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The NYT recently updated its story about cheerleaders for the NFL Washington Redskins; the initial piece focused on a 2013 calendar shoot in Costa Rica.  There’s no NFL team based there, but that didn’t stop the cameras from clicking or certain entitled fans—all male, I’d bet—from tagging along and making a nuisance of themselves.  The team investigated and has instituted changes, among them slightly less revealing uniforms to be worn at games.

A few other teams have followed suit in having their cheerleaders show less skin this season, and two teams, the Rams and Saints, have added male cheerleaders.  I’m sure there was a real call for that from fans.  Guys, after all, are natural rams and saints.

Football is a game of action-fueled emotion; when the action turns violent, so can emotions, whether coming from players or fans.  Add women hardly dressed to copious amounts of alcohol, and you’ve got yourself a man cave for 60,000-100,000 people.

According to the Times’ story, the Jets have adopted an outfit reminiscent of the ones worn by high school cheerleaders.  And that would make a difference why, exactly?  Back in the Middle Ages at St. Laurence, our cheerleaders came from the girls’ Catholic high school across the street.  Those Jets-like uniforms they wore did not keep young Vikings from having unchaste thoughts.  If cheerleaders excited sexual fantasies then, they excite those very same fantasies now.  Either retire this antiquated routine, or substitute all men for women. 

Wouldn’t that be something?