Pick Your Poison

I’m so sick of this steroids-in-sports “scandal.” We live in a society where a woman can pump her chest full of silicone, her lines full of Botox, scour her skin with acids or burn it with lasers, whiten her teeth, get a fake tan, glue on false eyelashes and fingernails, add extensions to her dyed hair and take diet pills to make her thin and she’ll be called beautiful and featured on the cover of a magazine. But not before her image has been digitally altered to make her even more “perfect!” Yet let athletes pump their bodies with steroids or hormones to make them stronger and faster, and they’re called cheats.

Make no mistake, I’m not in favor of any of this. I’d no more like to see some loved one of mine take steroids than I would inject my face with muscle-paralyzing de-natured toxins. But that’s my choice and I absolutely respect other’s entitlement to make a different choice. (Oh, and didn’t we women fight tooth and nail back in the 70s for the right to make choices about our own bodies without interference from various institutions? Just asking.)

I believe it’s human nature to want to constantly improve ourselves and our performance. If that wasn’t true we’d still be slithering around in the slime. The motto of the Olympics is “swifter, higher, stronger” for heaven’s sake. Do they seriously think that if humans have found a way to achieve that they won’t take it? We as spectators demand that athletes constantly improve their performance and break records to thrill us. Then when we find out they’ve given themselves an edge beyond wearing the most technologically advanced shoes and clothing (for which they’re often outrageously paid), we excoriate and humiliate them. Meanwhile, an admitted anabolic steriod user is the popular governor of a large Western state!

Well, people, the cat’s out of the bag. The milk’s spilt. The toothpaste is out of the tube. The barn door’s open and the horse is gone. Steroids are in sports. Get over it. And while you’re engaged in making sure your kids know that doped baseball players aren’t good role models, just also make sure to point out that the same is true of women with breasts the consistency of baseballs.

For an interesting perspective on the subject, read this story from the LA Weekly.