Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Show Us Yer Boobs!



The New York Times tells us about what some football fans use for kicks when their team isn't playing very well:

At halftime of the Jets' home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium's two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts.

When one woman appeared to be on the verge of obliging, the hooting and hollering intensified. But then she walked away, and plastic beer bottles and spit went flying. Boos swept through the crowd of unsatisfied men.

In karate this would be called a gauntlet (though of course that gauntlet involved physical attacks by everyone you pass). The women must run a gauntlet. Not only that, but they are unpaid entertainment for the men, not professional strippers or employees of the stadium. Imagine the feelings of any woman who comes across this scene unexpectedly. She's treated as...what? I have no kind description of what the asshole men are doing there.

And what happens when a woman actually responds by flashing her breasts at this horde of salivating imbeciles? This:

Denisse Rivera, a 23-year-old from the Bronx, was on a first date Sunday. When she arrived at the crowd at Gate D, several men pointed at her, signaling men at all levels to chant in her direction. After a brief moment of hesitation, she flashed them. Then she took a bow.

"I don't care," Rivera said when told that video clips of previous incidents, taken on cellphones, ended up online. "I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it."

Two security guards soon approached Rivera. The guards warned her about indecent exposure laws, she said, and let her go.

There you go. It's the woman who is breaking the law, apparently not all those menacing men hooting, hollering and throwing things.

And no, the security can't cope with this at all, though they do have time to warn the women involved. What are they supposed to do, one man asks? Arrest everyone who starts humming?

Much easier not to bother, of course. And in any case, everybody likes a little of Girls Gone Wild, even if the girls aren't actually volunteering for it.