Roller derby blues

I am compelled to repost this little gem, from the I Blame the Patriarchy blog, as it sums up my opinion of Roller Derby pretty well:

"Take, for example, that, despite the Rollergirls’ impressive skaterly talents, the 'sport' is only nominally about skating. You have already guessed what it’s actually about, but I’ll tell you anyway: sex. That’s right, sex, only not real sex, such as the kind we could all be having if Hugh Hefner hadn’t ruined it for everybody, but phony sex as defined by the horndog ideology of the pornocracy. The roller derby is an example of what you might, if you were me, call 'proto-porn'—a non-penetrative, G-rated, but nevertheless two-dimensional, stereotypical, and bogus picture of female sexuality generated from an amorphous plasma of cultural misogyny. It’s kindergarten burlesque."

Even though she's describing the specific activities of Austin's flat track league, I think her basic points apply to the banked track league too. It pisses me off that to be viable, they have to sexualize it and make it pleasing to the stereotypical "man." And in this case, much like the Suicide Girls, it's marketed to the alterno-punk-rocker man, who can feel like he's participating in something subversive when it's just the same old shit in a different wrapper.