Lingerie Fighting Championships Marginalizes Women’s MMA

[Starry Messenger]

Feminist Group post.

http://girlfightsmma.com/lingerie-fighting-championships-marginalizes-womens-mma-81142

Lingerie Fighting Championships (LFC) appears to be the latest fad in the “lingerie version” of sports and on August 11 played to a sell out crowd in Las Vegas as well as being broadcast live on PPV on more than 1000 cable and satellite systems across North America. The sport, and I use that term loosely, features women competing in MMA, clad only in lingerie, some of whom are current playboy models.

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I think the impact of an organisation like the LFC on women’s MMA is obvious, you only have to look at the pictures from the event and the comments that follow them to realise that. Despite the fact that women’s MMA has come a long way in the last three to four years, with the UFC now boasting two divisions (Bantamweight and Strawweight) and a partnership with all female promotion, Invicta FC, there is still plenty of work to do.

Women are still looking for acceptance in a sport that is more male dominated than most both in participation and fan base and there are conservatives out there who still don’t believe that women should be competing in combat sports at all. Any “sport” that comes in and makes a mockery of this is in poor taste, in my opinion, especially when the founder of the LFC, Roni Taylor, makes comments like this, “Look, most women in MMA are ugly. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Our fighters look like ring girls and they fight in lingerie and I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

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[DetlefK]

1. Sorry, but sports should be about athletic feats, not looks.

If you have to screen the competitors for sexiness and if you have to insist on garbs that focus on sexiness, then that's not sport.

It's porn.

[TexasProgresive]

3. Do you feel the same about women's beach volley ball?

[DetlefK]

4. For one, I don't really watch much sports. Second...

I wonder how the audience would react if male Beach volleyball players started playing in speedos.

[jakeXT]

5. Maybe a skirt or a one piece ? Fashion ... a mystery

http://www.fashionfarmboy.com/node/306



http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/swimwear-through-the-ages/14/

[SaveTheMackerel]

9. I could go along with that.

Or at least spandex shorts.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. Pathetic. n/t

[De Leonist]

6. The potential viewers...

could get their ya yas far more effectively going to redtube and looking for something called Ultimate Surrender. Plenty of MMA-like matches there with women in lingerie. In each match 2 or more women fight and the winner/s get to have their way with the losers. I know that many here don't like porn. But that's what the LFC is essentially going to be, softcore porn. That being the case if your into scantily clad women fighting each other there are plenty of other, better, routes by which that desire can be satisfied other than this bullshit idea.

I've been a fan of martial arts for a long time and have been also a fan of Rhonda Rousey ever since I saw her in The Olympics. She's an incredible athlete and has inspired me to participate in a combat sport when I am able to. Yeah she is attractive but even more so she is intense and has finally gotten people to take the Female UFC fighters seriously. I've been watching the UFC since the 90s before MMA really became a thing back when it was style vs style. I was glad seeing her rise through the ranks and finally prove once and for all that Female MMA Fighters can and should be taken seriously.

Now seeing this asshole make mockery of that work and achievement on the part of Rousey and the other female fighters irritates me beyond description. I seriously hope I read about him being put into a rear naked choke some time in the near future.

[SaveTheMackerel]

8. Those uniforms are demeaning.

However, it is not just the coaches pushing it. Often on the teams, if put to a vote, a majority would vote in favor of dressing that way. Even if you make 2 teams, one that is dressed better, they will still have to compete with each other for TV attention.

So, should we have laws that limit how short dresses can be? If so, some will so those women are being oppressed by males. In Islamic countries, women have to cover up completely for this reason.

So the question, then, is how much clothes, or what system of rules, gives dignity to women? Should everyone vote on this? Just women? Just the players on the team? Or should the viewers vote with their dollars? Who do we blame if demeaning dress continues? Men?