swimsuit issues

To turn away from that you have loved...
As a tender youth whose intimate sexual experiences were hypothetical, living in a society where the naked human body was taboo (though other mammals were acceptable), the yearly arrival of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue was an anticipated, tingly event.
During those teen years, i was subconsciously glad that my brothers were pre-teens. Among my family, i had no interest in sharing the idea that i might like to watch semi-clad women. To dwell on a substitute when you're not getting the real thing was not the kind of person i wanted to be, nor was it the image i wanted others to have. The SI subscription was Dad's, and he made an occasional appreciative comment regarding this mid-winter cheesecake fest. My response was mostly non-committal. But when i was home alone, i looked at every page. Well, it was already in the house, it wasn't like i had gone out to acquire it myself. And it was in a magazine with a high level of literacy (trust me, you don't want to know what a sports magazine with a low level of literacy, moral or otherwise, looks like).
My window of innocence lasted for two or three years, before i could no longer ignore the awareness that something was rotten in the Seychelle Islands (or wherever they were cavorting). In those years, the shiniest star in my swimsuit firmament was Kathy Ireland. The two-page shot of her lying on a bed of yellow flowers, wearing one half of a white bikini, is an image burned into that part of my brain where SEX beams brightly.
But for someone like me, in a battle between lust and moral indignation, don't wager your last penny on lust. To SI's credit, they usually published (albeit faintly condescendingly) one of the yearly protest letters, and eventually gave subscribers the option of not receiving the issue at all, but i didn't need those things to tell me what i already knew.
Integrity was important to SI. Were it not so, i'd not still skim the magazines when i visit Dad; i'm sentimental, but rarely to a fault. They took on tough issues, and their best writers cared, not merely about sports, but about the world.
All of which made the swimsuit issue more painful.
And the question that would not be ignored was this: what do fashion models in bathing costumes have to do with the world of sports? The resounding answer echoes back: NOTHING...nOtHiNg...nothing...
Sigh.
They even listed the prices of the bathing suits, which was curious, as i don't remember them ever listing the price of Darryl Dawkins' athletic supporter.
Had someone waved a magic wand, and turned SI into a fashion magazine? A travel brochure? Whatever it was, there was one thing it clearly was not.
So what's wrong with looking at semi-clad women?
Not one little thing. Despite well-intentioned, misguided protests, that day in 2000 when the Australian women's soccer team released a naked calendar was a beautiful moment in the rise of the human spirit.
But within the context of SI, a softcore porn issue of non-athlete females has nothing to do with sport...and if for some men it does, this is born of a very disturbed place. The issue is no less than a dire insult to every woman who's ever lived. It proclaims to the world, "THIS is how we'll celebrate women in a magazine devoted to sports!" If you grasp anything about the subjugation and dehumanization of women over uncounted millenia, and your brain is bigger than a pea, then the reality of the swimsuit issue will eventually turn your stomach. During the era of the issue's popularity, women have been marginalized in the world of sport, as in every public forum. But female athletes have been achieving feats as wondrous as their male counterparts, and in truth moreso, living in a world which taught women to not be strong, especially physically. Yet in those decades in which the issue has thrived, what percentage of SI's articles were devoted to women? Is there anyone who doubts that if you counted up all the SI covers to ever feature a woman, fashion models would outnumber athletes by a chasmic margin? This is the message SI wishes to give? Don't be an athlete, just look like this, and we may celebrate you? This is the message they've chosen to drum into the head of every little girl (and boy) who ever glanced at a cover?
I don't envy the burden of shame the people at SI carry. I'm sure that some have borne it with a heavy heart. Perhaps they were told, in ways subtle or overt, that the swimsuit issue outsells all others, and without that money the magazine mightn't be able to maintain its high standards the rest of the year. For anyone who's ever bought that argument, return to the rock from under which you crawled.
It's been curious to see SI haltingly acknowledge this reality. They eventually included occasional shots of legitimate female athletes, and even a handful of famous-athlete beefcake shots (provided of course that there was always a scantily-clad woman hanging on them). In doing these things, they pointed to the only way they can save themselves.
For i come not to bury SI. It's time to send the models back to the dying industry from whence they came (i know that to many, fashion doesn't seem like a dying industry, but that's because they have not the eyes to see).
Ought SI continue celebrating the beauty of the human form? Sure! But make it that most sublime form, the athlete. You wish to devote one issue a year to beauty? Give us the same athletes you celebrate the rest of the year. And not just the women, give us male and female in equal measure! You already know that female athletes will line up, and if you think appealing to the vanity of professional male athletes will be a tough sell, then they've had you hidden away in the bullpen for way too long. And give us a taste of all athletes, to remind us that physical excellence is not confined to those with sculpted physiques! When you're really ready to take your place as a torch bearer of human progress, you'll move past our childish nudity taboos, too.
So that someday decades from now, a naked John Daly will be imprinted on some person's brain as indelibly as Kathy is in mine.
And the world will be well.