Sex sells: The women's game

This is an extremely weird topic, to me at least.

Football isn't a particularly sexy sport to watch. Most of the game is just a distance shot of the whole field. The players look pretty small, if seeing people in the distant is "sexy" to you then different strokes and all that, but I doubt most people find that very sexy. You only really get close ups if players are particularly important or if they do something worth replaying or focusing on, and they're a relatively small time in comparison to the rest of the game footage.

I don't doubt that many people find players like Cristiano Ronaldo "sexy" but many also don't. The only time I've ever seen anyone watch a game because they thought a player was "hot" was when I was in my pre-teen years and some girls I knew tried that. They were disappointed. Football is pretty boring to watch if you're not interested in the game itself and the players' skills. The reason why Cristiano is so popular isn't his looks alone, it's also the fact that he's considered a good player. Plenty of straight women like football and you'd be surprised at how many of them don't find some of the popular players sexy, or do but see that just as a cool bonus to a game they enjoy. Most straight women I know who watch matches do it because they love the sport, not because of the looks of people on the field.

A huge number of straight guys are into football. Unless they're are secretely gay, I don't believe that they all put time and money into watching matches on TV, buying tickets and merch, etc. just because of a player's looks.

The reason why Beckham and Cristiano and others like them are used in ads so often isn't their appeal to people who like men either. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of ads with Cristiano promoting tampons or something. Most of the ads they're in are products aimed at men. There's some sexuality involved in the idea of it, the idea of publicity is in part that if you buy a product you'll be "closer" in a sense to the person promoting it and for many of their fans, the idea of being more like them is probably appealing if they see those guys being appealing to women.

However, it weirds me out to say that sex should be used to promote women's football. I'm not against women players being in ads, commercialism is a part of football (and whether that should be or not is probably a matter for a whole separate thread). It just wouldn't really promote the game. It wouldn't make people think they'd go out and buy tickets for a match just because they find a certain player attractive.

There's also a big difference in how publicity works when it comes to men and women. It sets unrealistic standards for both, but it tends to treat women like objects very often. I wouldn't want to see this happen with some of my favourite players. I like them for their skills, their looks are a cool bonus, but I wouldn't want them to roll around on the hood of a car wearing a bikini with the misguided idea that this would make guys buy tickets to spend 90 minutes watching them run around in the field.

I'm attracted to women, and yet I like plenty of male players and have male player teams I support... because I like their skills, or it's a team from where I live, or a big number of other reasons. Their looks are irrelevant to me. When it comes to all-women's teams, I find some players good looking but I don't really care how they look, I care about how they play.

Lots of people already have very prejudiced views about women's football and don't take it seriously. Creating the idea that it's just meant to be "sexy" would make people take it even less seriously and believe that all it takes to be a good player is looks, not their skills, hard work, determination or anything else.

 

‘I know where you park your car’: Online abuse and real-world fear in women’s football - Yahoo Sports

 

thanks, you have my permission as the Staff Member (Mod) to delete my post as you were kind enough to place it in the best spot.