The sexy pictures are part of a newly-launched campaign designed to appeal to both potential FSU basketball players and fans. The new website for the FSU team features many pictures like the one above. In the "meet the team" section, each player has her own profile page, which is overwhelmingly dominated by a shot of the athlete dressed in a satin dress, exiting a limo. Although some clutch basketballs - the only nod to the fact that these are basketball players, not debutantes - others are straight up glamor shots (the most obvious example is the image of Kayli Keough, guard/forward). The main page shows the entire team in a limo, perfectly coiffed and smiling at the camera. Yes, they look great. They fully live up to their claim of "Confidence. Strength. Beauty. We've got it all." But it is hard not to wonder, what does beauty have to do with anything?

This is the question posed by Jayda Evans. In her column for the Seattle Times, Evans examines the re-designed site for the No. 15 team, ultimately coming to the conclusion that the emphasis on femininity and beauty indicates an underlying fear of being viewed as anything other than straight. She mentions the documentary Training Rules, about former Penn State coach Rene Portland, who allegedly had just three rules for her players: No drinking, no drugs, and absolutely no lesbians. Portland may have been more explicit about her homophobia, but the FSU website reveals a certain desire to move away from the actual game - where players are sweaty, strong and accomplished, perhaps frighteningly so - towards a much more polished image of female athletes as celebrities first, players second. Evans points out that attempt to make female athletes appear "powerful, beautiful, strong and accomplished" is just another way to gloss over the fact that they are being overtly feminized. For Evans, "beautiful" is translated as "attractive to men," and implicitly, heterosexual.

In a press release for the newly launched website, FSU coach Sue Semrau explains their decision to depict their players en route to some fancy shindig: "We feel it is important to set ourselves apart as much as we can... We wanted to have a product that would stand out to the people we are trying to reach." The "product" being not only the game, but the individual players. At Carnal San Francisco, editor Tim McElreavy suggests that Semrau's attempt to "sell" the game reveals a disheartening focus on the bottom line: "While it would be naïve to believe that college sports isn't or shouldn't be concerned with the bottom line, such words, especially from a coach, really seem to instrumentalize the players' achievements. Add to this business rhetoric the stereotype of the pretty woman, and women's sports marketing moves further and further away from the actual sport," he writes.

And to drive home this point, take a look at the website for the FSU men's team, where the players are portrayed in a rather different light. There is no doubt that this is about the "actual sport." Their website features pictures of the players in action. Their faces are contorted into grimaces of concentration while sweat pours off their bodies. Okay, it's not unattractive, but it's also not purposefully sexy. The emphasis is on the game, not the dolled-up players. While FSU women have to be "sold" and "appeal" to the public, the men's team can safely coast on the knowledge that people watch them play for reasons other than their sex appeal.

Women's Hoops Media Guides And Web Sites Getting Sexier [Seattle Times]
Glam Photos Show The Ugly Side Of Women's Basketball [Carnal San Francisco]
Glammed Up B'Ball Stars Spark Uproar [Newser]
Florida State University Women's Basketball [Official Site]

As evidence that the WNBA is still struggling, Levin cites the demise of the Houston Comets, and the fact that the Phoenix Mercury had to give away free tickets in order to fill the stadium for its championship series. The league is also a target of insults. Levin writes,

As the finals wound down, ESPN.com's most-popular writer, Bill Simmons, mocked his own network's coverage of women's hoops. "Tweets you won't see tonight," Simmons wrote. "Flip over to ESPN2, the 4th quarter of the climactic WNBA Finals game is on right now!" A few months earlier, Simmons encouraged one of his readers to go to a WNBA game wearing a T-shirt reading "EXPECT LAYUPS." And last month, the desperate-to-be-edgy Foxsports.com video series "Cubed" played host to a debate about which activity was more palatable, women's hoops or gay porn. (Fox Sports later cut that bit, explaining in a statement that it had been "experimental.")

Leaving aside the question of what's more "palatable," sexism or homophobia, it remains uncertain whether the WNBA will ever be able to pay for itself. As of 2007, Levin says, the league was losing between 1.5 and 2 million dollars a year. Explaining why, he writes,

The fundamental problem is that the sports world's primary spenders-adult men-have never shown much interest in watching women play basketball. For all the people like John Wooden who enthuse over the superior fundamentals of the women's game, there are thousands more who focus on what women can't do on the court. Dunking is not all there is to basketball-as your high school coach used to say, a slam is worth just as many points as a layup. But it's also true that nobody pays $1,000 for courtside seats to watch a layup line.

Of course, the lack of slam dunks may not be the only problem — there are probably many men who simply don't want to watch women play basketball. Fox's "gay porn" comparison may be revealing. The WNBA is popular with the gay and lesbian communities (as Levin mentions later), and some men who consider themselves red-blooded American sports fans may be uncomfortable with this association. Other RBASFs may not want to watch women play a sport they think of as masculine (as opposed to, say, gymnastics). Slurs about the "manliness" of female athletes were around long before Caster Semenya, and some viewers may think of WNBA players as like men, but worse. While some fans probably disdain the WNBA on gameplay alone, it's important to note that there may be other issues at work here.

Levin says the solution for the WNBA isn't to resolve these issues, but to concentrate on its base:

The audience for the WNBA is, by various accounts, between 60 percent and 80 percent female. The league also has a major following in the gay and lesbian community, a community that some franchises court and others aggressively alienate. If the WNBA focuses primarily on these fans, they can still have a large enough customer base to survive and succeed.

According to Levin, the WNBA will never score big TV or merchandising deals like its male counterpart does, and must instead maximize ticket sales by appealing to existing fans and possibly moving "toward smaller markets that are more likely to come out and support a professional women's basketball team." He cites as a model Women's Pro Soccer, a "grassroots-focused league that appears committed to sensible growth" and whose "core audience is 8-to-18-year-old girls who play soccer, their families, and 'fitness-minded women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.'" The idea of the WNBA succeeding on female support alone, simply ignoring male RBASFs, has a certain sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves appeal. And Levin's statement that "you're more likely to succeed by marketing your product to people who already like it than by trying to win over people who don't" makes good business sense. Still, it's sad that in a country where so many women watch men play sports, we have to accept that men will never watch women.

How To Fix The WNBA [Slate]

Yes, Semenya is now on the cover of South Africa's You magazine, wearing makeup, a dress, and a new hairdo. Four inside pages also show Semenya in a variety of stylish outfits, including leather pants and a sequined top — all of which You says Semenya wanted to buy after the photo shoot. The feature includes an interview, in which Semenya says, "I'd like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance," she says. "I'd also like to learn to do my own makeup." She continues,

I've never bought my own clothes – my mum buys them for me. But now that I know what I can look like, I'd like to dress like this more often.

Semenya apparently had to be "persuaded" to let stylists make her over, but enjoyed herself once the shoot got going. I hope she did have a good time, but it's hard not to see the shoot as a calculated move by her managers to sell the public on her "femininity." This is especially sad because up until now, Semenya and her family have been unapologetic about the way she looks and dresses. Her father said that she had always preferred pants, but that she was still a woman — and the idea that she has to put on a dress and lipstick to prove her femaleness to people is pretty depressing.

Skirts and heels do not a woman make — according to Owen Slot at the Times of London, that's for scientists to decide. He writes,

Why such a public statement about her femininity now when a team of scientists are simultaneously drawing conclusions that may not agree with it. It is indecently hasty when she could easily have waited until the science had been completed.

I totally agree with Slot that Semenya seems like "a pawn being shifted around the chess board by powerful controlling forces," and that it seems much kinder to her to let the issue of her gender fade into the background. But since she and everyone who knows her have always made clear that she identifies as a woman, it doesn't really make sense to say that the science "may not agree" with her "femininity." If she's found to be intersex, that may affect whether she can compete, but it won't automatically change her self-expressed gender identity. It seems like Slot is saying, "won't she feel stupid for wearing that dress if it turns out she's really a dude?" Um, no — her chromosomes don't dictate whether she's allowed identify as a woman, or whether she can get dolled up if she wants to.

And let's hope she did want to. If Semenya wants to branch out from the clothes "her mum" picks out (yet another reminder that she's still a teenager), then more power to her. But if the makeover was a publicity stunt to sell a certain image of Semenya (and, obviously, magazines), it's sad that this image had to be so conformist. From Susan Boyle to Semenya, magazine "makeovers" send the message that there's one way for women to look good, and the closer you get to it the happier you'll be. I'd rather live in a world where Caster Semenya can wear pants if she feels like it, rather than one where she needs a team of stylists to be considered "feminine."

Makeover For SA Gender-Row Runner [BBC]
Caster Is A Cover Girl [Guardian]
World In Motion: Caster Semenya Photoshoot Brings Sex Back To Top Of Agenda [TimesOnline]
Gender Row Athlete Caster Semenya Gets A Glamorous Makeover [Mirror]

Earlier: Semenya Was Lied To About Gender Testing, Coach Says

According to a story by Katie Thomas in today's Times, families are more likely to travel with their daughters to sporting events than with their sons. "There are far more people who will travel with 12-year-old girls than even 12-year-old boys," explains Don Schumacher, executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions, "And vastly more people will travel with 12-year-old girls than 18-year-old boys." This may have to do with families being more protective of girls, or with moms being more likely to attend girls' events.

Whatever the cause, the phenomenon translates into money. Families who travel with their kids stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and buy things. Mika Ryan, president of a sporting commission in New Jersey, says she considers the often more lucrative nature of girls' sports when booking events. And now that it has built a new softball complex, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee is enjoying a boost in revenue from girls and their families. At least one naysayer doubts that girl athletes buy more than boys. Bobby Dodd, president of the Amateur Athletic Union, says, "I have three granddaughters. They love to shop. But I can tell you my boys darn near love to shop as much as the girls." Dodd's words notwithstanding, it's clear that girls' sports are getting attention from families and businesses alike.

Though it's a little sad that families feel they have to "protect" their girl athletes more than their boys, it's nice to hear that the days of ignoring girls' sports are over. Not so, however, for women's sports. On NPR, Frank Deford examines the financial difficulties of many women's pro leagues. The Women's United Soccer Association folded in 2003, the WNBA's Houston Comets are the only major sports team so far to go out of business in the recession, and the LPGA recently fired its commissioner amid a loss of sponsorship contracts. According to Deford, women just don't want to pay to watch women's games.

The solution: sex! Reacting to a Wimbledon official's comment that it's often the hottest female players who are chosen to play on show courts, Deford writes,

Everybody was aghast at such overt chauvinism, only the harsh reality is that until women start stepping up and buying tickets for women's games, then - like it or not - sex may simply be good box office.

Ten years later, what do most people remember about the 1999 World Cup - that Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal? No, that Brandi Chastain took her shirt off.

But apparently teams think only the "right" kind of sex sells tickets. According to Mike Wise of the Washington Post, the WNBA's Washington Mystics don't have a kiss-cam at their games because they're worried about displaying lesbian fans kissing. Lindsey Harding, the team's point guard (pictured, right), says, "We wouldn't broadcast on our Jumbotron about abortion issues because of the religious and political conflicts it would cause. It's a similar, sensitive subject. We don't want to put anything out there to turn down certain fans." A lesbian kiss similar to abortion? Apparently, if all you're thinking about is the box office, yes. Wise writes,

This is a seminal, scary time for women's professional sports. Ten years after Brandi Chastain's ab-crunching moment in the women's World Cup ushered in a new era of empowerment, less than half of the LPGA Tour's 29 events have secured sponsorship for next year. Though attendance numbers are up in Washington, the league can barely pull in an average of 8,000 people per game and many of its arenas hold 20,000.

In a time when TV networks stay silent about male athletes' rape allegations, how come women's teams have to curry favor with bigoted fans? Is it really true that women don't want to pay to watch women play? Or are women's professional sports just too new — and as yet too under-marketed — to capture the kind of audience that men's sports have? Just because we live in a culture where women are more often celebrated for their looks than their athletic prowess doesn't mean all women athletes have to take off their shirts. It just means we need to train audiences to follow women's sports with the same rabid passion they've long had for the Dodgers or the Lakers. And given the fact that families seem to turn out in droves to watch their girls compete, that shouldn't be so hard to do.

Girls' Sports Pack Economic Punch [NYT]
Deford: 'That's No Lady, That's An Athlete!' [NPR]
Mystics Give Big Issue The Kiss-Off [Washington Post, via Pandagon]

In his weekly sports column for The Nation, David Zirin writes that many have dismissed the revelation of sexist practices at Wimbledon, and some sportswriters are even defending the practice. L.Z. Granderson, writing in his ESPN column, says that he "found the Wimbledon officials honesty quite refreshing," adding:

Organizers are trying to sell their sport and believe the casual, straight male fan is more apt to watch attractive women-because if they had a love of the game, they wouldn't be casual fans, would they? In a sport in which Anna Kournikova, a player without a singles title, can become the most popular on tour, no one should be surprised by any of this.

As mentioned earlier, Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports was similarly unfazed by the biased practices at Wimbledon. In fact, he argued that the only thing preventing Serena Williams from being as big as Michael Jordan is that she spends too much time whining about sexism in tennis. Instead, she should accept the fact that sex sells and focus on reducing the size of her butt to a more media-friendly size.

According to Zirin, research by University of Minnesota sports sociologist Dr. Mary Jo Kane shows that sexy images of female athletes may make that women bigger celebrities but they don't translate into a deeper interest in their sport. Kane showed men and women sexy images of female athletes and found that while they may sell magazines, they didn't make the viewer any more invested in women's sports, and may actually alienate existing fans.

But, Kane says the focus on a female players' looks actually goes much deeper than just selling sports with sex appeal:

"This is also about what runs in the bone marrow of women's sports, namely homophobia. They are very well-meaning but they also want to distance themselves from the lesbian label. How do you do that? You reassure the viewing audiences, the corporate sponsors, the TV networks, and the female athletes themselves, that, No, no, no- sports won't make your daughter gay. Women's sports will be more acceptable if you believe, even though it is stereotypical and inaccurate, that if you are pretty and feminine in a traditional sense then you are not gay."

So as women struggle to be taken seriously as athletes, not just sex symbols, on the court, they're actually trapped between sexism and homophobia. The two stereotypes are are present even in the "grunting" controversy, in which the sounds female players make have been described alternately as sexual or overly masculine in nature. While the conventionally pretty Michelle Larcher de Brito has been called "more of a shrieker," last night during an interview with Serena Williams (clip below), David Letterman described the sound Williams makes as "kind of noise you associate with mayhem, like cage fighting."

At the core of both stereotypes is the idea that athleticism is inherently masculine. While women's sports are supposed to be about greater equality and empowerment, female athletes are still expected to strike a balance between being too sexy and not attractive enough. Unfortunately, until Serena Williams grunting on the court and wearing a dress and pearls during an interview are seen as equally feminine, there won't be a level playing field for women in sports.

Sexism On Centre Court [The Nation]
Finding The Beauty In Ugly [ESPN]

Earlier: Foul Ball
In Defense Of Grunts
Female Tennis Players: Faking It Like Meg Ryan?
Grunting Controversy Continues On Wimbledon's Opening Day

According to The Guardian, Larcher de Brito's grunting seemed "curiously subdued" and at a press conference after the match, she confirmed that Wimbledon officials told her she could be fined for making excessive noises. "I tried to quieten things down for you guys today," said Larcher de Brito, adding that she would rather take a fine than stop grunting completely. "If my body feels like it needs to grunt more, it grunts. If not, it stays quiet," she said.

Earlier in the day, in her first round victory over Viktoriya Kutuzova, Maria Sharapova refused to tone herself down. The Guardian reports:

As a side-show to the actual tennis, we have quite the grunting contest developing between Sharapova and Kutuzova on Court one. Kutuzova's is a little deeper - almost like she's trying to shout the word 'pow' each time she hits it, whereas Sharapova is getting a little hoarse.

Nick Bollettieri, who has coached many of tennis' greatest, and most notoriously noisy players, including Shrapova and Larcher de Brito weighed in on the controversy today in his daily Wimbledon column in The Independent. Bollettieri says that a series of graduating penalties ranging from the loss of a point to the loss of a match should be implemented to cut down on excessive grunting. However, he adds:

I have never taught anyone to grunt. It's just not part of the coaching regime at my academy.

Grunting on the courts may be a lot of things, including annoying, but it certainly isn't cheating, since it's been done under the watchful eyes (and ears) of umpires for decades with few complaints and fewer sanctions.

Three of the top female players of all time – Monica Seles, Serena Williams, and Maria Sharapova - have all been associated with making noise when making impact with the ball.

But to suggest that these women (all of whom, by the way, have trained at my academy) have cheated their way to 32 Grand Slam championships and more than 100 titles is offensive – and wrong.

On Saturday night, former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich, who is now a BBC Radio commenter, angered many people by claiming that the role of female tennis players is as much about "selling sex" as their physical ability, the Daily Mail reports. He suggested the best way to reduce the amount of grunting in women's tennis is to, "Just play it back to the women. It sounds disgusting, ugly, unsexy!"

According to the Mail:

When challenged that it was the women's role to play the best tennis they could, rather than look sexy, Stich stuck to his guns. ‘That's what they sell,' he told The Mail on Sunday.

‘They want to look good, they pay attention to their looks and everything.'

He then joked that the only way to make sure female players stop grunting is to "shoot them." Stich now claims that his comments were taken out of context.

Sexist comments aside, what may actually put an end to the grunting is a meeting of the Grand Slam Committee scheduled to take place at Wimbledon this week. An anonymous spokesman for the International Tennis Federation told Time that, "In light of the controversy at The French Open, the Grand Slam Committee will be meeting to see if anything can be done to make enforcement [of grunting] more official and explicit."

Since the committee, which sets the rules for tennis' four major events, releases a new rulebook annually, any restriction on grunting wouldn't come into effect until 2010.

Wimbledon 2009 — Day One Live! [The Guardian]
Coaching Report: Grunting [The Independent]
Wimbledon Girls Are "Just There To Sell Sex", Says BBC Pundit Michael Stich [The Daily Mail]
Ex-Wimbeldon Champion Says Players Are Just "Selling Sex" [Bild.com]
Quiet, Please: Tennis Pros May Have To Give Up The Grunt [Time]

Earlier: Female Tennis Players Faking It Like Meg Ryan

Although, in the 70s, Jimmy Connors was known for his loud exhalations and, in the 80s, Andre Agassi wasn't quiet on the courts, the age of the female "grunt" — which is louder and more sustained than one would think a grunt is — was ushered in by Monica Seles, with feats of oral excess topping out at about 93.2 decibels. Her successor is Maria Sharapova, whose euphemistically-entitled "grunts" are actually 101 decibels — 9 decibels shy of a lion's roar. Although she and many athletes claim they are completely unconscious, witnesses at her warm-ups at Wimbledon notice that her game is equally forceful... and her grunts are completely absent.

Portuguese player Michelle Larcher de Brito is reportedly even louder and, more suspiciously, her "grunts" last from the moment the ball hits her racket until it reaches the racket of her opponent. At the French Open earlier this month, her opponent complained the entire match and the entire issue made headlines.

In response, tennis great Martina Navratilova said she thinks grunting is little more than cheating.

I started having issues with it when I was playing Monica Seles back in the early 1990s. She was one of the first, and I didn't like it one bit. It affected my game because to me it is important to hear the ball hit the racket; you can hear a bad shot before you can see it and the sound is an imperative part of the game.

Screams like de Brito's that not only camouflage her own hit but the touch of the ball on the court are not just distracting but interfering with her opponent, in Navratilova's opinion.

Interestingly, the players most well-known for "grunting" — Monica Seles, who reportedly learned it elsewhere but brought it with her, Maria Sharapova, Andre Agassi, the Williams sisters and now de Brita — all trained at the same tennis school. That school is run Nick Bollettieri, who denies teaching his players to scream to throw off their opponents. They just, you know, all happen to do so with increasing volume and frequency.

One More Grunt And You're Out: Wimbledon To Crack Down After Complaints [London Times]
Wimbledon 2009: Maria Sharapova's Siren Call To Opposition [Telegraph]
Martina Navratilova: The Grunting Has To Stop [Times of London]
Not More Screechers Polluting The Air! [IOL Spot]
Grunt Music: An Analysis Of Tennis Screams and Battle Shrieks [Bleacher Report]
NBTA/IMG Academies 1987 - Present [Nick Botllettieri]

Her first piece, about a middle school basketball team in Brooklyn, highlights a number of challenges facing the girls who are trying to play. Thomas writes:

The Cougars have few of the basics that suburban public school girls have come to expect, including free transportation, uniforms and full seasons of regularly scheduled games. At M.S. 61 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, each road game is a logistical puzzle for Mr. Mariner, 46, who is dean of students and coach of the school's girls' and boys' basketball teams. Even when the Cougars arrive ready to play, games are sometimes canceled because the opponents - facing the same obstacles - cannot field a team. Parents rarely show up to watch.

Mariner, by the way, won't cut a girl from the team regardless of ability... and has to clean the gym after he's done, despite being the Dean of Students.

The other problem lies in how many girls can overcome the barriers to participation.

In the suburbs, girls play sports at rates roughly equal to boys. A 2007 survey by Harris Interactive of more than 2,000 schoolchildren nationwide showed that 54 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls in the suburbs described themselves as "moderately involved" athletes.

Urban areas revealed a much greater discrepancy. Only 36 percent of city girls in the survey described themselves as moderately involved athletes, compared with 56 percent of city boys.

This hints at the idea that issues of class and financial wherewithal weigh heavily on girls when it comes to sports.

But, as Marj Snyder, Chief Program Officer for the Women's Sports Foundation points out in the above clip, studies show that girls' participation in sports help them build career-critical team-building skills, help combat obesity and is strongly correlated with academic success.

In Boston, a number of non-profit groups are working to try to encourage girls to participate more in sports. One group is even helping adults learn to break down barriers in gender-specific play.

Employees at Sports4Kids, a nonprofit group that oversees recess at public schools, have been devising ways to shake up gender roles and increase options for girls. Tes Siarnacki, a recess coordinator at a school in East Boston, regularly encourages older girls to referee boy-dominated soccer games, and assigns older boys to monitor double Dutch jump rope, which is played mostly by girls.

One day this spring, Siarnacki zeroed in on a group of girls huddled in a corner, their heads bent in conversation. Siarnacki jogged over, spoke to them quietly for a few minutes and before long the girls hopped to their feet and began doing sit-ups and jumping jacks.

"They wanted to play ‘teacher,' so I told them to play ‘gym teacher,' " she said. "It was a pretty easy sell."

The groups hope that by encouraging boys and girls to consider various athletic options, they can keep girls playing sports longer.

Interesting, one thing Thomas highlights in both of her pieces is the difficulty faced by coaches and coordinators with girls assigned childcare duties by their families. In Brooklyn, Thomas tracked one immigrant girl who, while a star on the team, was assigned by her family to pick up a cousin each afternoon from kindergarten and another from daycare instead of going to practice or participating in games. In Boston, one sports program identified child care responsibilities of teenagers as such major obstacle to participation that they attempted to create an program to watch the charges of their participants. In most cases, boys in the family share no such responsibilities. So in more ways that one, traditional views of women's roles continue to shape girls' lives in ways that are unhealthy for them.

Less interesting (as one would figure) are the comments on the Times pieces, which turned the issue into a referendum on Title IX and whether high school athletics have any right to tax dollars. If one read the series, one would note that the point is that, in urban schools, basically no tax dollars are spent on sports programs and that, given historic interest in keeping boys off the streets and busy, girls athletics have been ignored by private groups despite the proven benefits for girls. Thomas goes back again and again to the idea that school athletics in suburban areas have come pretty close to gender parity and private leagues that require fees are common and parents take time off to attend games — but none of those structures or opportunities are available in urban areas, particularly to girls because of a mixture of time, sexist ideas about the role of girls in extended families and the view of sports as a male activity, and money. In other words, the whole series is becoming an analysis of the role that class and (albeit implicitly) race play in girls' participation in athletics, and why the girls with the least opportunity might need such activities the most.

A City Team's Struggle Shows Disparity in Girls' Sports [NY Times]
Using Teamwork to Bring Girls Into the Game [NY Times]
Struggling to Play [NY Times]
The Have-Nots [NY Times]
Playing Against The Odds [NY Times]

The team, the Cheetahs, is coached by Jenny Mackenzie (she is also the film's director/producer and mom to player Lizzie, seen in the first clip at left); after multiple blowouts against other girls' teams, Mackenzie asked for - and was granted - permission for her team to play against boys' teams, with the idea that the girls under her tutelage might find themselves more challenged, athletically.

As could be expected, people had issues with this. Some parents were concerned that the boys might play less aggressively out of fear of "hurting" the female players they were up against; others couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the simple fact that their sons had to play girls at all - and that they might actually lose to them.

What resonated the most for me - other my envy of the abundance of confidence and team spirit on display - was the Cheetahs' embrace of their more aggressive, competitive sides. As a former (mediocre) soccer player, I can say that one of my fondest memories of my 7 years as a forward in the AYSO league in Northern California is that I was afforded the opportunity - nay, encouraged - to B-E AGGRESSIVE. I am now 36, and that opportunity hasn't really presented itself since.

Above left, star player Lizzie talks about playing soccer and growing up in Mormon country. Below, the boys - and parents - react to the introduction of the girls.

To see the entire film, check the schedule here.

Kick Like A Girl [HBO]

What transpired in the hotel room sounds like gang rape, but not many others seem to be calling it that. The allegations came to light when ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) program Four Corners aired the segment "Code of Silence" in Australia Monday night, which included interviews with the woman, identified only as "Clare", as well as several other women who suffered sexual assault at the hands of rugby players. Clare's story was undoubtedly the worst: She says that she was raped and molested by six players from the Cronulla Sharks rugby team for up to two hours while at least six other men watched.

The details included in the program were graphic and disturbing. Clare claims that several men rubbed their penises on her face, while others lined up at the end of the bed to have sex with her. Unsurprisingly, even years later, she is still traumatized by the incident. She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychiatrists have reported that she has attempted suicide several times. "For years and years afterwards I was drinking a lot, crying a lot and losing a lot of friends and doing quite destructive things to myself and other people," she told the program. "I was so angry and I wanted their lives destroyed like mine was."

Australia's National Rugby League issued an apology following the ABC special on the rape scandal. NRL chief executive David Gallop said:

"The program dealt with issues that I would hope everyone in the game finds appalling and unacceptable," Gallop said. "The distress of the victims spoke for itself and to the extent that the game can apologise for the actions of individuals then I offer that apology unreservedly.

"It is important, however, to understand the very substantial efforts the NRL, the clubs and the players have made in changing attitudes, particularly since 2004. It is also important to recognise the clear actions taken by the NRL and our clubs against those who breach our codes of conduct."

There has been at least one allegation of sexual misconduct leveled against players from the NRL each year since 2004, an issue the NRL has supposedly been struggling to address. Gallop says that group sex, regardless of consent, should be off limits to rugby players. Unfortunately, group sex is often used as a twisted sort of male bonding, and too many players have been involved in some sort of "pack sex," as it has been more accurately called by researchers.

After Mr. Johns was named as one of the instigators of the assault, he was asked to step down from his job as a television personality for Australia's Nine Network. (He has also just lost his coaching job.) In an interview following the "Code of Silence" segment, Johns apologized for his actions, but maintained that the sex was consensual. He said, "at no point did she object, at any stage, to what was going on… the woman was a willing participant in what went on." He went on to say that she clearly regrets her choices, but when asked whether she shares the "blame" for the attack, he appeared slightly confused, and says no. He also claimed to feel remorse over the "group sex," yet he refused to admit that the young woman may in any way have been a victim.

As CNN reports, Clare makes it clear during her interview that she was an unwilling participant in what several papers (including The Sun) have called the "sex romp":

"They were massive, like big rugby players. I felt that I just had no idea what to do. There was always hands on me," she said. "I thought I was worthless, and I thought I was nothing. I think I was in shock. I didn't scream. They used a lot of mental power over me and belittled me."

Clare - who made a complaint to the police less than a week after the incident, which resulted in the questioning of about 40 Cronulla players and staff, all of whom claimed that the sex was consensual - says she is speaking out now because she wants the wives and girlfriends of the players to know what they did.

It is unclear exactly what happened in the hotel room that night, yet one thing is for certain: Clare is accusing the rugby players of rape, not group sex. However, almost every news source has described the scandal as stemming from "group sex allegations," a rather confusing term, seeing as almost everyone involves admits that there was in fact, some sort of group sexual encounter, thus rendering the allegedly unnecessary. As Jill Singer for the Herald Sun points out,

The Australian continued the blame shifting with its headline "Woman alleges sex with six Cronulla players or staff ". No she didn't. Sex isn't an allegation. What Clare alleges was sexual assault. That's why she went to the police, unfortunately leaving it until five days after the event.

As Singer says, the language we use is important, and in this case, the language being used is dismissive and reductive. Clare has accused six men of raping her, while six others stood by and watched. It may be sexual assault, but to describe what happened to her as "sex" is ridiculous.

Australian Rugby League Apologizes For Sex Scandal [CNN]
Celebrity Ex-International Sidelined After Sex Scandal [Independent]
Our Game Apologizes Unreservedly: Gallop [League HQ]
Group Sex Has Destroyed My Life: Woman [Nine News]
Matthew Johns Stood Down By Nine [Nine News]
NRL Boss Admits Changing Attitudes Is Tough [Nine News]
Matthew Johnson Disputes Group Sex Details [Nine News]
Group Sex Rocks Rugby League [The Sun]
Disgraceful League Of Their Own [Herald Sun]

[Indianapolis, May 8. Image via Getty]

INDIANAPOLIS - MAY 08: Danica Patrick drives of the #7 Motorola Andretti Green Racing Dallara Honda during practice for the IRL IndyCar Series 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 8, 2009 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

Earlier this year, Parker was profiled in the New York Times, and her "reproductive life" was part of the discussion. Parker is a favorite on her team, a star in the league and "being counted on to nurture women's basketball." So her pregnancy doesn't only affect her: "W.N.B.A. Commissioner Donna Orender said her initial reaction to Parker's pregnancy was a quiet sigh of resignation," Karen Crouse of the Times wrote. Orender said later: "[The timing of her pregnancy was] a very public discussion that hasn't happened before. I do think that's a good thing for women who go through these issues often in silence or alone. Candace can be a very usable symbol of how you can have a family and a career." But! On message boards, Parker was called "selfish." She disagrees: "My whole career has been trying to please people in basketball. Now it's time to please myself. For me, family has always come first." She did have to give up a $1.5 million deal to play for a Russian club.

According to the Times, there are a dozen moms playing in the league. And then there's Brynn Cameron, who plays for the University of Southern California team — she's a single mom, with a two-year-old son by former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Matt Leinart. But even more visible is 36-year-old three-time WNBA MVP Lisa Leslie (Parker's teammate), who recently announced that she is retiring to spend more time with her family. Basketball, for her, was tough to balance with family life. "I love being a wife, I enjoy my husband and our time. I love being a mom. I'm really passionate about raising a child and being there for her. For me, I just see it's really hard to give 100 percent to everything." Leslie's daughter is 19 months old, and Leslie missed the 2007 season to give birth.

While many female athletes have children, pregnancy in basketball seems more high profile and more dramatic than say, tennis or golf (Annika Sorenstam retired from the L.P.G.A. Tour in December because, at 38, she wants to have kids.) Is it because of the idea that a knocked-up woman has somehow "let down" her team? Is it because of the chance of injury or sheer jostling a pregnant player endures? Candace Parker doesn't seem to let any of this faze her, telling the LA Times: "I'm proud of my child, excited about my child and I'm excited about the opportunity to have a child and be an athlete."

Candace Parker Could Be The Next Big Thing [LA Times]
Candace Parker Is Balancing Career And Family [NY Times]
U.S.C.'s Cameron Balances Basketball And Motherhood [NY Times]
Lisa Leslie To Retire From Sparks At Season's End [AP]

This past weekend, New York City played host to the CFA-IAMS Cat Championship, where felines from all four corners of the country were judged on aesthetics and athletics. We sent FourFour's Rich Juzwiak — Pot Psychologist, beloved pop culture chronicler and father to the feline internet sensation named Winston — to capture the craziness on videotape.

From what I can tell, cat shows and dog shows couldn't be more different. It's like comparing apples to oranges... or cats to dogs, for that matter. Or so it would seem, as I roamed the floor of Madison Square Garden's Expo Center at this weekend's CFA-IAMS Cat Championship.

Whereas a dog show has a pageant-like, almost sterile vibe wrapped up in etiquette and handler-glamor, a cat show is more like a flea market (no parasitic pun intended). Sure, it involves formal competing (a Russian Blue named Blade Runner took this year's top prize), but the slow-moving, quiet judging is usually off in the periphery. It's the owners and their cats (often kept in gaudy gift-basket-like encasements) waiting in the middle who command center stage (so to speak). And damn it, that's where they belong.

As I talked to people who've devoted their lives to their felines (and have the sweatshirts and Crocs to prove it!), I encountered none of the aloofness their pet of choice supposedly exhibits. In fact, all I had to do was point a camera at them to get them to talk all about their animals and the cat-show scene (it isn't catty, one woman assured me). No one even so much as hissed at me when I asked about the "crazy cat person" stereotype and whether it applied to them. Some of the friendliness no doubt stems from the fact that most of them are breeders and therefore salespeople, but I felt no pressure to buy after they'd given me some of their time and good humor. They're virtually dog-like! Which, bizarrely enough, is how many describe their cats. Video below.

Related: 'Barack' Beats 'McCain' For Purrfect Presidency [MSNBC]
Cats Being Cathletes: An Afternoon At The CFA-IAMS Cat Championship [Deadspin]

Very edifying, but the truth is, the LPGA' profile has been rising in recent years, with the advent of stars like Michelle Wie and clothes that, while perhaps not up to Dieter's glamor standard, are considerably more stylish than they were just a few years ago.

But whatever my reservations, the golfers seem psyched. "It was nice to feel glamorous," says Kim Hall, one of the seven. "I'd rather be known for my golf, but it's a bonus when you're considered attractive. It's flattering. It's kind of nice to be one of the 'cute' ones." Says four-time major winner Meg Mallon: "Sounds like a lot of fun to me. I'm for anything that extends the boundaries of our sport, creates additional interest and makes new fans. Once we get people interested in our sport, we keep them. I don't know why anybody would have a problem with that."

Okay, I don't have a problem with that. And I'm glad the models are having fun with it. And for the record, anything that puts healthy role models out there is not all bad. But the thing is this: Venus and Serena Williams or Maria Sharapova are famous athletes who happen to have fun with fashion. These golfers are largely unknown to the public and would be models first. Besides which, they have been selected purely on the basis of looks, not ranking (although they're obviously all accomplished.)

Maybe none of this would bother me if "Dieter Esch" wasn't like a parody of a fashion douchebag throughout the entire article. Of the search for the girls? "I wanted them to look attractive, I wanted them to look sexy." Later: "What I hope for the Wilhelmina 7, I hope that they get exposure beyond golf. It's about style and fashion too. I want people to come out to the golf course and say, 'What are they wearing this weekend?' Well, Dieter, thanks to you they're wearing bikinis. Which I'm sure a lot of people are happy to look at — but I'm guessing they're not golf enthusiasts.
Modeling agency trying to add glamour to LPGA Tour[Los Angeles Times]
Lady Golfers Fashion Forward[Blackbook]

Some would say Wimbledon's all-white dress code encourages this kind of experimentation. Others would argue that it's part of a dangerous trivialization of one of the few sports in which women rule. "Only in this climate could it be written - as it was at the French Open - that the American Ashley Harkleroad had "upstaged" Serena Williams because she had decided to pose for Playboy," writes Marina Harker in The Guardian. "Williams had just crushed her in two sets, but whatever. Harkleroad's first-round draw here is Amélie Mauresmo, in a match swiftly billed by some commentators as the clash between the lesbian and the Playboy model."

Yes, this is appalling, and there is no question that the deification of a "celebrity" like Anna Kournikova at the expense of more accomplished athletes is bad for sports, society, girls and fashion alike. But I'm inclined to take a more relaxed approach. First of all, however trivial - and besides the point - these athletes' fashion choices might be, they are still drawing attention to genuine athletic accomplishment. (And all the players singled out for sartorial acclaim are actually world-class tennis players.) And is critiquing sportswear any worse than critiquing red carpet fashions, especially when the practictioners throw themselves into the fray with red-carpet-like zeal? At the end of the day, if focusing on fashion is trivializing the hard work of these women, it is also glamorizing it - and we could do worse than to glamorize hard-working athletes who, not incidentally, sport these clothes on toned and healthy-looking (read, well-fed) bodies. And, if nothing else, the dandyism is unilateral - Roger Federer can only grasp at the sex appeal generated by stars like Sharapova. And judging by the reaction to that cardigan, he's not doing very well.

Shorts and Sweet[Vogue UK]
Game, Set and Style [Vogue UK]
A trouser-rubbing timewarp that needs no new balls[The Guardian]
Trenchcoats up the Wimbledon fashion stakes[Reuters]

Earlier: Girly Fashions At The Australian Open: Game, Set, Matching Headbands
The Men Of The Australian Open Serve Good 'Sex Face'

No we can't tell you the price of Sigrid's Just Cavalli jacket. If you have to ask you probably think sprinting in a snakeskin motorcycle jacket and bangle bracelets is a good idea but it will probably only make you die from dehydration and Teen Vogue likes to look out for its readers.

This is ping-pong, "their way." The Etro scarf and Leekan necklace are unpriced and we'd say they're pretty optional anyway, but those yellow Louise Goldin goggles are obviously an imperative so why can't we get a price on that? In other news, that cuff is $439.

Perhaps you always thought beach volleyball players, so ripped and bronze and well-adjusted, exemplified some sort of platonic sportsgirl ideal…

But you would be forgetting the critical necessity of a $225 metallic swimsuit so high-cut you can't wear it without matching booty shorts!

And finally, fencing. Who knew donning puffy white astronaut garb and swordfighting with nerds could be sexy?

Why…Veronique Leroy! Who obviously designed these platform shoes — no we can't tell you the price — with your epee in mind.

Earlier: Vogue's World's Best Bodies
"Girls Hurt": The Soccer Story That Will Pain Your Pretty Little Head
Teen Vogue Message Boards: "I Gained Alot Of Weight Over The Summer. It's Disgusting"
Alexandra Michael Is About 28 Pounds Too Fat For Modeling