Victoria's Secret, X's & O's, T&A -- Oh, Do I Have Your Attention Now?

Something called "The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show" was on television the other night. To borrow from Bill Clinton's explanation of his marijuana use: I watched it, but I did not open my eyes.

Actually, I just saw the previews, but I think I got the gist.

If I know what’s good for me – and I do – I know I’m supposed to say – and so I will – that these models do nothing for me.

Nada. Zilch. Nuttin’

Not only do I not find them attractive, they’re quite repulsive. Why, I haven’t seen that much tanned hide since my fifth-grade class's tour of the leather factory.

Which is what these women will look like in about 25 years, by the way. Leather.

Once you get past the obvious appeal of the Victoria's Secret models, then what, guys? Is there a one of them you can imagine eating a meal with? (Do they even eat? Or just sit there, picking at their salad, rolling their eyes, sighing heavily and glaring at you while you finish off a medium pizza by yourself?) Can you imagine spending eight hours in a car with one of them? Could any of them survive a Nebraska winter?

OK, perhaps I doth protest too much. Sure, these women do something for me. Just not enough. They're certainly beautiful and well-proportioned, and there was a time when I would have ogled their barely clad bodies like a typical immature pig. But I’m a more mature pig now, which means that whenever I see a “perfect body,” whether male or female, on TV or at my gym, I can’t help but think how fleeting and ephemeral it all is. Everybody’s body lets them down, disappoints them, turns on them even, often becomes their outright enemy. Sagging and settling, spreading and widening.

Time is a great equalizer, and by 30, 40, or whenever, those of us who were never 10's, even at age 20, at least have this comfort: We aren’t tormented by what used to be. We long ago came to terms with living in an imperfect body.

Still, I presume plenty of people watched “The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.” To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the piggishness of us men.

Speaking of which, there was this headline in Bloomberg Business News last week: “The New Skins Game: The Lingerie Football League is a rarity in sports – a women’s professional league that’s actually growing.”

The 10-team league grew out of a Super Bowl halftime show; it has a television contract with MTV2 and profits are up 260 percent over last year, reports the league’s founder. The teams have names like the Denver Dream, the Orlando Fantasy, the Baltimore Charm.

Hmm. Wonder why the Lingerie Football League is succeeding where other professional women’s sports have failed? Well, is there something about the words “lingerie” and “football” you don’t understand?

The league is more about T & A than X’s & O’s, of course. In fact, players’ contracts note one of the occupational hazards: "Player has been advised and hereby acknowledges that Player's participation in the Event and the related practice sessions and Player's services and performances hereunder may involve accidental nudity. In light of the foregoing, Player knowingly and voluntarily agrees to provide Player's services hereunder and has no objection to providing services involving Player's accidental nudity."

Granted, an identical provision was included in Ndamukong Suh’s contract, but that's a different matter entirely: He’s a huge man, and sometimes the fabric in his uniform just can’t handle the tensile pressure.

The league got additional, and no doubt welcome, publicity recently when the mayor of Bible-belt Oklahoma City blocked an effort to locate a team there.

I did Google some images and video of the Lingerie Football League (for research purposes only) and I will say this: These women are, in fact, playing football. Tackle football. They look pretty tough to me. And accidental nudity looks pretty damn likely.

As for those Victoria’s Secret models, they look like a different species than the rest of us. Fragile, phony, plastic. They make me nervous and edgy, as if to bump into one would risk shattering her into millions of tiny little pieces -- beautiful pieces, to be sure, but pieces nonetheless. You’d have to put her back together -- like, you know, a model kit. Or if you accidentally elbowed one of the more pneumatically built ones, you might puncture her and send her blowing crazily around the room like a rapidly deflating helium balloon.

No, like I said, they're not my type at all. I prefer a real woman -- one who can stand her ground in a stiff winter wind; be a good road-trip companion, with only the occasional need for intervention by a state trooper; and fight me tooth and nail for the last piece of takeout pizza. As for the nudity, I'll take it accidental or on purpose -- any way I can get it.

I have one of those women already – or at least I do until she reads this.