Sorry, but rugby players posing in lingerie in 2024 is not ‘regressive’

It was in 2007 that David Beckham stripped down for his debut Emporio Armani underwear campaign. The photos, featuring a very famous footballer open-shirted and lying on a bed wearing only a pair of briefs, did not ask the audience to imagine much. Designer Giorgio Armani said his spread-eagled muse represented “modern masculinity: as a sports hero, husband and father”.

Additional, similarly skimpy Beckham underwear ads were produced over the ensuing years, prompting more traffic-stopping billboards and further praise. A 2013 academic paper was even dedicated to the sporting icon, whom the author argued “manifests a form of flexible masculinity, providing male consumers with a pastiche of visual masculine representations from which some men can socially (re)construct and negotiate their own masculinity”.

Beckham in a pair of knickers redefined masculinity. Meanwhile, in 1999, 12 Matildas players agreed to pose naked for a black and white calendar to raise funds and awareness of the team ahead of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Unlike Beckham, who was already globally recognisable and worth hundreds of millions, that generation of Matildas were neither known in their capacity as athletes nor earning anything resembling a professional wage.

Many of those who took part, such as Tracie McGovern, felt empowered because they had grown up hiding their muscular physiques and “didn’t want to be ashamed of that any more”. Several players, including Sacha Wainwright, opted out because “oversexualising sport was something that didn’t sit well with me”. Only 5000 copies were planned for the first edition, but that number was increased to 45,000 based on the strength of pre-publication interest. Every copy sold out in weeks and demanded a prompt second edition. In the pre-social media world, it was the equivalent of going viral.

More than two decades later, some female rugby players are wearing lingerie and some (let’s be honest, mostly older) women are outraged. The photoshoot, featuring Team GB sevens stars Ellie Boatman, Jasmine Joyce and Celia Quansah, is the latest iteration of the #BeStrongBeBeautiful campaign run by British brand Bluebella since 2016. Its aim is purportedly to show girls “how they can look muscular and strong, as well as feeling feminine”.

David Beckham in an advertisement for Armani underwear. Photo courtesy of Giorgio Armani.Credit: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

Which is … fine. Potentially a little clunky in terms of target market. All in all, though, the gist seems to be that some athletes are being paid to help a (female founded and funded) lingerie company make money. What else is there really to see here? According to tennis great Martina Navratilova, depicting female athletes in lacy lingerie is “regressive and sexist”.

Navratilova had company in former British Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, who tweeted that the “porn underwear” campaign was “utterly shameful”, “brain-dead” and yet another purveyor of “stereotypes”. Former distance runner Mara Yamauchi followed suit with similar language, before adding: “Of course the intended audience is men.”

Great Britain players Jasmine Joyce, Celia Quansah and Ellie Boatman pose for the ‘Strong Is Beautiful’ campaign for London lingerie brand Bluebella.Credit: Instagram

This last assertion requires some examination, because I daresay opinions may differ. Navratilova, Davies and Yamauchi are aged 67, 61 and 50 respectively. And nothing divides feminism quite like a bit of intergenerational infighting. This trio saw out their professional careers in a different era. Let’s call it second-wave feminism – a time underscored by the critiquing of patriarchal norms and institutions.

Misogyny and the male gaze had created the beauty standards for women – Victoria’s Secret was notably founded by a man in the ’70s – and the backlash set the agenda. But things changed again in the early ’90s, when the third wave of feminism encouraged women to express themselves, including sexually. And again in the fourth wave, a #MeToo variation driven by social media activism, race inclusivity and intersectionality. In modern-day society, what it means to be a feminist can feel more complicated than ever.

The Matildas’ nude 2000 calendar.

Lingerie, for instance, can and will never exist in a vacuum. But wearing it can still be considered a deeply feminist act, according to Amber J Keyser, author of Underneath It All: A History Of Women’s Underwear. “I think this idea of what we claim makes us feel sexy is complicated by the fact that we internalise our patriarchal culture, we internalise the misogyny of our culture. It’s hard not to, and that permeates every choice of our lives, including intimate choices,” she said in a 2022 interview with Refinery29.

She added that, despite this, wearing it for one’s self can constitute “a reclamation” of sorts. “Power is key,” she said. “We as women – even now – we’re not encouraged or taught or supported in expressing our own sexuality, our own desires, our own passions. That makes it really hard to know what is sexy, if we are not given space or permission to define for ourselves what sexy is because we continue, in intimate situations, to focus on the male gaze.”

Add the layer of women in sport and this subverting of the patriarchy may look more different still. Women’s sport in general has advanced so profoundly in recent years (remember the Lingerie Football League?) that female athletes, even outside of golf and tennis, are earning millions. Many are recognised and admired globally. With that comes power and, frankly, the freedom to do with one’s body whatever she pleases.

Last year, just before the World Cup, Mary Fowler joined fellow soccer players Alex Morgan, Chloe Kelly, Kenza Dali and Mana Iwabuchi in shooting for Calvin Klein. It involved underwear, and was widely lauded as empowering. Somehow adding lace changes all that, and becomes a setback?

“No,” says Charlotte Caslick, who was announced on Wednesday as a member of Australia’s Olympic rugby sevens team. “Players like Ilona Maher from the USA, who’s extremely body positive ... a lot of her content is actually around body positivity and being proud of our muscles. She promotes a lot of [messages like] fuelling your body the right way, the same as how a supermodel fuels herself.

“We’re still beautiful. We get our lashes done. Most of the girls get their nails done. We wear make-up when we play, and we’re not exactly embarrassed about that. We just like to look good, and I think that helps. If it helps you play well, awesome.

“Our team is really proud to be able to express that we’re feminine and we play a sport that is quite traditionally for boys and maybe not considered feminine … we’re a group of feminine girls that play this really fearless sport. I feel like that was what they were trying to portray – that strong is sexy and strong doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.”

Perhaps it is simple after all. The international lingerie market is booming, which means at least a portion of modern women must enjoy the way it makes them feel. Plus-sized models are no longer on the periphery, and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan has almost single-handedly sent Skims sales into a new stratosphere. For centuries, men have made money off their own narrow definitions of sexual attractiveness. Women are now free to decide how they make theirs.

And just as female athletes are finally transcending almost every stereotype that had held women’s sport back, their agency is being stripped by former female athletes applying the very paternalistic lens they themselves sought to escape.

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