Observed from a anthropological outlook, American football is a fertility rite, comparible to what has been observed in more primitive societies [the mention of which causes the PC Police to start sharpening their knives].
As a teacher in high schools for 13 years, I observed these "sports" rituals with increasing amusement. The pre-game "pep rally" is particularly revealing because of its overt sexuality. To wit: the most masculine males in the school, sitting at one end of the gymnasium, are "entertained" by the most feminine females in the school. What makes them the most masculine and the most feminine? Their ripening sexuality of course; the onset of fertility; the child's new ability to sexually reproduce. Both males and females are dressed in costumes designed to exaggerate secondary sexual characteristics. The girls face the football team, standing no more than 10 feet away, and dance wildly, shaking their rising breasts and widening hips, gyrating in movements that mimic copulation, to rap music that is steeped in eroticism. The boys look on with various expressions. Some stare. Others grin while elbowing a nearby teammate, and a few black boys even grab their genitals with no pretense of concealment! The younger, less mature boys have faces that glow red and eyes almost averted from the young dancers before them. As this is occurring on the gym floor, in the stands the high school audience of several hundred teenagers is cheering, clapping, whisling, and a general pandamonium breaks out. Meanwhile, the school Principal, Vice Principals, teachers, and visiting parents look on with approval and satisfaction at a spectacle that would be condemned in any other setting. This sort of performance continues for 30 to 45 minutes, with various degrees of sexually provocative behavior from the cheerleaders.
This is what cheerleading is all about. Should it be regulated by the state? Heavens no. How absurd.
I love the irony of it all. Besides, it's a great publicly financed training program for titty bars.
