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Why Is There a War on Cheerleaders?
Townhall.com ^ | January 29, 2019 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 01/29/2019 5:12:06 AM PST by Kaslin

If I were to tell you that a growing group of killjoys wants to ban NFL cheerleading, would you guess that this group is on the political left or right?

Must be the right, right? They're the religious ones with all the sexual hang-ups.

Wrong.

They're on the left.

And what's their problem with cheerleading?

I'll let them speak for themselves.

In The Boston Globe, Margery Eagan, Globe columnist and co-host of NPR's "Boston Public Radio," wrote a column titled "It's time to say goodbye to the NFL cheerleaders." She described NFL cheerleading as "creepy and demeaning."

USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour came to the same conclusion: "The underlying premise of NFL cheerleaders is degrading. ... NFL cheerleaders need to go."

Chicago Tribune sports reporter Shannon Ryan wrote, "The league has shown only that it regards cheerleaders as pieces of sideline eye candy." To make her point, she asked, "why aren't there scantily dressed male cheerleaders and dance teams?"

Only the well-educated could ask such a stupid question -- because only the highly educated deny that, with few exceptions, the only people who would like to see scantily dressed male cheerleaders are gay men.

In USA Today, Yale Divinity School Director of Communications Tom Krattenmaker added a theological voice to the anti-cheerleader chorus. "It's time," he intoned, "to call this out for what it is: demeaning to women and an anachronism that ought to be beneath the male fans to whom this titillating eye candy is served." This sentence, and his whole piece, is what goes for deep thought on the left today. He doesn't explain how being an NFL cheerleader is "demeaning." He simply declares it so. Did he bother to interview any cheerleaders? I did, and the consensus among cheerleaders is that it is one of their greatest life experiences.

Jacie Scott, a black woman who retired from being a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader in 2016, wrote in response to Nancy Armour: "I spent four years as a cheerleader in the NFL, and the experiences that each year brought helped shape me into the woman I am today. ... I saw countries I never imagined seeing. I made a positive impact in lives, young and old, and I did it all with 30-something incredible women. I wouldn't trade my time as a cheerleader for anything."

What is demeaning to cheerleaders is not cheerleading but people like Tom Krattenmaker, Shannon Ryan, Margery Eagan and Nancy Armour who have the conceit -- and meanness -- to label these women demeaned.

I interviewed a former Atlanta Falcons cheerleader, Nina Ahlin (now Noa Hami), on my radio show. When she entered my studio, I was struck by how attractive she was 20 years after retiring from cheerleading, and by her modest dress. Regarding her dress, she explained that soon after retiring as a cheerleader, she met an Orthodox Jewish man, fell in love, converted to Orthodox Judaism and married.

Apparently, her religious husband, a successful businessman, didn't find this woman's cheerleading background "demeaning." On the contrary, like the vast majority of men -- religious or secular -- he was delighted to be dating and ultimately marrying an NFL cheerleader. Good thing he didn't go to Yale Divinity School.

It was clear that even now, as an Orthodox Jew who dresses in the long skirts and long sleeves, she doesn't find cheerleading demeaning: She sent me a photo of herself from her cheerleader days.

As she wrote to me: "I can't imagine my life without having the experience I did as an NFL cheerleader. It was literally life changing for me. The friendships I made, the places we were able to go and the people we were able to meet can't be duplicated. ... The thought of that being taken away from young girls who dream of one day becoming a pro cheerleader scares me!"

Why do leftists have contempt for cheerleading and cheerleaders (who, after all, choose to be cheerleaders -- and for virtually no pay)?

A Vanity Fair piece on cheerleaders gave the game away: "The league profits from selling a retrograde notion of masculinity -- big, strong men, unafraid to take a hit, surrounded by enthusiastic, scantily clad women."

Or as a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article titled "Pro cheerleading 'should be abolished'" reported, former professional basketball player Mariah Burton Nelson said, "Cheerleading implies that women's proper role is to support men, smile at men and fulfill the sexual fantasies of males."

The left has contempt for masculinity and the male sexual nature that is part of it. The new emasculated man will not look at sexy women. And the new defeminized woman will not want to "support men," let alone appear sexy for them.

The left claims to be pro-choice. But it demands the abolition of NFL (and NBA) cheerleading without giving women a choice to be cheerleaders -- just as it never gave Miss America participants a choice when it abolished the Miss America swimsuit competition. Leftists believe they are morally superior people and, therefore, have the right to deprive anyone -- man or woman -- from choosing what the left disdains. The only woman's choice the left cares about is the choice to extinguish nascent human life.

Even if you have no interest in football or cheerleading, this should be your issue. We have to tell the left here, as in virtually every other area of life, and in the most forceful terms possible: Just leave us alone. Let us live our lives with our small joys. And grow up -- men like looking at women, and women like being looked at.

A world with NFL cheerleaders is far preferable to the world the left wants to create: a dystopia in which men and women are interchangeable.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: cheerleader; nfl; sports
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To: the OlLine Rebel
Hate to say it’s our Colts fault for starting this.

And now OUR Colts have perfected it!


https://www.colts.com/cheerleaders/

Warning: clickbait     https://www.colts.com/photos/exclusive-photos-a-first-look-at-the-colts-cheerleaders-new-uniform#f4ff809a-058f-401c-a452-0dd93405bbd1  but the pictures load really fast!

 

 

81 posted on 01/29/2019 6:24:29 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
The folks trying to take down NFL cheerleaders are not after just the NFL. They are ultimately after all cheerleaders.

Cheerleaders are an iconic American tradition. The NFL is the low hanging fruit. Threaten the NFL and they worry about sponsors, ticket sales, etc., and cave at the sound of the first shot. Cheerleading in the NFL will be gone in a second.

After that it's easy. Call everyone associated with cheerleading at public schools, or who watch them at games perverts, dirty old men, and the girls sluts and whores and there ya go: cheerleading as we know it today is gone

Think about it!

82 posted on 01/29/2019 6:24:52 AM PST by submarine571 ((Submariners do 'everything' deeper))
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To: Kaslin

Is it part of American culture?

Then the left will be at war with it.


83 posted on 01/29/2019 6:24:59 AM PST by null and void (Build the wall, or don't get paid at all.)
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To: OttawaFreeper
It wasn't "the left" who insisted on helmets and face shields. It was parents of kids and owners of teams who had huge investments in their players.

Helmets aren't really the problem in the NHL. It's the speed of the game and the size of the players more than anything else. I think hockey can go a long way toward reducing head injuries by making all the protective gear OTHER THAN helmets thinner and lighter -- and by forcing wooden sticks back into the game.

84 posted on 01/29/2019 6:25:06 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey.")
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To: treetopsandroofs
I wonder what’s happening in the middle schools.

Farm teams.

85 posted on 01/29/2019 6:26:04 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Kaslin

Where do I surrender?...................Can I surrender in Dallas?...................


86 posted on 01/29/2019 6:26:56 AM PST by Red Badger (We are headed for a Civil War. It won't be nice like the last one....................)
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To: mewzilla
I think the problem started when cheereaders stopped dressing and acting like cheerleaders and started dressing and acting like hookers.

That would be the root cause if Americans were against cheerleaders. And it does slow down the attack from the left. A little. Very little.

87 posted on 01/29/2019 6:26:59 AM PST by null and void (Build the wall, or don't get paid at all.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel
But it goes for the big colleges as well.

In the little colleges, you can side on the first seats of the bleachers and be 20 feet away from the cheerleaders.

88 posted on 01/29/2019 6:28:29 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

“Perhaps this is a smaller college?”

University of Florida. Peach Bowl.


89 posted on 01/29/2019 6:28:30 AM PST by bk1000 (I stand with Trump)
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To: Vaquero

Form a new league. The NFL is dead. Then hire the cheerleaders from defunct NFL teams
///////////////

Already done. Vince McMahon will debut the XFL in the 2020 season.


90 posted on 01/29/2019 6:28:38 AM PST by photodawg
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To: Beagle8U

I’m helping!


91 posted on 01/29/2019 6:28:52 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Yes it’s immoral for them to be dressed like prostitues.


It’s only been a hundred years or so since only prostitutes wore makeup. The red lips, the flushed looking cheeks ... all ready for sex. It would have been scandalous for a moral woman to go outside all painted up.


92 posted on 01/29/2019 6:29:34 AM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

My wife looks at their BUTTS!


93 posted on 01/29/2019 6:29:37 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Vermont Lt

What a gay comment.


94 posted on 01/29/2019 6:30:03 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: mewzilla

I am sure you did. But, these days gymnastics has been cut from thousands of high schools and colleges. It’s a combination of the title nine implications and the liability insurance. There is not a choice of doing both in a ton of places.

And cheerleader as “a sport” ( which if anyone has seen it up close will tell you is very athletic) has lead to college spirit teams, stomp teams and dance teams. Half time at division three basketball games turned into a mixture of Urban hip hop and a muffin top parade.

Everyone has a chance to perform. It really dilutes the talent pool.


95 posted on 01/29/2019 6:30:08 AM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: the OlLine Rebel
That’s funny. TRADTIONAL America was very conservative in dress and behavior. This tradition of sluttiness is only about 40 years old,

I am not sure what history books you've been reading, but most frontier towns in places like Texas, the gold boom towns in California, Washington State etc were dens of iniquity and sin where prostitution thrived(on account of there being far more men than women). This goes back centuries not 40 years. There were several instances of mothers inducting their own daughters into the prostitution business and making money off them.

You may want to watch the John Wayne movie North to Alaska.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_to_Alaska

96 posted on 01/29/2019 6:31:23 AM PST by SmokingJoe
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To: OttawaFreeper

I remember that episode. It was disgusting. It was the last episode of Mork & Mindy that I watched, and it began my contempt for Robin Williams in particular and television programming in general.


97 posted on 01/29/2019 6:32:26 AM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: bert

Cheer leaders are irrelevant
//////////////

Nothing in American culture is irrelevant to the marxist revolutionaries destroying the country. Football, films, music, clothing, faith, family, sports, schooling, etc.. All are targets for destruction in the new revolution.


98 posted on 01/29/2019 6:33:13 AM PST by photodawg
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To: the OlLine Rebel
And gave us rampant bastard children,

And now our government SUBSIDIZES more and more of them!

99 posted on 01/29/2019 6:33:31 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: BenLurkin

Guys in drag?


100 posted on 01/29/2019 6:33:49 AM PST by Beagle8U (Beto went to Liz Warren's genealogist to prove that he was 1/1000 Hispanic.)
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