Short Stories, Long Odds

Not too long ago, Diana and I were idly listening to the news in the morning like we usually do, when something caught our attention - a story about a bill passing through the Texas state house concerning sexy cheerleading.

Rep. Al Edwards, a man who is certainly doing his part to embarass the living shit out of Texas Democrats, put the bill forth for consideration. This is the body I’m considering running for?

“People are calling and telling me how disgusting it is to see sexually suggestive routines on the part of marching units or cheerleaders,” said State Rep. Al Edwards, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill.

He complained of cheerleaders “shaking their behinds, breaking it down,” but the proposal does not define what constitutes suggestive cheering.

Ah ha, there’s some legislative genius for you. The critics of this bill say it is unenforcable because what is offensive is not clearly defined. Those of us who understand how legislation works, however, understand that this bill will infuse the citizens of small Texas towns with power - the exact kind of power that the men who go to the churches where the women can’t even wear fucking pants need to have! This is the power of broad interpretation of state law, where they may write tersely-worded letters to school districts (which they already do, about everything you can imagine), but now they can get Boss Hogg on the horn and down to the school to check it out! I love how they spend taxpayer money! It isn’t like we have any other problems in education!

This still has to pass the State Senate, but I somehow doubt it will have a problem with that.


The real problem with cheerleaders has nothing to do with their routines. Honestly, no matter how sexy they try to act while clapping or jumping around, it isn’t very sexy. It wasn’t sexy in the 90’s when I was bumping around high school and it isn’t sexy now. Routines aren’t the problem.

You wanna know what the problem is? The outfits. That’s the problem.

As a teenaged boy observing cheerleaders, the routines did nothing for me. The tiny skirts and plainly visible squirrel covers were FAR MORE DISTRACTING than any of the spastic seizures the girls went through. In fact, by the bill’s standards (which I can only infer or extrapolate), the most “sexy” moves are the least troubling. By far, the unsexy moves are the most suggestive, and include but are not limited to all of the classic cheerleader moves which display the bendy properties of young ladies.

A point Diana brought up reinforces what I have to say - many high schools in Texas have moderate dress codes. I wasn’t required to wear slacks or a tie, and girls could wear pants or skirts, everyone could wear t-shirts, etc. The main rule in the handbook stated that most sensible clothing was fine, SO LONG AS IT WASN’T DISTRACTING.

There were, however, some rules. You had to tuck in your shirt, for one. As a girl, there were some basic length requirements for skirts. People were regularly disciplined for not tucking in whatever you had on the top half of your body, and girls were sent home often for skirt length. Diana’s argument is this: if I have to do something retarded like tuck a tunic into a skirt (or something similarly ridiculous), why do the cheerleaders get to run around the halls wearing skirts that don’t even attempt to cover their asses?

If a girl were not a cheerleader (or a member of socially comparable construct du` pep) and she wore something of design similar to a cheerleading outfit, what would you call her?


Well, you’d probably call her Trixy, ask her if she’s a cop, and invite her to get in the car. Then you’d swing by the ATM.

Here’s my query - if the routines are too sexy, then aren’t asses in the air are also clearly too sexy? I’m going to call Al Edwards’ and also my State Senator, Craig Estes, and demand that young ladies’ asses be covered while the young men of Texas attempt to learn their maths.