Sexualization or Speculation?

The Norwalk boys wrestling team faced controversy recently when their poster was called out for sexualizing teenagers. The poster featured the entirety of the wrestling team on a firetruck and holding various equipment associated with firemen. The varsity team was shirtless. The complaint largely came from Facebook, where a mom of a graduated wrestler called it out, claiming they would never allow girls to do things like this and that it promoted the sexualization of young men. The post was deleted after it garnered the attention it did.

Now, I think that the mom brought up an interesting point. In her Facebook article, she said that "Could you imagine the outrage had a girls’ team dressed in bikinis and taken a team photo?" I think this brings up an interesting point, as I'm not sure how the school would have reacted if a girls team (or mostly girls team) had a photo similar to this, but I think that has more to do with the double standards when it comes to the bodies of girls versus the bodies of boys, and not because this poster is truly inappropriate. The other point regarding women was how the only girl in the photo was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. The girl mentioned was Sadie Beerman, and is a wrestling manager. It makes sense that she isn't dressed in the fireman attire, as she isn't a varsity wrestler, and the rest of the team is wearing tee-shirts and jeans as well.

The only other thing she had criticism for was a grasp at straws. The concerned mom mentioned in an interview how the youngest of the boys are 13, yet there is no 13 year old on the varsity wrestling team, and to the best of my knowledge, not one on the entirety of the wrestling team. This was a blatant lie to blow the issue out of proportion.

All in all, the posters are a fun promotion for the wrestling team, and I see no reason to fuss about the photo or its alleged content and believe that the concerned mother either a) has nothing to do except pick fights where they don't need to be picked or b) has a warped view of the bodies of teenagers and views being shirtless as being inherently sexual, both of which are a sad view to hold.