The European Broadcasting Union just dropped new guidelines telling
cameras how to film female athletes. No more low angles from behind or beneath. No prolonged close-ups of body parts. No slow-motion replays
that don?t ?contribute to the understanding of the sporting action.?
All in the name of preventing the ?sexualization? of women on screen.

I reject it. I think it?s stupid.

These guidelines treat ordinary athletic movement as inherently suspect
when it comes from a woman. A low angle under a high jumper or pole
vaulter isn?t automatically pornographic. It?s often the best way to
show the height and the technique. Slow motion isn?t automatically
leering. It?s how we see elite skill and athleticism.

When we decide that certain shots of women require special moral
scrubbing while the same shots of men are just ?good television,? we
are not protecting women. We are reinforcing the idea that their bodies
are the problem.

Film athletes playing their sports. That?s it. That?s the job. Capture
the leap, the strain, the power, the precision, the moment she clears
the bar and the moment the finish line breaks.

Do it for the men. Do it for the women. Same cameras. Same angles. Same standards.

The idea that we need a special rulebook because women?s bodies might
make someone somewhere have a thought is exhausted, condescending
nonsense.

What?s next? Hijabs and total body coverings for female athletes so no
bad men get distracted?

For years there have been cries to change the uniform for gymnasts ?
the leotard ? to something more demure. But that is the uniform for
good reason. I know this firsthand. I was a gymnast. The 1986 U.S.
National Champion, in fact. The leo, as we called them, provides the
most comfortable, least interfering outfit for an athlete flipping and
flying through the air. Nothing gets caught on the bar or the beam.
Nothing flies over the athlete?s head. Anything looser would be
dangerous. If it covers the legs, it?s a problem on bars, where the
thighs hit the bar for casting to handstand. Anything covering the legs
can be slippery against the fiberglass in a way that skin, covered in
chalk, is not.

The leotard exists because it works. It is functional. It is the tool
that lets the athlete do her thing at the highest level. Just like the swimsuit. Should swimmers not wear bathing suits now because they are
too revealing and show women?s bodies?

The argument in gymnastics always comes up when a pedophile coach is
arrested. Like it is somehow the athlete?s fault that he?s a sexual
assaulter and abuser and serial rapist. It?s her outfit, you see. It?s
the ?what was she wearing?? approach. No. Just no.

It?s _his_ fault for abusing young girls. Whoever he is. Larry Nassar,
Don Peters (the 1984 Olympic coach now banned from the sport for
allegedly assaulting three gymnasts) ? the list of gymnastics creeps
goes on and on.

While of course nothing should be gratuitous in shooting female
athletes, we don?t need separate rules for men and women. Film the
athletes. Film what they do: their athleticism, their feats, their
leaps and jumps and strength and flair.

Should athletes be offered more modest uniforms if they prefer? Sure.
Why not. But we don?t need to upend the world of sport so that pervy
men don?t perv. I?ve got news: Pervy men are gonna perv no matter what.
You can dress every female athlete in a potato sack, and the creeps
will still find a way to ogle. The solution is not to hide the athlete.
It is to stop treating her body as the story and start treating her performance as the story.

I spent a career in a sport where the uniform is skin-tight for good
reason. I know what it feels like to have people fixate on the outfit
instead of the work. The answer was never to make us cover up. The
answer was to demand that people look at the gymnastics. Look at the performances on bars and beam and floor exercise. Look at the amazing
thing that a remarkable athlete just did. And, yes, rid the sport of
pedophile coaches and instate a governing body that actually cares
about its athletes.

These new guidelines treat women?s bodies as the problem. The irony, of course, is that in the name of protecting women?s sports, they
implement silly camera guidelines while these same broadcasters won?t
take a stand to ensure women?s sports are actually for women only.

Give us our sports back. And stop the special rules. Stop the pearl-
clutching about athletic uniforms. Film the athletes. All of them. The
same way. Their bodies are not the scandal. Their excellence is the
point.

--
Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they
love this country.


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