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Naked Truth Too Much For Lingerie Fans

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: January 28, 2009

It occurred to me - and, as events bespoke, not only me - when the original site for the sixth more-or-less annual "Lingerie Bowl" succumbed to West Tampa neighborhood standards that the readymade venue for such an epic sporting event was just up the road in the thumping heart of Pasco County.

Caliente! Of course! Caliente! Which everyone knows is Spanish for "Nagurski ... In a Thong."

If not on some parking lot in Joe Redner's triple-X empire, where better to stage this epic tribute to titillating tackiness? Models, ripped from the pages of Fredrick's of Hollywood, smeared in eye-black and strapped in color-coordinated shoulder pads, slamming into one another for fame, glory and a paycheck.

Who says private enterprise is dead? Here was Yankee genius at work, proof the road to riches still can be paved with the wallets of the lowest common denominator, given the cooperation of young women desperate for recognition.

Exploitation, provocation, palpitation, remuneration. Cue the Temptations. It's still a ball of confusion.

Calling Janet Jackson

What failure-to-launch guy, staring down the second half of a Colts-Raiders blowout, hasn't imagined combining the foremost aspects of the pro game - collisions and sideline sexiness - and nudged his fellow mouth-breathers: "You know what I'd pay to see? NFL cheerleaders playing football. Ooooooh, dude."

Licensing would have been quite impossible, naturally. But this is America, whose entrepreneurial spirit gave us Hooters and Madonna's sold-out Sticky & Sweet Tour, so tawdriness has a successful track record, opening the door to a whole bunch of Girls Gone Wild extras executing the Packer sweep. Here was a Super Bowl halftime event where the audience would be counting on serial wardrobe malfunctions.

So, when organizers of the Lingerie Bowl seemed to have found a home at Caliente, who among us didn't think, "Took you long enough"? Here was a marriage made in post-Victorian heaven, the partnering of the center of the "clothing-optional" universe with a gridiron clash in which less is more and standard football nomenclature evokes the range from winks to howls.

Rude And Crude, Not Nude

Ah, but the vision of stars coming into alignment was, in fact, the explosion of harmony as the entire affair plunged down Alice's rabbit hole. Faster than you could say, "No, really, we're a family destination," spokeswoman Angye Fox declared Caliente's negotiations with the Lingerie Football League at an impasse.

In a through-the-looking-glass moment, Fox explained, as a condition of locating their game within Caliente's walls, LFL officials - whose singular attraction involves near-naked women - wanted to dictate when and where the resort's residents and clients had to remain clothed.

This was too much for Caliente, which stresses a tres sophisticated attitude toward nudity. Said Fox, "I can tell guests where they can't have clothes on" - that would be in and around the pools - "but I can't tell them where they must have clothes."

Only in Pasco, right? Only in Pasco would the organizers of a football game pitting teams of models in bras, panties and garter belts be too prudish to stage their event in a resort full of nudists.

Where's the Excedrin?

Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.

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