At 11:20 a.m. on June 14th 2009 a show on ESPN ran a segment that has stirred very little reaction or outrage. In between SportsCenter repeats was a story about to male wrestlers at the University of Nebraska who were dismissed for posing nude on a gay website. As a result of their softcore, that is pictures of just them posing nude not of hardcore sex, they were dismissed from the team. The situational morality of the school, and their fundamentalist Christian/ Republican Congressmen athletic director Tom Osborne, asserts that it is fine to break the law, but two men posing nude is outrageous! The school, which is not forthcoming with information on its reasons for dismissing the students, did state that it was afraid of NCAA sanctions.
Normally a story about two Midwestern wrestlers would seem out of place on a feminist web-site. However, if we look deeper at this case we see the double standard of public sexuality. Susan Bordo, in her book "Male Body Image," identified that culture only went too far after men started to appear naked. If this was too female wrestlers posing nude in Playboy would their be outrage that they were nude? What if they were dismissed from the team, the media would be all over this story? When Playboy does its' girls of the Big 12 the nude coeds' scholarships are not revoked, so why should these men's scholarships be revoked? The pundit on Outside the Lines said these men made a "bad decision," but when female Olympic athletes pose nude they are "celebrating their femininity." The reason feminist should be outraged by the Nebraska story is because by revoking these men's scholarship the university is ultimately saying that it is okay to objectifying women, but objectifying men is too far. Women are fine to be naked, but if men are posing naked then it is women, or in this case gay men, who are going to look at them and that is obsene! Whether or not it is liberating for women to pose nude is an argument for a different blog, recent literature I've read I'm starting to feel that it hurts more than it helps, but what is important is to remember that the fate of men and women are interwoven and this story illustrates that.
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This does enrage me, because that is the message I get from it as well; that it is ok for women to be exploted, or pose in the nude, but men are in some way too good for that. It pisses me off. I'm not sure if this is a reaction to them being gay, or just posing nude though; either way, I'm sure the reactions would have been the same.
I think the double standard is less about saying it's unacceptable to objectify men and more about homophobia. I really don't know if the reaction would have been the same had these guys posed for women.
I wonder, I wonder.
Maybe you are overstating your case. If one or more female wrestlesr or athletes from the same college had posed for Playboy or a Lesbian website, and *not* been expelled, then, yes, you would have a case.
However, it is not clear that the boys were dismissed for appearing on a gay site or because of their public nudity.
If it is the latter, then I don't really think that the College has overreacted. After all, if the (implied or explicit) contract the wrestlers have with the College states that they should not bring the College into disrepute, then posing nude probably triggers suspension and dismissal.
These 'disrepute' clauses appear in most contracts.
Actually, female college students DO face retaliation for posing nude. Columnist Juliette Fretté was kicked out of her sorority for posing nude for Playboy back when she was a student at UCLA. She talks about it here:
LINK
The obvious question is:
"How do they know unless they read the magazines in the first place?"
The idea of Tom Osborne looking at gay nude publications is hilarious. When he coached Nebraska's football team he always seemed to choke on the big one!
i would say, it is ok to objectify women, as long as you're equally objectifying men. This is really disappointing, it's too bad that the gay men were not able to enjoy the beautiful bodies of those wrestlers, the same way, as you said, that thousands of men enjoy Playboy's women of the big ten.
and i just read the previous comment about a woman having been kicked out for posing nude. ridiculous and uncalled for, it should absolutely be people's right to make pornography w/o sanction.
perfectly appropriate for a feminist site. we absolutely should demand equality in our sexual representations.