Every once in a while, we re-post an article from elsewhere for various reasons. This week is one of those occasions. We are wrapping up a focus on "God is the Light of the World" this week by highlighting our local mission partnership with Gracehaven. Gracehaven's work focuses on the abolition of sex slavery, particularly with young girls. The following is a recent blog article about the connection of human trafficking and major sporting events. Our fight for justice for those without a voice continues.
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In two weeks,
America will practically come to a standstill on February 2nd as over one
hundred million people will gather together in homes, bars, even churches to
fix their gaze on MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to see which team will walk
away with the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XLVIII. Although some will be tuning in only for the commercials, it is a TV
ratings dream!
Something else,
however, will be happening with the Super Bowl that few of us can fathom and
many don't want to acknowledge.
Here’s a hard
truth. Sex traffickers LOVE the Super Bowl and other
major sporting events. Whether it is the Olympics in Sochi, the
World Cup in Brazil, the Super Bowl in New Jersey, or local sporting staples
like the Memorial Tournament or the Arnold Classic, significant sporting events
attract a high demand for sex trafficking.
Texas Attorney
General Greg Abbott agrees with Cindy McCain, the
Arizona Senator's wife who states that the Super Bowl is the "largest
human-trafficking venue on the planet." The ingredients are fairly
obvious - saturate a city with visiting men (and yes, women) who flood hotels
with money to spend, supercharge them with alcohol, sexual imagery, and other
testosterone favorites, and center the entire weekend on a few hours of
intoxicating adrenaline. Even a novice trafficker can't fail to
capitalize.
According to the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the 2010 Super Bowl
included an estimated 10,000 commercial sex workers active in Miami, and in
2011 the perennial favorite resulted in 133 prostitution arrests in Dallas. Two years ago, Indiana passed new laws on
human trafficking anticipating Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. And last
year, it was more of the same in New Orleans. Now New Jersey is gearing up to
be "Football Mecca" where some warn trafficking will be at anall-time high due to the proximity of New York City's
established sex trafficking network.
It is undeniable
that our greatest sporting events have sex trafficking hiding in their
shadows. But perhaps there is something even darker below the surface. The NFL is currently taking heat for not addressing the problem of sex
trafficking and the Super Bowl, but maybe the fault does not lie with them
alone.
Complicity?
There is no
argument that sports at all levels have many benefits. They have fostered
equality, encourage teamwork, and demand personal discipline while inspiring us
to new heights. But sports, particularly in America, have had an
unmistakable partnership with sexual exploitation.
Consider this...
A few men, out of
sheer masculine strength effortlessly hurl petite, attractive, young females
through the air, skirts-a-flyin', to the cheers of male onlookers. A
scene from a fraternity's YouTube channel? A rap video?
A scandalous sex game in the Third World? No, it is a scene witnessed by
millions every Saturday from mid-August into the BCS in January. We call
it "cheerleading."
We are treading on
sacred ground here. In no way is this intended to diminish the
athleticism and hard work of men and women in this profession. The hard
work, talent and training these athletes invest in their career are worth our
respect.
Cheerleaders are
talented athletes – no question. But are they necessary?
Let's deal with the
nomenclature "cheerleading." Does anyone honestly
believe that the 100,000+ who pack The Horseshoe in our city or The Big House
up north really need any help cheering for their team? Maybe this was
necessary for the Princeton teams in the 1880s when cheerleaders first
appeared, but can you name a single OSU football fan that needs anyone to work
them into a crazed frenzy. They come that way!
Why then do we have
squads of attractive young women, scantily clad who parade in front of us
during football games?
Hockey is not
exempt.
One may not think
of hockey in terms of sexual objectification. But visit Nationwide Arena
and you might see it during stoppages. We call them the "Ice
Crew" - go ahead, take a look.
Notice who is missing? If you were going to show the
people caring for the rink, would you not include the critical Zamboni drivers? Or the guys who set the nets? Notice what is missing? Not
exactly the attire of choice when ice skating!
Sex trafficking
surrounds male sporting events at an alarming rate. That fact should and
does outrage us. But is that the extent of the sexual exploitation and
objectification that takes place Are we somewhat insulated from sexual
exploitation with it confined outside our stadiums in seedy hotels and back
alleys, or do we openly display it on our sidelines?
We must consider
that this crime circles events like the Super Bowl and the Arnold Classic not
as a deviant invader of our treasured pastimes, but as a by-product of the more
“acceptable” sexual objectification and exploitation that is customary with our
sporting events. For all the progress we pride ourselves for having made
socially, we still all seem rather comfortable with the overt sexual objectification
of women around male sporting events.
Perhaps this is
just reactionary and blown out of proportion…
But do yourself a
favor this Super Bowl XVLIII…consider the fact that you NEVER see/hear the
name of a cheerleader. Her professional stats, her college major, not
even her athleticism are discussed. (When did you last hear ESPN report
on Cheerleading Combine results?) Why is she there? On
what do we evaluate her success? We get volumes of stats and information
on her male counterparts on the field, why not her?
Or consider camera
angles.
Television
executives give us what we want. We desire to look down, almost god-like
on the players. We want to see their names from on high, like Caesar in The
Coliseum, applauding their success and jeering their failure. Performance is everything and how we identify and revere football
players.
But then the camera
swings to the cheerleaders. Suddenly the angle changes from that of a god
to a voyeuristic adolescent boy. We are suddenly brought low, looking up
at our seductress as she looks flirtatiously at us, blending playful innocence
with sexual desire. Her identity? Her abilities? Her
professional success? Her age? Meaningless.
What we desire is that
she awakens us sexually. We want her to be nameless, almost subhuman. We want her on the sidelines, a convenient sexual diversion strictly on
our terms. We want her beautiful. And we want her young. Sounds
frighteningly familiar.
Maybe this is just
reactionary...you be the judge. Tune in with the 100,000,000+
people on February 2nd and watch carefully and objectively, and then decide if
there are some serious issues we must address before the Super Bowl visits
Arizona in 2015!
An Editorial Note
We want to heed
caution and simply reiterate that this entry is not an indictment against the
sports of football or cheerleading. Nor does it suggest that they are the
cause of the sex trafficking that now surrounds professional sports. To
do so would be akin to blaming the internet for child pornography, and would
dilute the point we are trying to make.
It is unfortunate
that we could have cited several forms of sexual exploitation and
objectification related to the Super Bowl. We chose cheerleading because
the blatant objectification of women that it presents in this context has
subtly (and unfortunately) fallen out of the attention of many viewers. In fact, our point is that objectification and exploitation is so
insidious, it can infiltrate things (like sports) that are otherwise neutral or
even positive and quickly turn them into something dangerous.
So maybe the
article is over-sensitive (we don't think so), but for the sake of our children
who are being victimized, we're willing to take that risk.
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(The above article is a repost from
Gracehaven’s website. To see the original article, please visit https://gracehaven.squarespace.com/news/2014/1/2/the-super-bowl-of-sexual-exploitation.)
