Miss USA 2010: The Lingerie Competition

In the past, beauty pageant contestants have gotten in trouble over revealing photos; This year, the Miss USA pageant is just cutting to the chase. Or, to the lingerie, as evidenced by the above image of Miss Missouri, Ashley Strohmier (well, it is the Show-Me state) and of Miss California, Nicole Michele Johnson (favored to win) below



Not that the idea of doing official glamour lingerie photos of each of the contestants has gone over well with all:





Miss Pennsylvania, Gina Cerilli (above) defended her photos and the idea, as did pageant owner Donald Trump. Anything for ratings in an age when you could argue these pageants are of less and less importance, and actresses and models are often seen in lingerie or less in more than a few magazines?



^Miss Connecticut, Ashley Bickford
Miss Colorado, Jessica Hartman v





^ Miss Maryland, Simone Feldman
Miss Michigan, Rima Fakih v



I'll leave that up to you in the Comments section. Obviously, I'm going to be biased in favor of more lingerie photos in the world, and looking over the the gallery of all the contestants as photographed beautifully by Fadil Berisha, my only question was: do I use all 51 photos in this post or not?



^ Miss Oregon, Kate Paul
Miss Kansas, Bethany Gerber v





^ Miss Virginia, Samantha Casey
Miss Tennessee, Tucker Perry v





^ Miss Delaware, Julie Citro
Miss Oklahoma, Moran Elizabeth Woolard v





^ Miss Wisconsin, Courtney Lopez



^ Miss Mississippi, Breanne Ponder
Miss New Hampshire, Nicole Houde v





^ Miss Nebraska, Belinda Wright
Miss Ohio, Amanda Tempel is my girlfriend's pick for the winner v





^ Miss New Jersey, Chenoa Greene (I know nothing of the contestants, but there's something about Ms. Greene I like. And, if she doesn't win? Well, the odds were already 50-to-1 against me guessing right who might win, and her odds are 50-1 anyway..)

My girlfriend's take on all this: If you're going to say this is a scholarship program, you're still living in the 1940's or earlier. If you're going to say it's a modern-day top model search, bring on the lingerie. I'll go along with that.

Behind the scenes of Fadil Berisha's "Waking Up In Vegas' photo shoot:



Speaking of Vegas, what do you want to wager all the attention this is getting helps the ratings for this year's broadcast, tomorrow night(Sunday)on NBC?