The official artwork for the LFL on the Seven Network.

The official artwork for the LFL on the Seven Network.

The Lingerie Football League is set to launch on 7mate this month.

Sorry, I'm already being inappropriate.

Only crass Americans have the word 'lingerie' in the title. In Australia, it's the 'Legends Football League'. You know, because we totally have heaps of respect for women and that.

Seriously though, hot chicks running around in their underwear and playing footy. What's wrong with that? It's a genius combination of two of the greatest things on earth: women and sport. Come on, it's not hurting anybody.

According to the naysayers, the intellectuals and anyone else who's completely eliminated fun from their lives, the 'legends' football league is degrading to women.

Next they'll be saying that jelly wrestling, wet T-shirt competitions and strip clubs exploit and degrade women as well.

You know what all those things involve? Getting paid a decent wage for getting nude or near-nude. How many blokes working in offices or on jobsites would quit immediately if they could make more money nuding-up in a bar? Or playing footy in their boxer shorts? Heaps, that's how many.

Then again, I don't know anyone who'd regularly pay to see a naked man, no matter how attractive. Most men I know wouldn't need to be paid anyway. All they need is an invitation. Or alcohol and a dare. Or alcohol. Or to be breathing.

So here's a question. If someone chooses to appear naked or near-naked for the sexual stimulation of someone else, in return for money, is anyone being exploited? Even if you've got the consent of the naked person?

There is a stigma attached to anyone who works as a stripper, or competes in a wet T-shirt competition.  Yeah, I've been to a strip club. It's gross. Dead eyes starting at dead eyes encased in attractive flesh.

So instead of writing thousands of words on the topic, looking deeply into the many varied reasons and viewpoints, I'm just going to go with 'yes'. In return for cash, the women involved allow themselves to be exploited.

However, the girls in the Lingerie Football League are athletes and it's a sport, so surely that's different?

No, it's not. It's just the poorest excuse ever to sell sex. They're being exploited in the exact same way as a stripper.

Selling sex and packaging it up as 'sport' is like selling dildos and calling them cucumbers, or hiring prostitutes to be secretaries.

The moment someone's attractiveness becomes more important than their sporting ability to the game that they're playing - no matter how capable and skilled the people involved – the moment it's no longer a sport.

If the 'Legends' Football League was a proper sport, the competitors would be chosen on merit, not chest size, and allowed to wear whatever helped them to compete best, not what was most likely to fall off.

So will I watch it? Maybe when drunk and on a bucks weekend, which is also the last time I saw stripper. I admit that I watched and I do feel a bit disgusted with myself, but please remember that a drunk guy with a conscience is still a drunk guy, not a eunuch. Also, I'd already put in my money for the weekend.

Despite my opinions and how many share them, as long as it's not illegal, and women are willing to be involved, and men are willing to pay, then it's going to happen.

It's certainly not the first example of free to air soft porn being marketed as something else. Baywatch, all that supermodel rubbish, and even the obsession of the nightly news with schoolies are all further examples.

The same rules apply to anything on reality television. If someone is willing to do it, people are willing to watch it, and someone's willing to pay for the advertising, then it's going to happen.

It's the natural conclusion in a world where base wants and money are put before humanity.

The next step is for television to only get more violent, sexual and extreme. So how far away is a real life Hunger Games? The world is overpopulated... but unlike the amazing films, I doubt anyone in the real life version would be allowed to wear any clothes.
