there was a 100% likelihood of these symptoms occurring later in life.  So I guess we'll have to console ourselves with the fact that these women will be tackled by 200 lbs of hurtling bone and pads instead of the 400 lbs with which the men have to cope.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, what difference does it make?  If the purpose of the LFL is to titillate then that makes the players entertainers.  If the LFL is a purely athletic endeavour that makes the players entertainers.  Are we discriminating between forms of entertainment now?  The closest thing we have to that is the rating systems used for television shows, movies and video games, and these are merely guidelines for parents to act upon as they see fit.  Can you remember when there was this much hullabaloo about the existence of R-rated movies?  How about X-rated movies?  Video games marked 'M' for 'mature' end up in the hands of teens and preteens all the time.  Where's the big stink for that?

The reasons that the LFL is getting more attention than the others are simple and quite poor in quality.  1. Sexism. We've discussed that already and exposed an unfair double-standard.  It's time we gave women the same opportunities that we allow men.  The real controversy here is how little the women will make when compared to the men playing the same game.  2. Puritanism. It's the 21st century but there are still plenty of people stuck somewhere between the 15th and the 19th centuries.  Wake up and smell the coffee, people!  The world isn't run by the Church nor by petty monarchs anymore; now democracy reigns and you are in the tiny but self-righteously loud minority.  If you disagree with the ethics, values, morals and mores of the place where you live, you are free to move elsewhere.  I hear Antarctica is uninhabited, so you would automatically become the majority.  When you get there you can have all the witch hunts you want.  The short, rude and violent native men in tuxedos (known as penguins to the sane) will just swim away and mock you from the water instead of drown.  While you're at it, since you love history so much, go ahead and genocide the penguins for having the audacity of being there before you but possessing 'inferior' culture & technology.  That's really what you're about isn't it?  See it my way or be destroyed? (Alternately, 'or God will destroy you', which is really the same thing since the destruction will come at the hand of 'God's instrument', man.)

So, lets give an open arms welcome to Toronto's latest professional team, the Triumph!  May they live long and prosper.  God help us if they pattern themselves after the Maple Leafs, or for that matter any MLS&E franchise.