Cook: 50 shades orange

Read morePolice: Woman accuses two Vols football players of 'forcible rape'

photo David Cook

Aggression, control, dominance.

Conflict.

Power.

Am I talking about football?

Or sex?

We have blurred the lines between football and sex in America. We love both -- or think we do -- yet we are losing our ability to view, conduct or promote either in healthy and holistic ways.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but authorities are investigating recent claims that, over the weekend, football players committed sexual violence.

This time the scene is Knoxville. Police are pursuing allegations that two Vols raped and assaulted two women at 3 a.m. Sunday, hours after beating Kentucky 50-16 before a sold-out Neyland Stadium.

This doesn't happen on the chess team or birding club.

There is something inherently masculine and violent within football, some power that can be harnessed either for good or for bad. In the past, our culture has been able to hold it somewhat in check.

But now?

Sure, Joe Namath was no angel, but things seem so different these days, like we've regressed. Moderation has been replaced by TMZ and sexting. Gentleness and morality no longer have footholds in our culture. The NFL makes an estimated $10 billion a year -- more than some nations achieve in a decade -- and is hungry for more.

"The National Football League hopes to achieve $25 billion in annual revenue by 2027," USA Today reported.

We have Viagra-ed football and steroided sex. It is hard for us to define what a healthy sexuality looks like; it is just as hard for us to define what a healthy football culture looks like.

Sportsmanship has been replaced by greed and dating has been swapped out for a hook-up culture.

We practice a strange double standard, refusing to teach sex ed in schools, but then abandoning our kids to face alone a sexualized onslaught of films, television and pornography.

We punish college athletes for signing autographs for money, but say nothing to the profiteering of the NCAA and NFL.

We pay Butch Jones $4 million a year, but pay our public school teachers $40,000. (We get turned on by football, but not by education.)

We objectify the boys and men playing football, turning them into gods of Saturday and Sunday.

We then stare at the women cheering on the sidelines and in the beer commercials, turning them into the objects of Saturday and Sunday.

At its worst, football glorifies violence, control and putting the other person in his or her place. At its worst, sex is rape, which does the same thing.

At its worst, it's conquest culture. It's 50 shades of Big Orange.

"I sold my tickets to the Missouri game," said a local Vol fan named Jennifer. "I'm not going."

She's been a fan for years. She and her husband even used their wedding money on season tickets.

But she heard about Sunday's allegations. She'd also read that another Vol -- Marlin Lane -- had been suspended last season after an 18-year-old girl accused him of dorm-room rape.

Her allegiance began to shift.

An old memory began to stir and howl.

"I was raped when I was 19," Jennifer said.

She didn't report it. For years, she stayed silent. Now, with the help of her husband and a good counselor, she's begun to speak out. Sunday afternoon, she sold her Missouri tickets.

"I don't worship these football players," she said.

Jennifer represents a healthy football fan. Saturdays are for football, then the TV goes off until next weekend. She cheers, but doesn't silence her conscience in doing so.

Most football fans I know are Jennifers. We cheer, in moral ways.

But there exists a growing perversion within modern football, and it parallels a violence we see in 21st-century sexuality.

It isn't dignified. It isn't honorable.

But it's winning.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.

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