Garters on the gridiron: A critical reading of the lingerie football league

Abstract

Using a reading sport methodology, this study examined the Lingerie Football League (LFL) through a critical feminist lens to explore how cultural definitions of femininity, as intersected with race and sexuality, were (re)produced and challenged in texts of the LFL. This analysis was based on the examination of 380 newspaper and magazine articles and web blogs as well as content from the LFL website. The data were collected using LexisNexis and then coded using inductive themes. The five major themes developed included: (1) just another form of soft porn, (2) real women play lingerie football, (3) men take care of business, (4) promoting white-defined beauty, and (5) narratives of empowerment. The findings indicate that a dominant white, heterosexy femininity infused the league and its representations at the point at which the league was established.

Keywords

Gender lingerie football media representations sexualization women’s football

The first Lingerie Bowl was televised on pay-per-view during halftime of the National Football League’s (NFL) 2004 Super Bowl. The show incorporated a lingerie fashion show followed by a seven-on-seven “football game” between female models and actresses in uniforms consisting of lacey boy-cut underwear, bras, garter belts, and chokers (USA Today, 2004). Safety equipment was at a minimum with elbow and knee pads, hockey-style helmets, and a minimalistic approach to the standard shoulder pads. This one time venture soon morphed into a professional league which has recently turned its attention to worldwide expansion. The move to a league format suggested an attempt to move beyond just a halftime novelty act and a desire to be seen as a legitimate professional league. Thus, that specific time period is the central focus of this study, which examined the ways in which cultural definitions of femininity were (re)produced and challenged in the representations of the Lingerie Football League.

The Lingerie Bowl morphed into the Lingerie Football League (LFL) in 2009 with teams in 10 major metropolitan areas – Chicago Bliss, Miami Caliente, New York Majesty, Philadelphia Passion, and Tampa Breeze in the Eastern Conference and the Dallas Desire, Denver Dream, Los Angeles Temptation, San Diego Seduction, and Seattle Mist in the Western Conference – throughout the United States. When asked why he decided to turn the once-a-year Lingerie Bowl into a league, Mitchell Mortaza, league creator and acting commissioner, stated:

I think obviously more now than ever before we all need an escape from what is going on around us. And just the success we’ve had with the Lingerie Bowl, we thought if we can grab that kind of audience as a one-off halftime special, what if we built a year-round brand in all these pockets of fan bases around the country to watch their teams year round? That’s why I came to the realization we need to launch a league here (Rovell, 2009: para 2).

The 12-team league was on hiatus for the 2012 season in the US in an attempt to change its playing season. The league used the hiatus to establish leagues in Canada and Australia.

Commissioner Mortaza’s suggestion that we need “an escape” refers to the “Great Recession” which pummeled the US economy from 2007 to 2009 and whose effects continue to linger. The representations of the LFL fit into the rhetoric of the “Great Mancession” or “He-cession” as some journalists coined it (Peterson, 2012: 278). Discussions of a widening gender gap in unemployment which favored females, along with the increased presence of women in the workforce, positioned women as the root of men’s problems (Fraad, 2011; Peterson, 2012). At the pinnacle of the gender gap in unemployment, men’s unemployment was 11% while women’s unemployment was 8.3% (Sahin et al., 2010). Yet studies found that most men who were unemployed contributed less to household chores than did their employed female partners (Fraad, 2011). Fraad (2011) noted that “many men want additional domestic and emotional services to compensate them for their lost manly provider roles” (130). The sexualization of women as depicted in the representations of women in the LFL also suggests an attempt to maintain the hegemonic masculinity of the sport and to maintain the larger cultural gendered hierarchies.

Indeed, in a culture that often struggles to support women’s professional sport leagues (i.e. past demise of women’s basketball, baseball, soccer, softball, volleyball, and football leagues),¹ the Lingerie Football League seems to be doing quite well in the United States, and in its recent expansion to Canada. Rick Chandler (2011) of NBC Sports referred to the LFL as the “fastest growing pro sports league in the nation” (para 4). Playing games in major stadiums and arenas such as the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, Showare Center in Seattle, and the Sears Centre in Chicago helps to provide legitimatization to the league, whereas most women playing in the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA) and Independent Women’s Football League (IWFL) continue to toil under the dim lights of high school football fields. The LFL is also able to garner a national audience for its “LFL Presents, Friday Night Football” by airing the games on MTV2, a channel that aligns with the LFL’s target demographic, 18- to 34-year-old males (Ormsby, 2009; PR Newswire, 2009). In its first season, the show improved its time period (Fri 11pm–11:30pm) with all key MTV2 demographics, including a 13% increase among males aged 12–34 (Seidman, 2011: para 5). Furthermore, it was the most-watched original series launch ever with males aged 12–34 and highest rated since 2006 with people of both genders aged 12–34 and males aged 12–34 (Seidman, 2011: para 5). Indeed, the LFL’s move from the limited viewership of the pay-per-view realm to MTV2 and even WBFS-Ch 33 in Miami allows the messages it conveys about gender, race, and sexuality to go mainstream. Furthermore, such representations have far reaching implications, as media created in the United States gets distributed around the world by media conglomerates (Daniels and Wartena, 2011).

The gender ideologies, specifically hegemonic masculinity, associated with football have been analyzed by numerous scholars and mainstream writers (Falk, 2005; Messner, 2002; Oriard, 2001; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990). In his book Football and American Identity, Falk (2005) refers to football as an “all-male display” (98), a game for “real men” (11), a place where men develop a “disparaging attitude toward everything feminine” (39), and a sport that “segregates boys from girls” (11). Such disparaging attitudes are evident in talks given by some of this country’s most legendary coaches, such as Knute Rockne who fired up his team by saying “Let’s go, girls” (Leckie, 1965: 66). Furthermore, football has long been used as a proving ground for masculinity in the US society.

As Whitson (1990) pointed out, the only way to preserve such places as proving grounds is to exclude women from involvement, thus the numerous attempts to keep girls and women out of football. At the high school level, the Clinton² and Force³ decisions are two relevant examples of attempts to keep girls out of competition, allegedly for their own protection and the protection of girls’ athletic programs (Fields, 2005). At the university level, Heather Mercer’s struggle at Duke (see Mercer v. Duke University, 190 F.3d 643, 644-45 (4th Cir. 1999)) and Katie Hnida’s unethical treatment at Colorado (see Hnida, 2006) are examples of some of the obstacles faced by women who want to play football at this level.⁴ At the professional level, women’s football leagues (IWFL, WFA, National Women’s Football Association (NWFA) – now defunct, Women’s Professional Football League (WPFL) – now defunct) are largely ignored by the media and have difficulty finding sponsors. While these women playing football in football uniforms under standardized football rules struggle to receive mainstream attention, the women of the LFL, in their lingerie uniforms and playing a non-standard version of the game, thrive in comparison.

Even the relationship between the NFL, which is seen as the football standard in the US, and women’s football leagues such as the NWFA, are more disharmonious than as seen with the LFL. For example the NFL, which indicated it was protecting its brand, insisted the National Women’s Football League change its name and the name of its championship game, the SupHer Bowl. The NWFL complied with both requests, morphing into the National Women’s Football Alliance and dropping the SupHer Bowl moniker for their championship game. Yet the NFL has not enacted this same heavy-handed approach to the LFL, which has openly aligned itself with the league. In addition to scheduling its Lingerie Bowl during the Super Bowl’s halftime, the intent of the LFL is to eventually expand to all 32 NFL markets (Johnson, 2009). Additionally, the players’ “uniforms” are based on their city’s respective NFL team, sharing the same colors as those of the NFL players in their respective cities. The lack of action by the NFL would suggest that the LFL poses no threat to the NFL and its brand or the hegemonic masculinity that is seemingly central to its success (Messner, 2002). Indeed, the focus of this research article is to examine the messages about femininity, race, and sexuality which are disseminated through the LFL and its mediated representations. Thus, the guiding research question is: How are cultural definitions of femininity, and its intersections with race and sexuality, (re)produced and challenged in texts of the Lingerie Football League?

Women as invaders

In the United States and many other countries, sport is a key structure through which gender differentiation is constructed (Sage, 1998). Messner (1990) noted sweeping societal changes during the industrial revolution resulted in a “crisis of masculinity” which was resolved in part by creating sport as a primary site in the social construction of masculinity (93). Combative team sports such as football, said to be one of the last bastions of masculinity in the United States, dominate rhetoric of gender differentiation (Oriard, 2001). Indeed, its seeming ability to “provide ideological ‘proof’ of the natural physical superiority of all men over all women” (Messner, 2002: 143) helped to make it the most popular sport in the United States (Bauder, 2010; Murphy, 2006). The hegemonic images are further entrenched when one contrasts the gladiatorial display of the male football players’ uniform-clad bodies to the nearly naked female cheerleaders on the sidelines, or in the case of this study, with the lingerie-clad athletes of the LFL. Such contrasts in uniforms work to “affirm asymmetric and opposed categories of gender” (Messner, 2002; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990: 120). Thus, the importance of football in the construction and maintenance of cultural ideologies, especially those revolving around issues of gender and sexuality, cannot be overstated.

Given the social construction of sports as masculine, women in sports are often considered invaders and even seen by some as a threat (Whitson, 1990). Scholars such as Messner (2007) and Schultz (2005) note that women’s involvement in sport could impact the current gender hierarchy as it reflects a direct “challenge to the ideological basis of male domination” (Messner, 2007: 32). The challenge is most visible in team contact sports, especially those that include high levels of physicality (Chase, 2006; Mennesson, 2000; Theberge, 2000). Due to their potential transgressive ability, women often experience barriers to their full involvement in such sports. Such barriers include restricting women’s access to contact team sports (Knapp, 2011), limiting the physicality (Theberge, 2000), and disempowering media representations (Wright and Clarke, 1999).

Through the social construction of sport as masculine, female athletes, especially those in male dominated sports, are often made to live a paradoxical existence between socially scribed femininity and athleticism. Although it has been nearly 60 years since its demise, the All American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL) is an exemplar of such a paradox and provides a good comparison with the current LFL. Started in 1943 by Philip Wrigley, and later owned by Arthur Meyerhoff, the AAGBL was created as a means to draw crowds to baseball stadiums due to the attrition of major league players to the war efforts. The league continued play until 1954, at which point women who had helped at home with the war efforts were being ushered back into their kitchens (Weiller and Higgs, 1994). A product of his time, Meyerhoff advocated for what he termed the “femininity principle” – selling the players’ “masculine” athletic skills and “feminine” beauty (Cahn, 1994). Further playing upon this tension, the players were made to wear skirted uniforms, makeup, and long hair, while strict rules of behavior were enforced on and off the field (Cahn, 1994). Management recruited players based on talent and attractiveness, while stacking the coaching positions with former major league players and coaches was thought to add some legitimacy to the league (Cahn, 1994). Although allowed to play baseball, the femininity principle ensured the players remained “feminine” while leaving baseball as a male preserve.

Mediated representations of female athletes

The mass media have proven to be a powerful conduit in the perpetuation of male dominance in sport and the reaffirmation of hegemonic masculinity (Allain, 2008; Cooky et al., 2010; Kian et al., 2008; Sisjord and Kristiansen, 2008). Although legislation such as Title IX, part of the Education Act of 1972 which bars discrimination based on sex in federally funded educational programs in the US, opened a floodgate for females to participate in sport, the representations, or lack thereof, of female athletes has worked to maintain sport as a male preserve. Analysis of media sport texts suggests that patriarchal ideals are maintained through the underrepresentation, marginalization, trivialization and sexualization of women athletes on television (Messner et al., 2003), in print media (Fink and Kensicki, 2009; Kane and Maxwell, 2011), and through online blogs, articles, and posts (Clavio and Eagleman, 2011). This marginalization and trivialization takes several forms, including: silence, sexualization, humorous relief, backlash, and selective incorporation of standout women athletes (Birrell and Theberge, 1994; Christopherson et al., 2002; Eastman and Billings, 2000; Messner, 2002). Yet the sexualization of women athletes is the most constraining in terms of maintaining gender hierarchies, both in and outside of sports (Clavio and Eagleman, 2011; Daniels and Wartena, 2011; Fink and Kensicki, 2009; Lynn et al., 2004).

The sexualization of female athletes through mediated representations diminishes the potential threat of these “invaders” on sport as a male preserve, and the larger patriarchal ideology that infuses western culture in which all males are seen as dominant over all females. A 2007 task force formed by the American Psychological Association (APA) found ample evidence of the prevalence of sexualized images of girls and women in the media, and their harmful impact in a number of domains including cognitive functioning and mental health (American Psychological Association (APA), Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, 2007).

The media sexualize female athletes by highlighting their physical attractiveness (Christopherson et al., 2002; Sisjord and Kristiansen, 2008), through symbolic erasure of lesbian and bisexual women (Kian et al., 2008), by referencing family roles (Christopherson et al., 2002; Eastman and Billings, 2000), and representing female athletes in semi-pornographic frames (Duncan, 1990; Kane and Maxwell, 2011).

The sexualization of female athletes through pornographic representations is particularly relevant to this study. Caputi (2003) defined pornography as “material developed around exploitation, objectification, and a denigration of women” (434) which works to reinforce the current gender hierarchy (Caputi, 2003; Kaplan, 1991). Kaplan (1991) suggested that pornographic representations of women increase when the gender hierarchy is challenged, as a means of maintaining the power balance for men. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that the rise of the LFL coincides with not only an increasing presence of women in sports but dominance of women’s performances in settings such as the Olympics (Fink and Kensicki, 2009; Lynn et al., 2004). Additionally, larger cultural trends such as the increased visibility of women in the workplace, and media-supported claims of a “mancession” (Peterson, 2012), have coincided with an increased number of “men’s service” magazines (such as Maxim and Stuff) (Krassas et al., 2003), which display women in pornographic photographs, and a number of lingerie leagues (i.e. Lingerie Football League followed by the Lingerie Basketball League in 2012 and talks of a Lingerie Hockey League). Research examining consumer responses to representations of women’s sports, conducted by Kane and Maxwell (2011), found that pornographic images of female athletes evoked negative responses from the majority of men and women in their study. Although younger males’ (ages 18–34, notably the target demographic for the LFL) responses to pornographic photos of female athletes was relatively positive, they also admitted that such images did not increase their interest in women’s sports nor were they likely to encourage them to attend women’s sporting events. This is particularly relevant to the LFL as the league is promoted through pornographic images and text, and the inability of such images to increase game attendance directly affects the women as their pay is based on whether their team wins and how many people are in attendance at the games.

Mediated representations of female athletes, both pornographic and other, “tell audiences who and what is valued and esteemed in our culture” (Fink and Kensicki, 2009: 318). Thus, the mass media is one of the ways in which ideals of beauty are created, maintained and disseminated. Such ideals are often based on white-defined beauty, specifically blonde hair and a thin figure (Greenwood and Dal Cin, 2012; Krassas et al., 2003). Schultz’s (2005) reading of Serena Williams’s catsuit in the 2002 US Open, and Newhall and Buzuvis’s (2008) exploration of the racism, sexism and homophobia experienced by Jennifer Harris during her time as a women’s basketball player at Penn State University, both demonstrated the denigration African American female athletes experience for their inability to ever meet this blonde haired, blue eyed standard of femininity (Collins, 1990). Collins (1990) notes that “race, gender, and sexuality converge on this issue of evaluating beauty” (79). Thus the aim of this paper is, by using a reading sport approach, to examine the messages about femininity, and its intersections with race and sexuality, which are disseminated through the LFL and its mediated representations.

Methods

McDonald and Birrell (1999) lay out a method, referred to as reading sport, to critically examine power dynamics in sport by using a person or event as texts. The authors (McDonald and Birrell, 1999) noted:

What was once regarded as individuals, celebrities, or even heroes become repositories for political narratives, and our task as cultural critics is not to search for the facts of their lives but to search for the ways in which those “facts” are constructed, framed, foregrounded, obscured, and forgotten (292).

McDonald and Birrell noted that in such representations a dominant narrative forms, and it falls to the researcher to determine what ideological work is being done through such framing. One should examine the issue, using both the dominant narrative and hidden meanings, for the larger cultural significance. Furthermore, any counter-narratives should be explored for their ability to resist the dominant narrative.

Thus, reading sport can be understood as a form of qualitative content studies, a textual analysis. Such an approach allows the researcher to delve into the nuances of the textual material to better understand the big picture that is presented (Hennink et al., 2011; Priest, 2010). As such, Priest (2010) suggested that sampling, though not necessarily concerned with statistical representation, should provide a “‘window’ on a particular worldview” through the inclusion of selective media (110). The guiding theoretical critical feminist framework and the research question – How are cultural definitions of femininity, and its intersections with race and sexuality, (re)produced and challenged in texts of the Lingerie Football League? – were the lens used in the collection of sample materials.

Sample

Taking a reading sport approach in the research on the Lingerie Football League required an examination of the representations of the LFL. Data were collected by conducting a search for “lingerie football league” on LexisNexis Academic under advanced search with date parameters of January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2010 with the source set on “All News (English)” and examining the LFL website. The original search resulted in 540 sources including newspapers, blogs, magazines, news transcripts and web based publications. Of these, 54 were duplicates and of the 486 remaining, 106 of the sources dealt indirectly with the LFL, including such things as TV listings, facility closures, pictures without any article, or were not relevant to the research question dealing with representations of gender, such as mayors not allowing a team or the announcement of new teams. Examination of the LFL website included reviewing the items available in the shop, pictures that are posted on the entry page, and articles posted under the LFL 360º link. From the LFL website, screen printouts were taken of calendars in the shop, the entry page, and the articles. Information from the articles was mostly used to develop the history of the league. Thus, the analysis was based on the examination of the 380 newspaper articles, magazine articles, and web blog entries published from 2009–2010 and content from the LFL website, allowing the researcher to focus on the time period in which the organization moved from the Lingerie Bowl (a one day event) to the Lingerie Football League.

Data analysis

Fitting with the critical feminist reading sport framework of the research, in the analysis stage, the written texts were coded for key themes using an inductive approach to better understand how femininity was represented through the LFL. The coding process began by using a line-by-line analysis, examining each word and phrase carefully in order to begin to develop categories (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Once a strong list of codes was developed using open and in vivo coding, whole sentences and paragraphs were coded (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). In vivo coding is the process of taking words directly from the transcriptions and using them as codes (Miles and Huberman, 1994). A codebook was developed which included a name and description of each code (Hennink et al., 2011). Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) constant comparative method was employed in the determination of themes, meaning that as themes were developed new data was checked to determine if it fit the established themes or if new themes needed to be added to better represent the data. As themes emerged from the text, major themes and subthemes were established. In her discussion of text analysis, Peräkylä (2008) stated that researchers draw themes from the text as a means “to draw a picture of the presuppositions and meanings that constitute the cultural world of which the textual material is a specimen” (352). This is in line with McDonald and Birrell’s (1999) critical approach to reading sport, which emphasizes the importance of the cultural context.

Results and discussion

Five major themes developed included: (1) just another form of soft porn, (2) real women play lingerie football, (3) men take care of business, (4) promoting white-defined beauty, and (5) narratives of empowerment. Dominant notions of gender were supported through each of these themes. The following further explores each of these themes.

Just another form of soft porn

The level of sexual objectification of the women in the Lingerie Football League was comparable to soft porn. This was the most dominant theme that emerged from this research. This comparison was most notable in (a) reference to team names, (b) discussions of girl-on-girl action, and (c) suggestions of players as objects of male desire.

Team names

A number of scholars have examined team names as markers of gender in sport. Eitzen (2005) noted in their seminal study of 1,185 four-year universities that 54.6% have sexist team names and/or logos. They suggested that the use of such names and symbols contribute to the preservation of sport as masculine. The LFL team names could be labeled as sexual or neutral. The neutral names most often reference weather phenomena such as the Seattle Mist, Miami Caliente, and the Tampa Breeze. The New York Majesty could also be classified under the neutral label. Yet the majority of the team names fell under the category of sexual, such as the Chicago Bliss, Dallas Desire, Philadelphia Passion, Denver Dream, Los Angeles Temptation, San Diego Seduction, and the more recent Orlando Fantasy. An argument could be made to include the Miami Caliente under the sexual category as well.

The sexual nature of the names of many of the LFL teams did not go unnoticed. White (2009) noted that the names differ from NFL teams such as the Lions and Vikings. Others have stated the difficulty of taking the LFL seriously when the teams have names such as the Seduction (Fogarty, 2010; Smith, 2009a). As one author noted, “What is the ‘Seduction’ mascot going to look like? Can anyone really take this league seriously with names like that?” (The Pendulum, 2008: para 6). More have mentioned the blatant attempt by the league to brand itself in such a way as to hopefully draw the attention of a male audience (Evans, 2009; Pinto, 2009; Seattle Mist looking for a few good hot chicks, 2008; Smith, 2009a). Indeed, Smith (2009a) claimed that “the teams have porn star names” (para 6).

The names of teams have very real consequences. As Eitzen (2005) noted, “it conveys symbolically the characteristics and attributes that define the institution” (127). If one takes this premise as truth, then the question one must ask is what characteristics and attributes are conveyed through team names such as the Bliss, Desire, and Temptation? This is even more problematic when one compares such names to teams in the NFL (at this time a male-only league) such as the Bears, Raiders, and Patriots. While the NFL team names seem to suggest strength, power, domination, and national pride, the LFL names are more suggestive of sexual conquest. Eitzen (2005) noted that “language suggests how women and men are to be evaluated” (128). In this case, it appears, females on the gridiron will be evaluated by their ability to stimulate male desire while male football players will be evaluated for their ability to dominate.

Girl-on-girl

The appeal to male desire was also apparent in the numerous references to “girl-on-girl action” (Fogarty, 2010; Gonzalez, 2009; Nusser, 2009; Silverman, 2009; The Pendulum, 2008; Thurston, 2009). As Silverman (2009) noted, “if you are interested in girl-on-girl action – and sports – there’s a new league that’s just the ticket” (para 1). Other writers provided more of a visual: “A bronze-skinned blond in a pink tank top wraps her arm around a scantily clad brunet. They push their bodies together until they crumple to the ground, erupting in giggles. Sound like a fantasy?” (Nusser, 2009: para 1).

Other comments were more pornographic in nature, such as a reference to a “seven-on-seven orgy of awesomeness” (Furious, 2009: para 6) and one blogger who suggested “who doesn’t want to watch a bunch of hot girls rolling around in the dirt?” (Chandler, 2009b: para 5). One author noted that in the past women in the league had been asked to “make out for the camera” after scoring a touchdown (The Pendulum, 2008: para 7). Images of such “celebrations” are widely available on the internet. The references to girl-on-girl action were just one of the ways in which the league and its players were associated with soft porn.

Objects of male desire

The final way in which the representations of the LFL players verged on soft porn was through the linkage of the players to mere objects of male desire. This was observed in the way in which the league was referenced, the focus on the uniforms, and sexualized fantasies.

League reference

The league’s website promotes the LFL as “True Fantasy Football” (LaVoi, 2009). When a team started in Philadelphia, one blogger alerted his male readers that their dreams had come true (Wieigus, 2009). The “dream” was apparently the colluding of two supposed male favorites – football and lingerie (Reagan, 2010). The league has been referred to by one blogger as “a tease masquerading in football” (Jicha, 2009: para 1), by another as “equal parts touchdowns and a burlesque show” (Smith, 2009b: para 4), and yet still a “jiggle fest” (Craggs, 2009: para 2). Furthermore, Mortaza, founder of the LFL, said “It’s a cross between Maxim [a magazine geared towards young adult males] and the NFL” (Echeverria, 2009: para 3). As one columnist noted, “Welcome to the LFL, where human sexuality isn’t the name of the game, it is the game” (Gonzalez, 2009: D2). Indeed, the game of human sexuality seemed to be the means by which this league was marketed.

Focus on uniforms

A major component of the marketing strategy was the players’ uniforms, which received wide attention in almost every mediated representation of the league. White (2009) suggested “the revealing costumes are central to a league that bills itself as ‘true fantasy football’” (B6). He goes on to note that “the Dallas Cowboys’ Cheerleaders would be overdressed on this field” (White, 2009: B6). In their “tiny, curve-hugging, bun-exposing panties and provocative bras, accented by what amounts to downsized shoulder pads and hockey helmet” (Whitt, 2009: para 11) the players of the Lingerie Football League convey to their audiences messages about femininity similar to the cheerleaders on the sidelines during NFL games. Scholars have noted the steep contrast between the gladiatorial uniforms of men in the professional league and the scantily clad women on the sidelines cheering them on (Messner, 2007).

Additionally, the uniforms of the LFL increased the potential for accidental nudity on the field. Such moments of nudity are covered in the players’ contracts (The Smoking Gun, 2009). The section on nudity reads:

Player has been advised and hereby acknowledges that Player’s participation in the event and the related practice sessions and Player’s services and performances hereunder may involve accidental nudity. In light of the foregoing, Player knowingly and voluntarily agrees to provide Player’s services hereunder and has no objection to providing services involving Player’s accidental nudity (Craggs, 2009: para 6).

The players were further informed that they could not wear additional clothing that may inhibit opportunities for accidental nudity (The Smoking Gun, 2009). In the season opener of the league’s first year, at least one player was stripped of her bottoms during a tackle leaving her laying on the field pantiless (Chandler, 2009). Corr (2009) noted that the crowds’ reaction to such “wardrobe malfunctions” was noticeably louder than any touchdown celebration at the games.

Sexualized fantasies

The lingerie that these players wear onto the field as their uniforms led to the final way in which the women of the LFL were sexualized, and that was through sexualized fantasies. A number of said fantasies play out within a football context such as “fantasies about being in a huddle, or being the quarterback and taking the snap from under center” (Aquaman, 2009: para 1), or getting sacked by one of the players (Begley et al., 2009). The Dallas Desire organization made some of these fantasies come true through a halftime entertainment bit in 2009 where a male Desire fan won the opportunity to tackle a player at midfield (Whitt, 2009). Other fantasies are less rooted in the football context, such as the suggestion of pole dances in the end zone (Duerson, 2005), lap dances for VIP ticket holders (Boomer, 2009), and fortuitous downpours to saturate the players’ uniforms (Hinds, 2010). One blogger took this to the extreme when he posted:

Count me in as a season ticket holder – although at the game odds are I will be holding something else. Might need to buy three season seats because I doubt anyone will want to be in the seats on either side of me during the game and I don’t want to be sitting next to someone else either. I am more than willing to be the Towel Boy for any of these teams. I know it is a tough job but someone has to do it. I plan on betting every game and taking the “under” because there is nothing better than going “under” on these ladies (Cestmoi, 2009: para 1).

This blogger’s post was further evidence of the link between the lingerie football league and soft pornography.

Real women play lingerie football

The second major theme that developed through the coding process was the idea that real women don’t play in one of the other women’s professional football leagues (such as the Women’s Football Alliance or the Independent Women’s Football Leauge), they play lingerie football. This was similar to the theme explored in Birrell and Theberge’s (1994) piece “Ideological Control of Women in Sport,” referred to as “the construction of women as unnatural athletes and of female athletes as unnatural women.” In explanation, Birrell and Theberge (1994) noted, the media “constructs women who transgress the boundaries as “unnatural” and thus “denatures” them as athletes and women” (355).

In the representations of the LFL, this theme was most commonly employed through references similar to the femininity principle used in the All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL) from the 1940s and 50s. The femininity principle, employed by the founders of the AAGBL Philip Wrigley and Arthur Meyerhoff, dictated the athletes have “masculine” athletic skills while maintaining a “feminine” attractiveness (Cahn, 1994). Wrigley and Meyerhoff “sold the league as a dramatic spectacle of gender contrasts, presenting women’s baseball as a unique combination of feminine beauty and masculine athletic skills” (Cahn, 1994: 148). Mortaza, the founder of the LFL, used a similar strategy as Wrigley and Meyerhoff. Mortaza was noted as attending most of the team tryouts, putting the hopefuls through 15-second interviews where he determined which women qualify as beautiful enough to go through to the athletic cuts (The Pendulum, 2008). Mortaza commented that “the women of the LFL need three things – confidence, athleticism and, finally, they have to be gorgeous” (Gonzalez, 2009: D2). He further explained that the league is not looking for the best athletes, just the most marketable (Gonzalez, 2009; Johnson, 2009). Schoenrock, the director of operations for the Chicago Bliss, commented on the marketability of these players when he noted “when you take hot girls that look like this but play football, I mean, who wouldn’t like it” (Smith, 2009b: 2).

Mortaza and others in the league stressed the difference between their players and other female athletes, especially those in the other women’s professional football leagues. The LFL recruited models – including Playboy model Rebecca Reyes (known as Reby Sky) – and actresses to come play football for their league (Colon, 2008; Johnson, 2009). Furthermore, Mortaza is forthright in his refusal to admit any woman to the league who doesn’t meet his standard of beauty (Smith, 2009b). He used this criterion to distance the LFL from other women’s football leagues. When asked if he would recruit from the other leagues, Mortaza stated:

No offense to them but they couldn’t be further from what we’re doing here. Women’s athletics haven’t been that popular primarily because they’re not the most attractive people in the world usually, and in this day and age your brand has to be marketable (Johnson, 2009: 4).

Mortaza’s statement was mirrored at the team level by Dallas Desire coach Antuan Edwards when he proclaimed that “not only are they [LFL players] beautiful, but they are athletic. That is the ‘wow’ factor there” (Shafer, 2009: 38). Here it is apparent that league and team officials are trading on the idea that women involved in athletics are somehow less than feminine. One is to conclude that finding women out on the football field and their being beautiful is seemingly a rare find.

Men take care of business

In another similarity to the 1940s era All-American Girls Baseball League (AAGBL), the LFL was structured in such a way as to perpetuate male hegemony in sport. The AAGBL was said to have maintained a clear division between the role of women and men in the league – women’s role was to look good and entertain the crowds while the men saw to the business (Cahn, 1994). Additionally, as highlighted in the film A League of Their Own, the AAGBL often brought in ex-major league baseball players to take on the role of team managers. “Speaking from a position of masculine expertise and authority, male AAGBL officials stressed the contrast between masculine sport and the All-American Girls’ feminine beauty” (Cahn, 1994: 149). This maintenance of structural power is just another way in which traditional femininity was maintained within the LFL.

The team coaches consisted of former National Football League, Canadian Football League and college football players (Boomer, 2009; Caple, 2003; Pinto, 2009; Smith, 2009b; White, 2009; Whitt, 2009). When coaches were written about in the articles, their football credentials were always included. It seems their role in the elite football levels provided the LFL with some credibility. Indeed, when Coach Mike Ditka took on an ownership partnership with the league, Mortaza, LFL founder, stated “Coach Ditka embodies the game of football and will be an invaluable asset to the LFL as we mature into a worldwide sports brand” (Evans, 2009: para 2). These former professional football players and coaches were considered by many to be the flag bearers for masculinity in our society.

As such, these totems of hegemonic masculinity stood in steep contrast to the LFL players on the field. This contrast was deepened through the variances in clothing, or lack thereof. The fully clothed male coaches stood on the sidelines while they put their scantily clad players through the rigors of football, both in practice situations and games. Eric Dickerson, a coach for one of the first Lingerie Bowl teams, Team Euphoria, noted that after seeing the “girls” practice for the first time, he became “very interested” (Sports Beat, 2004: 26). The reader is led to believe that Dickerson’s interest was due to seeing beautiful women nearly naked on the gridiron.

The game has been gendered not only because of who is playing the game but also due to the modified rules of the game. As already discussed, there was the restriction on uniforms, where less equals more. That may also be said of the playing field – 50 yards, game length – 17 minute halves, and number of players on the field – 14 total (Shafer, 2009). No punting or field goals, with the only kicking taking place at the start of the game and the second half (Ormsby, 2009). All of these changes equate to gender marking the game and players of the LFL. In the end, the LFL further promotes the belief that the business of football is truly a man’s world.

Promoting white-defined beauty

In a press release sent out to a women’s football listserve regarding an upcoming tryout, under Character Specs it stated:

All ethnicities, 21-30 years old, MUST BE FEMALE. In search of models who have an athletic background that will train and participate in full contact seven-on-seven tackle football games. Looking for the right mix of beauty and athleticism (personal communication).

As such, in their written promotional material, it appears the league attempted to present itself as a welcoming, multicultural environment. But the questions very few are asking are: “who decides who is beautiful enough to play football? If no physical skills are to be displayed, what are the requirements for being beautiful? Skinny, tan, blonde hair, blue eyes?” (The Pendulum, 2008: para 5). If you looked at all the teams’ websites with their pictures of each of their players, one would notice that the majority of the players were white.

The women that the league used most in their marketing venture were white. In a comment on the LFL’s website, Leadership posted the following:

Danielle Moinet gets way more video coverage than other deserving players and that is CLEARLY because she’s won the hearts of the powers that be, not because she is so talented!!! Marketing is KEY and that is what Moinet represents!! If the LFL is sick of “blonde” connotations, then perhaps Commissioner Mortaza should stop focusing on blonde players!!! If it weren’t for the “colored” players on the Bliss team, all the skinny blonde chicks on the Bliss would have gotten their little touches stomped!!! Nuff said (Leadership, 2010).

Indeed, if one examined the league’s shop on their website, one would find that almost all the women featured on the calendars (dating back to when it was just the Lingerie Bowl), cardboard cutouts of players, and posters are white. If one went to each of the teams’ websites, one would once again find that the featured players (each team has two players adorning the sides of their web pages) are white.

This promotion of white-defined beauty in the LFL again draws parallels with the All-American Girls Baseball League. It has been noted that the AAGBL emphasis on femininity was rooted in white, middle-class beliefs (Cahn, 1994). More recently, Newhall and Buzuvis (2008) noted in their research examining Jennifer Harris’s case against Penn State University basketball coach Rene Portland, that “normative femininity, simply put, is a white feminine ideal” (350). As Cahn (1994) noted in regards to the AAGBL, “this feminine ideal tended to exclude or deprecate black women, making black athletes almost by definition less likely to meet league standards” (152). The AAGBL existed in a time when exclusion of African Americans from the playfields was still common, but the LFL is not of that era. The LFL did have “women of color” as players but, as noted above, the marketing of the league tended to focus on white women and especially white, blonde women.

Narratives of empowerment

It is perhaps not surprising that one may question the sexualization of women in a league where they are required to wear lingerie and play a modified game of football to a target audience of young adult males, yet narratives of empowerment were also part of this story. When asked if the LFL is sexist, Erin Marie Garrett, a player with the Dallas Desire, stated that it is not sexist but instead “sexy” (Shafer, 2009: 38).

Most of the narratives of empowerment revolved around the athletic demands of the game. As Garrett noted: “It’s empowering because the LFL shows beautiful women playing a tough game. In many cultures, women are secondary and weak. The LFL gives us a chance to be sexy and strong” (Shafer, 2009: 38).

From the players, there is a strong sense that because they were doing something athletic they were able to see their involvement in the LFL as empowering rather than sexist. One player contended, “I don’t think it is sexist at all. We’re doing athletic activity as well. We’re not just modeling” (Smith, 2009a: para 24). Similarly, a woman trying out for the New York Majesty stated, “They say it is degrading, but it’s not. We don’t just stand there looking pretty. We hit pretty hard” (Smith, 2009a: para 17). For many, the opportunity to play football, a sport typically dominated by men, was a chance to show others that women can also play the game (Miller, 2009).

The opportunity to be involved with something they were passionate about was a source of empowerment for some of the women (Begley et al., 2009; Smith, 2009a). Furthermore, in a society largely driven by money, the opportunity to get paid to play in the LFL could be a source of empowerment. One blogger suggested that the players’ salaries would be in the US$40,000 range (Fantasy Baseball Dugout, 2008). In reality the players did not receive a set salary, but instead get a percentage of the gate receipts. The percentage they receive is based on whether their team won or lost, so there was a monetary incentive to win (Rovell, 2009). According to Mortaza, a player on a team that lost in front of a crowd of roughly 1,200 people would earn a “couple of hundred dollars” (Ormsby, 2009). Although this was far below the projected US$40,000, the women were at least getting some pay for their involvement in the league. However, as noted earlier, Kane and Maxwell’s (2011) findings that pornographic images of female athletes are least likely to encourage people to attend women’s sporting events suggest that women’s level of empowerment due to financial gains may be limited for LFL players.

Concluding remarks

The purpose of this study was to explore the gendered messages disseminated through representations of the Lingerie Football League. The APA task force on the sexualization of girls (2007) noted an increased sexualization of girls and women in the media, while Krassas et al. (2003) found an increase in “lad” or “men’s service” magazines such as Maxim, which peddle sexualized images of women and pornographic text. Studies such as these support the findings of the mediated representation of the Lingerie Football League and its players as examined in this paper. More specifically, this paper showed how dominant notions of femininity were supported through the themes of (1) just another form of soft porn, (2) real women play lingerie football, (3) men take care of business, and (4) promoting the blonde beauty.

The shift from the one-time mediated spectacle known as the Lingerie Bowl to a league format extending seven months was an attempt by Mortaza, founder of the LFL, to validate the Lingerie Football League as a professional sports league. With this change in format, league officials stressed the importance of players’ athletic abilities. “We realize that if this was just strictly T & A, it would be one-and-done,” said Mortaza (Ormsby, 2009: IN01). Yet the main focus remained on the women’s “attractiveness,” as noted by Mortaza’s insistence that they have standards to uphold. Mortaza claimed, “It doesn’t hurt to be beautiful – that’s part of the criteria. You’re not going to see 250 pound bruisers out there, I can tell you that much” (Wolf, n.d.: para 5).

This change to a league format allowed the game to be marketed to a larger audience, moving from a pay-per-view only audience to availability to all cable subscribers with MTV2 in their package. In a posting to feministing.com, Erin suggested that the LFL was “porn disguised, albeit poorly, as sport… By dressing it up as ‘sport’ it can be marketed to a wider audience” (Courtney, 2009). The move to cable television allowed the LFL to reach a larger audience.

Sport sociologists have examined the numerous ways in which our sporting culture helps to maintain dominant forms of femininity and masculinity (Birrell and Theberge, 1994; Messner, 2002; Newhall and Buzuvis, 2008). Football specifically has been examined for its ability to (re)produce masculinity in US culture (Messner, 2007; Oriard, 2001; Sabo and Panepinto, 1990). Scholars examining women’s experiences in sport have noted that contact sports such as ice hockey, rugby, and football have the potential to transgress dominant notions of femininity (Chase, 2006; Migliaccio and Berg, 2007; Theberge, 2000). The author would argue that the transgressive potential of women playing football is undermined when said women play in next to nothing with severely modified field, rules, and equipment. Future research should explore how the media representations influence the players’ self-perceptions regarding issues of gender.

Furthermore, what does it say about US society when women playing “real” football in standard football uniforms (such as those in the Women’s Football Alliance and the Independent Women’s Football League) are relegated to the media sidelines, while models and would-be actresses in lingerie, playing a seven-on-seven version of football, are aired on cable television and are seen in numerous print media? The author of the article “Uncovered to be covered” (The Pendulum, 2008) was one of the few voices to speak about the damaging effect of this league on the women’s movement. The author noted, “The league may be entertainment and fantasy for men, but there are serious social consequences and implications for women that work to erase the many decades of civil rights progress they have strived to accomplish” (The Pendulum, 2008: para 17). The same author also suggests that the very formation of the LFL is in contrast to the historical advances made by women in the United States. Although women on the gridiron have the potential to push the boundaries of traditional femininity, the Lingerie Football League and its representations thwart any such subversion.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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(1999) Sport, the media and the construction of compulsory heterosexuality. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 34(3): 227–243.