Go Cats. Just don't change your name to Pussy's.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – An under-16 Australian Rules football team has come under fire for entering a sponsorship deal with a local Hooters franchise, with critics saying the move could give adolescent boys the wrong message.

Seriously, when are we going to get over this adolescent opposition to a restaurant chain? If it was called Hoots and featured women in t-shirts and shorts, would the opposition be as rampant? Methinks not. But because it's called Hooters, and supposedly features large-breasted women (news flash: Not all the women who work there have large breasts) it's considered dirty and appealing to the prurient interest. Poppycock.

And what is the "wrong message" exactly, that these adolescent boys are getting? Girls are bad? Adults cannot make their own employment choices? Food should be served by men? Women wearing shorts and tank tops is bad? I'm guessing that they spend a good chunk of their day web-searching naked women, but let's not mix football (sorry, soccer) with life.

The Broadbeach Cats team in Australia's Gold Coast were cheered on by two skimpily-dressed staff from the Mermaid Beach franchise of the American restaurant chain during their home game against local side Labrador on the weekend.
"The message these boys are getting -- and bear in mind we're talking 15 and 16-year-old boys - is that ... as a young footballer you have an entitlement to large-breasted women in skimpy outfits bouncing around at your games," women's advocate Melinda Tankard Reist said on an Australian morning television show.
Restaurant owner Morney Schledusch described the criticism as "ridiculous."

It is ridiculous. We (people - you, mostly) have this idea that ones dress dictates their morality. For instance, if you went to the beach and a woman was seen wearing a bra and panties she would probably be arrested for prancing around in her underwear. Put her in a skimpy bathing suit, and she fits right in. Strange, isn't it? Try it sometime and let me know how it works for you.

It sounds to me like "women's advocate" Melinda Tankard does a little too much thinking about "bouncing around" and not enough thinking about what she is actually supposed to represent. Why is it that women's advocates always cry out about women being portrayed as sex objects while they clearly have been making their own decisions about it for centuries? Every day, provocatively dressed women parade around in public because they want to be seen as sexual beings. But put them in a restaurant or in a strip club and "women's advocates" suddenly find the practice objectionable. Put a topcoat on, if that's how you feel. Stop wearing push-up bras, sheer stockings and perfume at the supermarket, you hypocrites.

For one thing, God forbid that 16-year old boys have some interest in women, eh? Perhaps a gay bar should sponsor a team? The Barflies - with men in shorts and tight t-shirts cheering-on the players. There's a sight for you.

Oh God, Hooters is sponsoring a kids' soccer (sorry, football) team. That couldn't possibly be as bad as say, Enron sponsoring one or a church, with whom you may not agree with their politics. It's a restaurant chain that has attractive women waiting tables in skimpy attire. That narrows the field down to about 9 of 10 sports bars in America. What is more important, the sponsor or their field of endeavor?

Suppression of the idea is the bigger crime here, and if kids are going to be given the impression that there is a bad aspect to women's bodies, then they're likely to be as screwed up as past generations were (are) about the notion of women and what their bodies make us think about.

I suppose it's all that double entendre that arouses the protests. Buns and hooters. It's the devil-speak, I tell ya! The next thing you know, they'll start calling it a soccer sphere instead of a soccer ball and the kids will be told to stop using their hands.

Oh.