Swimsuit Power

When I was around 10 years old, my parents acceded to my request to subscribe to Sports Illustrated magazine.  In those days, this was one of the only ways to get national sports information beyond a daily paper or local newscast, plus get good photos illustrating the action.

Even back then, once a year in February, SI published a swimsuit edition.  There really wasn't much to it then, in the 1970s.  Kind of a boring issue, really, until 1978, when Cheryl Tiegs and her fishnet top created a controversy that would quickly go viral by today's standards.  Short-term, this meant a lot of canceled subscriptions for SI; long-term, it meant that annual edition would become a cultural icon.

This past February, SI published its 50th anniversary swimsuit edition.  I just bought it this week.  (While I stopped subscribing to SI several years ago after a run of about 30 years, I've always purchased the swimsuit issue -- to keep up on the pop culture of it!)  Because of the anniversary, SI had photos of the cover models it made famous over the past 50 years, along with their comments about how being on the cover changed their lives.

Here's the gist:  Many of the models mentioned how SI not only launched them to supermodel status, but also how they were able to parlay that fame and fortune to help others.  Not only was this done through charity work, but also by the way SI empowered them -- they felt their success helped other women know they could be successful in their endeavors.

I loved reading this.  So many times over the years people would criticize SI for how the swimsuit issue 'exploited' women.  I received that comment many times from others for just owning that particular magazine.  But my reply was basically always the same, which was to assert that these women are the opposite of exploited.  They are willing and wealthy and healthy, and how could that be a bad thing for other women?

Maybe I'm not able to comprehend the gender-specific argument, but you can bet if I get that exploitation argument anytime soon, I'll be using the 50th anniversary swimsuit edition to be its own defense.