Boys Gone Wild at Giants Stadium, Gate D

There's an alternative halftime show at Jets home games, reports The New York Times. Fans congregate at Giants Stadium's pedestrian ramps at Gate D. There they proceed to chant and demand that any woman walking by expose her breasts. When a woman decides she'd prefer to remain with her shirt actually on her body, fans boo, spit, and hurl plastic beer bottles. When she obliges and lifts her shirt and bra, fans take video clips on their phones, which end up online.

Security guards make no attempt to intervene by protecting the women or arresting the men for harassment. But when one 23-year-old Bronx resident flashed the crowd on Sunday, two security guards approached her and warned her about indecent exposure laws. And when a reporter tried to interview two guards (it's not clear if they were the same or different guards) about the routine, ritualized harassment, he was detained in a holding room, threatened with arrest, and asked for his tape recorder.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the sexual double standard is alive and well. Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts. And across the land, people continue to believe that this is the way it's supposed to be.

I'm not a prude, and I don't sniff out harassment in every sexual act. When a woman consents to expose herself, I disapprove but I'm not alarmed. But at Gate D, is the exhibitionism truly consensual? And even if it is, I can't help but wonder what motivates women to allow themselves to be so degraded.

Undoubtedly, many of those who bare their breasts feel they have no choice, since the menacing, drunk, verbally violent crowd could turn physically violent in a heartbeat. These women could be groped or worse, so what choice do they really have? And in this age of Lindsay, Britney, and Girls Gone Wild, many feel they have no choice for other reasons too. Very many girls and women of all ages believe that their value primarily comes from their sexual appeal or behavior. They have come to consider sexual objectification--being made into a thing for others' sexual use, rather than being seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making, according to the American Psychological Association--as completely normal. So it doesn't surprise me that the Bronx resident who flashed her breasts on Sunday--while on a first date, no less--justified her behavior to the Times: "I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it."

But she didn't come to the game, on a first date, intending to provide cheap thrills to masses of harassing men. The crowd at Gate D pointed at her and chanted in her direction. Those men cheapened her sexuality. This, my friends, passes as normal and acceptable, in New Jersey and elsewhere. Too many women are taking off their shirts not because they are sluts, and not because they are raunchy, and not because they are stupid, and not because they are proud of their bodies. They are taking off their shirts because all around them, they see that this is what women are supposed to do.

Yet when men and women follow this script, the women get pulled aside for a lecture about indecent exposure laws and the men remain oblivious that they are guilty of sexual harassment. Which means the men will harass again and again.

Comments

[Sheilatan]

I believe there were soccer teams who were penalized, in England, for rowdy crowds. They could play only to empty stadia.
Maybe something like that should be done in New Jersey.

[1will]

This reminds of the Puerto Rican Day celebration in NYC a few years ago. The cops stood by and watched a crowd of men throw water on women then grope some and finally sexually assault several. Things escalate when left alone. Luckily the assaults were caught on tape as were the cops standing around with their heads up their butts.
Sometime in the future some young woman will be raped or assaulted at Gate D and everyone will be amazed that such a thing would happen.

[ericdavid]

I just want to point out that while the stadium is called GIANTS Stadium, the football team that this bunch of creeps roots for is the JETS (the Jets share the stadium with the Giants). Don't be mistaken. Jets fans are the Neanderthals that some say still live amongst us more evolved hominids.

[wadenelson1]

Were you there? Did you see what actually happened?

Isn't it true that A woman, stood, there, thought awhile about whether or not to flash, and THEN decided not to before getting pelted?

Is or isn't it true that most fans, both men AND women largely KNOW that's what's going on in "D-block" and can avoid or intentionally go to that area?

You're awful quick, and awfully far away to start screaming "Harassment! Arrest someone!"

[bethinCary]

And I wonder why this was aired at 4pm by another woman-Chris Jansen.
Not only was it aired, but the same loop was played at least 5xs during the segment.
What ever happened to the decency standards of just a few short years ago-where adult content was put on after 8pm? Or where certain words were only acceptable at/after this time.
I think it's time networks did some self-policing-or that women and moms became more vocal.
I don't like to have this crap/smut on while kids are home from school channel-surfing during the daylight hours.
It's different than kids seeing it on MTV or somehere else from where the media tries to portray it as typical of mainstream thinking.
Thier world-not mine.

[BettyG]

I saw a video of the chanting at Gate D, and the men sounded like a bunch of apes. How much longer will this situation be allowed to go on before someone gets attacked -- I'm sure it will only escalate.
And the women who think it's a good idea to go along with them should wake up!

[ORSunshine]

"The scene played out for 20 minutes Sunday, as about 10 security guards in yellow jackets stood near by. After halftime, a guard said they were instructed to allow this behavior from the men because of freedom of speech laws. Women are warned against breaking indecent exposure laws." (New York Times, 20 November 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/sports/football/20fans.html).

So there is the bias. How do we change these laws. (Oh, and there are photos of how the fans line up at the ramp there too).

[ORSunshine]

Wow... this activity sounds really special. And it really sounds like something the Jets should get on top of before someone sues and it becomes a huge public relations nightmare.

And yes, women are still viewed as "objects" to many men. And marketing companies are making corporations rich using the idea of beautiful women to sell everything from make-up to cars.

[BobLablah]

Could you please provide a link to pictures so we can judge for ourselves?

[hopeless277]

I stand on the shore and scream at fish to beach themselves so that I may eat them for dinner. No fish has been stupid enough to do it yet.