All 4 the Money

It seems the sticky fingers of greed-disguised-as-mental-anguish have reared their ugly head again. This time it’s in the form of a young woman claiming to have been sexually harassed by a prominent NFL player, whom she is now pressuring for a whole lot of cash. As we all know, nothing cures anguish quite like a hefty payoff.

Jenn Sterger, who became semi-famous by ripping her T-shirt to shreds and positioning herself prominently in the stands at a televised Florida State University football game, claims to have photos of Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre’s private parts. Allegedly he sent them to her via phone in 2008 as an act of…seduction? flirtation? general peepaw creepiness? What is unknown is what the relationship between the two parties was at the time, and why Favre thought it would be a good idea to do such a thing.

I do not in any way condone what Favre allegedly did (while he’s confessed to leaving her some racy phone messages, he has denied the photos). It is behavior unbecoming of a married man, regardless of his personal notoriety. It’s not only disrespectful to his wife, but it reeks of a drunken frat boy stunt. He’s a granddad, for crying out loud.


But come on, Jenn…why’d you wait two years to come forth with your “anguish?” If the action was so offensive, then why’d you save the photo(s) for so long? Did it really take two years to figure out if you were actually offended or not?

This is just as weird as Monica Lewinsky saving her biologically-stained dress. The only reason one saves evidence such as this is because they know it will be worth something in the future. And by “something” I mean money.

Those of us with common sense and a little self respect know that we have two choices when confronted with someone offensive: speak up when it happens, or realize there are just some stupid people in the world and you sometimes need to have a thicker skin.

Depending on what action, if any, the NFL takes on the matter, Sterger may or may not bring a civil suit against Favre. If I extorted sued every guy who was inappropriate to me I would have been a millionaire by the time I hit 25. Guys can be immature, inappropriate jerks. Some even cross the lines of decency. But unless Sterger can prove actual assault or job loss as a direct result of her interaction with or denial of Favre, this girl needs to grow up and learn to work the ‘delete’ button on her phone.

Sterger has appeared in both Maxim and Playboy magazines. A Google images search of her name turns up 117,000 results, at least half of them lacking actual clothing. She made herself a frat-household name by dressing scantily for FSU football games with two equally scantily-clad friends. This is not a shy girl, nor is she unaccustomed to parlaying sexual images of her surgically-enhanced body into offers that include lots of dollar signs. With all this intentional exposure, I hardly believe Favre was the first guy who ever--as the New York Post put it--“tried to land her in the sack with sleazy voicemails and text messages.” My guess is he was simply the biggest bank account to ever try.

Look, Ma...No Clothes!

I was mortified to see a public service announcement during primetime hours on television cautioning girls on the dangers of sending elicit photos of themselves to boys via cell phones, or posting them on social networking sites.

Let that sink in. We are now at the point of having to very specifically tell underage girls that it’s not a good idea to take nude pictures of themselves and post them in public places. Somehow this has escaped the basket of common sense.

Girls have always been guilty of trusting boys more than they should. Regardless of what generation we grew up in, we all believed a boy when he said he wouldn’t tell anyone if we kissed him behind the bleachers, snuck out and met him at the beach late at night, or whatever else might happen. Raise your hand if you ever heard, “I won’t tell, I promise,” from a very convincing cute boy.

But they all told.

Maybe they only told their best friend, but the friend in turn had no loyalty to us, the girl, and before you knew it he had spread quite a tale across the school. Everybody knew your business. Any self respecting girl was humiliated or mortified, and undoubtedly was then teased or gossiped about.

Yes, girls, there are no secrets when it comes to boys and their intimate knowledge of you or your parts. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.

But those of us coming of age in the pre-Information Era benefited from one advantage that no longer exists. We didn’t have to worry about being caught on tape without our knowledge. Cell phone cameras and tiny video cameras weren’t even in our imaginations.

When you were alone with someone...you actually were alone with them. You didn’t have to fear a replay of your weekend night activities being mass-emailed to your entire grade by Monday morning, or playing in an endless loop in the computer lab.

And what a relief that is to me even now. Like most high school girls, I was convinced I was horribly unattractive as a teenager. I hated my legs, my thighs, my hips, my boobs; all of them were misshapen and inferior to the other thousand girls at my school. Would I have EVER sent a nude picture of myself to a boy?

‘Scuse me while I choke on my frappaccino.

As my friend Vanessa said, “Good ol' body dysmorphic disorder kept us chaste.”

It’s true. We were so embarrassed or disgusted by our own bodies that we didn’t even want to look at them ourselves. There was no way we’d take photographs or video of such hideousness for a boy to see! Our low self esteems kept us from doing things we shouldn’t do.

So that brings me to the question: Which is the lesser of two evils, a 16-year-old girl with no self esteem, or a 16-year-old girl with high self esteem but no common sense?