An Assault On All We Hold Dear

A Texas lawmaker wants to ban sexy cheerleaders.

Remember folks, when sexy cheerleaders are outlawed, only outlaws will have sexy cheerleaders.

In all seriousness, I believe that proper response to this bill is “Give me a F! Give me a U! Wooooo!”

(And for the record, the legislator is a Democrat — proving that neither party has a monopoly on idiotic prudishness.)

57 thoughts on “An Assault On All We Hold Dear

  1. Oops.

    I went to the link, read the article and you’ve misrepresented the guy. He wants to ban overtly sexual cheerleading routines, not sexy cheerleaders. In fact, the article quotes one of the cheerleading organizations as being in support of this.

    Perhaps you’re just fishing for an Instalanche.

  2. It’s the BEAT, I tell you! That horrible jungle BEAT which will DRAG our cheeyilll-drun DOWN into a MESS OF EVIL! The BEAT that INCITES LUST and FORNICATION!

    Our children must be protected from the evil BEAT of so-called “rock and roll” music! SIN cannot be far behind!

    BAN BILL HALEY AND THE COMETS!

  3. I have a question: What part of fit, attractive females in short skirts and tight tops doing splits and high leg kicks to expose their panties is NOT “sexy?” Am I missing something here?

  4. To be fair I would like to see the text of the bill(which the article doesn’t show). While I don’t like regulations do we need 12 year olds dressed like strippers? I think that for middle and high school uniforms some modisty would be appropriate.

    — Richard Zeien

  5. Paul, Richard:

    Do we actually A FRICKIN’ LAW to regulate what squads of cheerleaders can and cannot do? Or maybe you are bucking for a spot on the Texas State Cheerleading Review and Enforcement Commission.

  6. Paul, Richard:

    Do we actually need A FRICKIN’ LAW to regulate what squads of cheerleaders can and cannot do? Or maybe you are bucking for a spot on the Texas State Cheerleading Review and Enforcement Commission.

  7. Rejoice! All the important problems facing the Texas legislature are solved, apparently.

    Now the legislature can get to work on screwing cheerleaders.

  8. Well I heard about this on the radio here in Dallas. From the amount of snide comments that are being generated on the line of “doesn’t the legislature have an awful lot on its plate right now to be messing with this?” and this was from a fairly conservative station. This guy may have stirred up more shit than he can handle.

  9. Well, are they really ‘sexy’ if they’re not doing anything sexy? I mean, if they’re not doing anything sexy then they’re just pretty, beautiful, wholesome, attractive, etc. Sexy is a sign saying, ‘Hey! Come ‘n’ git it!’

    Whatever happens, we’ll always have The Replacements.

  10. What he wants to ban is not sexy cheerleaders, its the bump and grind routines.

    I’ve talked to some parents of teenage cheerleaders and even they are getting tired of routines that are nothing more than strip dancing, without the removal of any clothing.

    Having atheletic young women go out and lead cheers is ok. but too many of the dance routines belong in some ugly dive called the “Kit Kat Klub” or “Pink Poodle” and not on the sidelines of a sporting event.

  11. Awesome. I thought I was the only one who noticed Edwards’ political affiliation. In most of the news reports I’ve read, that fact was conspicuously absent.

    Ah well, it’s a terrible idea, whoever came up with it. We need our country to be an example to the nascent struggling democracies of the world, such as babe-filled Lebanon.

  12. If this were a federal law I would agree with you Mike. The problem isn’t so much small town cheerleaders at a football game as it is competative cheerleaders. I’m not for repressing sexuality but I’m not for 14 year old girls doing dances that are sexual in nature.

    Also like I said you have to see the text of the bill before you make a judgment. Just given the information in the article I’m against it as it is too vauge.

    I must also admit I’m biased against cheerleading. The days when women are subserviant to men are supposed to be gone. These girls could easily compete in gymnastics or dance and get the recognition for their hard work they deserve. I stronly dislike the idea of a girls sport being dedicated to worshiping a male sport.

    — Richard Zeien

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  14. Mike, society isn’t dealing with it. Go in a middle school and see how these 12 and 13 year old girls talk and behave. Very few of them are mature enough to understand the consequences of careless sexual behavior yet more than a few are engaged in and many consider it because they feel surrounded by it. And, in the midst of this confusion, you have cheerleading sponsors who are encouraging routines that are a mix between a pole dance, a lap dance, and a dity dance – in the names of winning contests or preparing their girls to be high school cheerleaders.

    This is the problem that libertarian thought always runs into – we love the idea that people are free to make choices and accept the consquences of their choices and no one else has the right to dictate someone else’s behavior. But in social settings, these choices sometimes become compromised because of direct or indirect pressure – some of which may seem more significant than it is and some of which is actuall significant.

    I wish I agreed with you that it as simple as social laissze-faire… as the father of a nine-year-old, I find it difficult to agree.

  15. To the people who consider this over-regulation: should there be any rules or standards controling how far is “too far” for cheerleaders?

    No? How about if the cheerleaders use routines that include dry humping eachother or playing with themselves (bearing in mind that cheerleading squads can include guys)? How about if your daughter/sister/girlfriend was one of them? For those who say “that would never happen”, I say what’s to stop it from happening — and what if it does happen anyway?

  16. One other thing to weed out the dudes who are just thinking with their unit–

    Would you still support this if the cheerleaders in question were hairy and overweight?

  17. Let’s bring back the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders the bluenoses took off our TV screens many years ago.

  18. Regardless to your position:
    1) Cheerleaders – stop sexy moves but buy them them scant uniforms.
    2) Underwear – stop showing of boys underwear but OK short skirts allowing girls to show their underwear.
    3) Steroids in Baseball – Demand laws within baseball but do nothing to stop drug trafficking. Who are we kidding – this has many legs: Big Business, Culture, Control, Exposure, Access etc.
    4) Mrs. Schiavo – Congress Writes a law specific to one person.
    5) Budget – Cut Medicare but continue to fund baseball while players are being awarded $252M contracts.
    6) Illegal Immigration: Set up HLS but keep the borders open.
    7) Public Education: Set guidelines to receive federal funds and then knowlingly bus students from Mexico daily to attend public schools in CA. Also, pay for the buses that transport them.
    8) Unwanted Pregnancies Under Sixteen: Go after the doctors but do nothing about the man responsible for the impregnation. Also, where is parental reponsibility? Are these not minors?

    I do not know about you but something is wrong with this picture.

  19. As a New Yorker, I find that I lack information needed to form an opinion on the “sexy Texas cheerleader” issue. Perhaps some Texans could post some photgraphic evidence of this phenomenon, to help the broader US public evaluate the terms of this important debate? Thanks. evm.

  20. I know! If you don’t want your daughter engaging in bump-and-grind routines, gather some like-minded parents together, head down to the school, and hector the cheerleading coach about it. If the coach doesn’t buckle (unlikely), take the issue to the school administration. If they don’t buckle, take it to the school board, make a stink about it to the local media, picket, etc.

    Leave the bigger tasks to the Texas State Legislature, like redistricting.

  21. Sabe,

    Which schools don’t have dress codes? Which ones allow miniskirts?

    When did congress pay for baseball? Answer is they don’t.

    I find it interesting that people don’t have a problem with killing helpless people but tend to be furious with the death penalty for cold blooded killers.

    Most of the rest of your post doesn’t make much sense either.

  22. To what extent the article revealed the nature of the bill, it sounds like the legislator in question only wants to ban moves, performed by minors in public, that an intellecutally-honest person would have to acknowledge are specifically sexual in nature.

    Not “sexy,” but actually “sexual” — and if you truly don’t understand the difference, you’re probably not sufficiently interested in sex to understand why such a law might be necessary in the first place.

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  24. According to the news article, “J.M. Farias, owner of Austin Cheer Factory, said cheerleading aficionados would welcome the law. Cheering competitions, he said, penalize for suggestive movements or any vulgarity.” This would seem to indicated that the problem lies with the football (and other sport) leagues, the individual school districts, the cheerleading coaches, and the parents of the cheerleades. They are the people who should be taking care of this — IF, in fact it is an actual problem. I’ve never seen a Texas high school game so I have no idea what the reality may be. The Uber-Nannies in the state legislature do not need to come in and fix every problem.

    This is not all that different than those grand-standing political hack in Congress who are going to solve the problem of steroid abuse in professional baseball by holding hearings and basking in the glow of television and issuing self-serving press releases. I’m sure glad the budge deficits have been fixed and social security has been put on a sound fiscal basis and the balance of protection of civil liberites vs. protection from terrorists has be achieved, etc. so that these pompous windbags can strut upon their steroid stage.

    This turkey in Texas is going to save the world from suggestive cheerleader routines. And if by some chance his legislation passes — look what he wants to do — penalize the schools by cutting their state funding. This means that taxpayers in a district who have never seen a football game in their lives will have their local property taxes go up — and serious students who are too busy studying to notice the cheerleading and devout and modest students who are just trying to get an education and don’t have time for frivolous pursuits and students from poor families whose only hope of escaping poverty is through education will all be penalized by reducing their district’s funding. Yeah, not only pump your ego by releasing press releases about your great moral crusade, but design bad legislation that ignores the guilty and punishes the innocent. A moral moron.

  25. Anony-mouse writes:

    > To what extent the article revealed the nature
    > of the bill, it sounds like the legislator in question
    > only wants to ban moves, performed by minors
    > in public, that an intellecutally-honest person
    > would have to acknowledge are specifically
    > sexual in nature.

    And an intellectually-honest person would have to acknowledge that if they can ban this, *they can ban anything they want*. Who’s to define “specifically sexual in nature”? Why not ban short skirts? Or why not ban cheerleaders from dating? Or heck, why not ban cheerleading altogether – after all, it’s *dangerous* – would you want your daughter putting herself at risk that way?

    And “Performed by minors”? Well, presumably the ban would also apply to high-school girls who are 18 as well, right?

    Scott writes:

    > No? How about if the cheerleaders use routines that
    > include dry humping eachother or playing with themselves
    > (bearing in mind that cheerleading squads can include
    > guys)? How about if your daughter/sister/girlfriend was
    > one of them? For those who say “that would never
    > happen”, I say what’s to stop it from happening —
    > and what if it does happen anyway?

    So freaking what. How about having a problem with the government telling your daughter/sister/girlfriend what she can or cannot do? *That’s* the real issue here. Whatever should stop it from happening (never mind whether it *should* be stopped in the first place), it should NOT be the government doing the stopping.

    Tom writes:

    > I wish I agreed with you that it as simple as social
    > laissze-faire… as the father of a nine-year-old,
    > I find it difficult to agree.

    Oh, think of the children! There are lots of us without nine-year-olds who truly resent that parents of nine-year-olds seem to think they have a veto over everyone else’s behavior by virtue of being parents of nine-year-olds.

  26. “I have a question: What part of fit, attractive females in short skirts and tight tops doing splits and high leg kicks to expose their panties is NOT “sexy?” Am I missing something here?”

    EXACTLY!

    Sounds to me like they are trying to ban the “booty dancing” aspect of cheerleading. As if sitting on some dude’s finger and sticking your leg up as high as you can exposing your “underthingies” isn’t about as sexy as you can get.

  27. What!?! Cheerleaders dry-humping each other!?! Why the hell didn’t someone wake me up!

    Seriously, having a daughter who cheers for her school and competitively, I would have to say this is pretty much a self-regulating activity. The school is strict in terms of its approved routines and the parents can always speak up. And as the guy interviewed at the Austin Cheer Factory said, competitions penalize teams that have those types of routines.

    Now as for the dancers at pro football games, et al., why hell yes – let it all hang out! Texas Legislature be damned!

  28. So freaking what. How about having a problem with the government telling your daughter/sister/girlfriend what she can or cannot do? That’s the real issue here.

    You mean how about having a problem with the government regulating activity in a government school? You’d think that was their job or something. This is the state government regulating state schools. Take your uber-libertarianism elsewhere; it’s not needed here.

  29. Thinking this is properly the job of parents, not the government, is hardly uber-libertarianism. Real uber-libertarians wouldn’t object to the cheerleaders doing real strip routines, so long as the cheerleaders did it voluntarily and were of the age of consent.

    Parents who object to the routines can complain to the supervisor of the cheerleading squad, or the school administrators, and my experiences lead me to expect such complaints will get results. And based on what I remember from high school, the routines were made up by the cheerleaders at the public school I went to. What is the basis for claiming they’re being compelled to do routines they don’t want to do? It would be objectionable if that was the case, but I have seen no evidence to indicate that it is.

    The bottom line is that this is not something that requires the attention of the government.

  30. Getting rid of prudishness has certinaly helped without making society safer and with fewer std’s. oh wait.. nevermind, pass the prudes please.

  31. Jim: “This is not all that different than those grand-standing political hack in Congress who are going to solve the problem of steroid abuse in professional baseball by holding hearings and basking in the glow of television and issuing self-serving press releases. I’m sure glad the budge deficits have been fixed and social security has been put on a sound fiscal basis and the balance of protection of civil liberites vs. protection from terrorists has be achieved, etc. so that these pompous windbags can strut upon their steroid stage.

    Great comments, Jim; you said everything I would have said and more. It is hard to believe that something like this would come up during the same week where the U.S. House spends eleven hours trying to dictate how a private entity (baseball) runs its own business. This really doesn’t make me proud to be a Texan (and sorry to all who have made the request, I don’t have any sexy cheerleader pictures either *grin*)

  32. “To be fair I would like to see the text of the bill(which the article doesn’t show). ”

    http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/79R/billtext/HB01476I.HTM

    At a glance, it looks like it prohibits “sexually suggestive” performances without defining the term.

    Thinking back over 20 years to Junior High and High School (in Texas, no less!), I seem to recall thinking the cheerleaders and their routines were sexy… if you can label an adolescent male’s impressions as “thinking”.

    Are Texas chickens too funky, and their geese too loose?

  33. If you have not ever witnessed the types of displays that this lawmaker is trying to ban, then shut your mouths. I went to high school in Texas. I know what these girls are doing because I watched them do it every Friday during football season and at least once or twice in the spring. It is NOT appropriate. The type of dancing they do is not allowed at high school dances or in most public places, for that matter, and you certainly wouldn’t want a young child to see it. However, regardless of what the man from the Austin Cheer Factory says, the cheerleaders keep winning their competitions, and nothing encourages more bad behavior like a reward.

    In the current sexual climate, teenagers know more about sex earlier and earlier. They have sex earlier and earlier – even in Texas, with the heavy religious influence and campaigns like “True Love Waits.” Sex is a part of the educational culture because it is a part of every human being, but there is no reason to encourage inappropriate displays in a school setting.

    Since the coaches, teachers and administrators aren’t taking care of it themselves, I am thankful that the lawmakers are there to step in.

    For those of you who think that this is a personal issue or something to be kept within the family, think again. Do you remember what peer pressure was like in high school? Have you asked your own children lately? Not to mention that these are cheerleaders on a TEAM. The point is for them to be the same: look the same, dance the same, smile the same, etc. With the exception of one girl, every cheerleader at my high school had the exact same highlighted blonde hair. You can’t expect girls to go against the grain and say, “I’m not comfortable with that,” and you certainly can’t expect them to give up the honor of being part of the cheerleading squad. So think again.

    And yeah, there probably are a lot of other things that the Texas legislature could address. But you know what? You have to start somewhere. In this case, the morality and standards of coming generations are at stake. I’d be willing to spend some time on that.

  34. “If you have not ever witnessed the types of displays that this lawmaker is trying to ban, then shut your mouths.”

    That may be… but even if it weren’t ripe for jokes to be made, the proposal is VERY badly written. It’s too vague… it tries to ban something without defining that thing.

  35. Thus the need for the legislative process! The committees of the Texas House and Senate will have their way with the bill – revise it, edit it, and define the moves that are considered illegal. I don’t think that being vague is something that can’t be fixed with a few revisions.

    You’re right about one thing, though – the whole idea is pretty funny, but definitely sad in a way.

  36. So what’s wrong with sexy cheerleading? I love the 13-15 year old girls that do the MTV pelvic thrusts and the dry humping on the football field. Like all my middle-aged pervy friends, I know what that means: they are sexually experienced and available. I mean, they had to learn that somewhere,didn’t they? They want to show off their copulatin’ moves, don’t they? Awww, they want it. You know that. They want it bad, and they need it from someone with a few years on him, someone who knows how to break ’em in right. Hell, thats why I volunteer at the local junior high school, as a “chaperone” for those junior high dances, so I can see those girls gettin’ jiggy wid it.

  37. Here’s a rule of thumb: how about, if the girl is so young that having sex with her would land you in jail, then perhaps prohibiting her from simulating sex in front of hundreds of screaming fans isn’t exactly the first step towards a fascist theocracy.

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  39. As a former cheerleader/danceliner, I have to say that this law is both wrong and useless. It’s wrong because a legislature should not legislate cheerleading (duh); that’s a pretty obvious freedom issue. It’s useless because THESE GIRLS WANT TO ACT LIKE THIS! The coaches and choreographers are not the ones who are like “how about we simulate coitus on the 7-8 count?” The girls themselves want to act this way. Believe me, I had to bat enough of these so-called “moves” down at practices for four years. It’s a cultural phenomenon, not a political problem. Maybe if parents turned off the MTV and talked to their kids about right and wrong (boys too–girls wouldn’t do it if they didn’t experience cultural reinforcement, largely from men), politicians wouldn’t feel the need to try and legislate common sense and decency.

  40. Where to start?

    First of all, I know a couple of girls who were cheerleaders in high school. They seemed aware that they were regarded as sexually desirable, they also seemed to know being a cheerleader had something to do with it.

    Second, most “varsity” cheerleaders, whom this proposed law would affect, are at least 17 years old. In Texas (and indeed most states) a 17 year old can have sexual relations with anyone they wish. There is no law against this. They can do pretty much as they wish, in fact they could run away and join the circus or join the armed forces if they wanted to (however, I do not recommend this).

    Third, this is a horrible (and typical) double standard. It is well known that boys wish to play school sports as a means of increasing their social standing as well as their sex appeal. The quarterback of the football team is as much a sex symbol as the head cheerleader. I recall my high school days well, I would’ve given much to be a footbal star so that I might have dated a cheerleader. Yet in spite of this obvious fact, none of you would consider slapping a chastity belt on male athletes. Why not. Don’t say “boys will be boys” either until you resolve the difference between accepted and rewarded behavior of boys in the US and accepted norms in other societies (such as India) where the cocky and sexually aggressive attitudes that our young men are taught to display are frowned upon and therefore less accepted.

    Finally, every effort at sexual repression in the United States has been a miserable failure. “Abstinence only” efforts have resulted in more risk taking, pregnancy, STDs et cetera, largely due to ignorance and an inability to control natural urges. In fact it has the unintended affect of causing additional stress, anxiety, shame and depression to our young people (especially girls). Societies where female sexuality is repressed, such as Islamic states, have an abnormally high rate of homosexual behavior among men. Women and children are routinely abused in these societies. In short, the repression of female sexuality is not, in my opinion, a good thing.

    I am not any kind of expert and rely on open source material (medical journals) and my own gut instincts in forming my opinion. While I am willing to conceed that some guidance regarding appropriate routines for young children involved in this sport might be a good idea, no mention has been made of the (obvious) difference between a 12 year old middle school student and a 17 year old high school senior. They should not be held to the same standards. I understand the concern of parents for their children’s welfare, however I firmly believe that the logic behind all of this is deeply flawed and wanted to inject some honesty and reason into the debate. This proposed law, simply put, is folly.

  41. Yeah… I’m doing a paper on this topic, and I really had no idea how much adults cared about.. cheerleading?

    I just made the varsity squad at my high school, and this year we got a new coach. Our last years coach turned the squad into freaking slut buckets. The majority of them went off to collage and now its our turn. This years coach, however, is trying to clean the rest of us up. I see this happening in other schools around Louisiana.

    What I dont understand is why this old guy is so interested in cheerleaders? I think he should take a second look. Most of us ‘sexy cheerleaders’ agree that some of the dances we are performing are tasteless. But this is being cleaned up…

    This guy should be concerned about the government and roads and all the things hes supposed to care about instead of cheerleading. Were fixing the problem.

  42. I am a high school cheerleader at a primarily black high school. A lot of our routines involve shaking our hips and our behinds. None of the parents at our school complain about it and everyone at our school sees it at normal. It’s just a way to get the crowd in the spirit of the game. I’m a virgin and I am college bound. Asfar as I know, most of the girls on the squad have their heads on their shoulders. We are not more sexually active than any of the other kids at our school. Most of the black shcools have cheerleading squads that do the same kinds of routines with no compliants from the parents. It’s kind of part of our culture. We’re just having fun and nobody is being harmed or getting pregnant as a direct result of our routine. I believe this ban is completely crossing the line, and I believe that the schools who will hurt the most from this will be those predominantely black schools and they need as much funding as they can get.

  43. This bill just passed the house. It is hypocritcal that cheerleadrs in Texas schools may be paddled by men, witnessed by men, with the paddling legally secretely videotaped with spy cameras if the paddlers wish to. What could be more pornographic than that?

    To put it another way would the cheerleaders get arrested for mimicking a principal’s office paddling, or would they get paddled for it?

    Public School paddling is legal in 22 states, and widely practiced in a few. Texas is the leader by number but is only number 8 or so by percentage. Boys are more often paddled in elementary, but “for some reason” girls get nearly half of high school paddlings in many Texas schools, with men doing nearly all of the paddling and witnessing.

  44. cheerleading

    this is not the problem. The problem lies in the eyes of the but that can only see sex in anything it looks at. Cheerleading has guidelines and those guidlines and those guide lines are posted by the american cheerleading association and other cheer associations nationally.
    Get your heads out of yours and let the cheerleaders alone.
    they enjoy doing this and so do people who support their efforts in winning compitions for their schools and states.
    you pick on them and you lose you lose everything they ever brought you.

    also why not pick on gymnist they do the exact same thing
    they where even more skimpy clothes and have theirs hanging outl
    males included.\
    at least the cheerleaders are dressed to code that is a must
    and everything they do is done by code
    yes clean up the filthy mouths and vulger language but the cheers ARE GREAT AND SO ARE THE COMPITIONS

    I AM A MOTHER OF A COACH AND FORMER COLLEGE CHEERLEADER.

  45. Rev. Al Edwards, the author of the bill, argues that sexually overt cheerleading can lead to teen pregnancies and STD’s.

    I have to agree. I mean, if they don’t pull back on their risque routines a little, guys might actually start taking a sexual interest in cheerleaders.

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  47. I am a high school student and I realize that many of the people who commented are adults who were in school years ago. Being a student today is very different than it was years ago.

    On the topic of this law, I avidly believe that the law may be neccessary. If society had dealt with this issue, a law would not be needed! However, I also feel the law is vague and should be more clear in its regulations.

    p.s. I feel that the older cheerleaders do not need as many regulations. The 12-year old cheerleaders however should have some better guidlines. A lot of parents don’t know how to speak up and set guiidlines for their young kids. Jirrarting in front of a crowd of sports fans is not appropriate for young girls.
    p.s.s. I’d like to see teens commenting more. Some adults are totally clueless on this matter. They either jump on the chance to be strict or let their children do whatever. There needs to be a balance!

  48. I am a cheereader and personally…. I FRIGGEN LOVE IT!
    i really don’t appriciate all ya’ll people talking crap about it…
    there are a few down-sides to it but mostly it’s just a fun sport.

    ~melissa

  49. melissas friend but like love her friend kind of person that loves her u kno like the kind of person that loves her yay says:

    umm ya cheerleading is cool too yay

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