NEW YORK (KABC) -- The New York Jets are playing defense off the field, after allegations that players and coaches sexually harassed a female reporter.

Ines Sainz, reporter from Mexican TV, somehow slipped across the border undetected to steal our jobs, only to have players throwing the ball towards her so they could bump up against her, and when she went to the locker room to interview the QB, they started "making remarks."

Complicating the matter is that the reporter in question looked like this:



Two camps:

• another example of men acting disgustingly, and protected by the NFL; women being degraded and disrespected, being treated as objects.
• Look at her, she asked for it!  Dressed like that, what did she expect.  Listen, ladies, you can't flaunt it and then get angry when someone notices.

Yes, if only either of these two had anything to do with the real issue.  Come on, people, first principles: What do the writers want to be true?

II.

While it's not a justification, it is a perfectly legitimate query: how can you dress like that and not expect the attention?

Attention is one thing, lewd comments maybe another, but as Marc Maron pointed out, sexiness isn't a smart bomb, you can't select your targets, you put it out there and there's going to be some collateral damage.

"I don't want to be thought of only as a sex object."  You don't see the irony of your thinking.  You want people to have a certain thought, yet you also demand that they don't only have a certain thought.  You're trying to control their minds just as much as you claim they're labeling you.

You don't get to make that decision, ever.   As much as anyone wishes they could make everyone else accept the identity they've invented for themselves, the ugly existential truth is everyone has their own mind and they seem to have decided that you are a sex object.  They may be wrong, they may be right, you can certainly try and alter this perception, but you cannot tell other people not to have it.  

"You can't label me!"  Throw the cognitive kill switch, after which I'm supposed to be left shuddering, did I label her?  All I meant was, hey you got me all wrong, wait a second, that's not what I meant (is it?)...

Well, I ain't going out like that.  I'll accept that I'm a big jerk for thinking what I think, I'll accept that I may even be wrong, but I will not accept that my limited experience as a human and the information you are giving me has lead me to a few conclusions about you that I am not allowed to have.

"I know who I am." No you don't, that's my point, if you knew who you were you wouldn't be playing multiple characters, in this case eye candy and serious reporter.   "Well, I have to act this way for the job, for TV."  They didn't spring this on you last minute.  It may be wrong to expect a reporter to be sexy on TV, but if you say you have to be sexy as part of the job, you can't double back and say you weren't being sexy.

What you want is to be able to behave sexy, or rude, or ridiculous, or offensive-- and still demand to be seen the way you want to be seen. 

It may be unfair, but it is the most important fact of human existence: people exist independently of you.


III.

Before all the men form a celebratory circle jerk, let me back up: it's 2010.  'Well, what did she expect?' doesn't fly in Human Resources's America.  Like it or not, that's reality, and you don't get to change reality.  She's not a ninja, and if she feels harassed she's going to fight back using whatever she's got, and if what's she's got are lawyers, well, what did you expect?

"We don't want her to fight back, we just want her to take it."  Got it.  See II.

IV.

Note the power set up.  All you fools think that female reporters are in the locker rooms because it is some sort of measure of equality, "why should the males get the best interviews?" that this is somehow a success for equality, something that women had to struggle to earn, and you think that because you were told that.

Women didn't earn this over the resistance of an old boy network; the media conglomerates decided it would be awesome to televise a hyperfemale in a locker room with a nearly naked hypermale and pretend there's no sexuality implied.  So anything that goes wrong is between individuals, nothing to do with the Machine.

CFNM, right there on ESPN.

V.

Take a look at another sideline picture of her:
 


I can't believe I am the only one to notice this: she has a big ass, and 70% of the Jets are black.  Hi.

"What's that got to do with it?"  That has everything to do with it.  Sandy Flatbutt and Ines Sainz both want an interview.  Who does Marquice Cole choose to talk to longer?  Which interview is going to have more sexual tension to display TV, so that everyone in America can think, "look at this guy, he hasn't heard a word she said, all he wants to do is---"





That's how "professional news" is run. Bring the sexual energy as high as you can and then pretend it isn't there.  Quoting Marshall McLuhan, "make sure the message has a nice ass."

VI. 

But now we're in the middle of it. 

Whatever else you may think about Sainz, this is a woman who can handle herself, and men, and players.   That's the problem.

I want to say that I'm not the one who made the charge (of harassment), because I didn't even feel bad about that... the ones who say that there was something wrong was the rest of the media.

Uh oh.  So nothing I wrote in this post applies to Ines Sainz; in fact, none of the controversy you are hearing applies to her, because she didn't care that much.  If she can handle players, if she can dismiss this as boys will be boys, what are the other reporters supposed to do?

The question isn't whether the players' behavior will be tolerated by Sainz; the question is will Sainz's behavior be tolerated by other reporters, like a hussy walking past the First Wives Club.  Oh, hell no.  She cannot be allowed to walk away from this.  Meanwhile, the networks couldn't be happier even if they planned this, which they did, which is the whole point.

I can see the unfair advantage that if she's ok with it and someone else isn't, she'll get all the good interviews, but I would like to point out that this is the contract you media fools started, the Pretend Contract, we all pretend her looks weren't part of the reason she got the job, and she pretends no one is looking at her that way.

Oops-- she broke the contract, stupid Mexican, by labeling herself the Hottest Sports Reporter.  She's made subtext into text, and everyone in media knows you don't do that, ever.  "Cat's out of the bag, mofos, what are we going to do?"

Plan B: rewrite the story.

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