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Remarking on the Almost Quaint Wholesomeness of the Annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

By Michael Murray | Posted Under Think Pieces | Comments (20)

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The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue has been around for more than 40 years, and at this point, any debate about it’s social validity is so far removed from the world we inhabit, that to bring it up suggests you’re a hippy—the kind of person who names their children India or Reykjavik.

Sex touches, even commands pretty much everything we do, and so nobody should be surprised if one grim February day, when the New Yorker brain trust sees that they’re losing market share, they decide to launch their own Swimsuit Issue. Yes, models—most wearing glasses—their bodies traced by just the softest breaths of poetry.

Existing in an omni sexual climate, the SI Swimsuit issue barely makes a ripple these days. Amidst the visual cacophony of the Internet, where masturbatory dream girls beckon to us constantly, this magazine seems quaint, wholesome, even. More than anything, it has the vibe of a 1960’s era Playboy magazine.

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The attempt to disguise raw sexual desire as something other than it is (an interest in sports, vacation resorts, the art of body painting!) is a ready-made anachronism, so when you look at the SI Swimsuit issue, it really feels like you’re looking into the past.

Personally, I think it’s cute the way the magazine attempts to put an athletic, if kittenish spin on their parade of flesh. The new models are referred to as “Rookies,” like they’re promising baseball players hoping to break into the Major Leagues, which is pretty much exactly what they are in their comparative professions.

In conjunction with Victoria’s Secret, SI serves as the coronating vehicle by which the next great supermodel is crowned and presented to the mainstream. This year it’s Irina Shayk, who is, of course, stunningly beautiful. A sophisticated, potentially evil Russian, she’s exactly the type of cold war babe that James Bond would have laid and then dispatched without a tremor of guilt or uncertainty.


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Her foil, so to speak, and surely the next cover girl, is SI rookie Kate Upton who will ensure that America will once again win gold in the supermodel Olympics.

USA! USA! USA!

Upton, blonde and blue-eyed, is a nubile 18 year-old sex bomb from Florida. She radiates health, optimism, sex, innocence, beauty and sex and some more sex.

They body-painted her.

She is what America is all about.

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Wanting to know more, I watched the interviews that SI posted on-line. The questions, like the Playboy centerfold questionnaire— which the Playmate answered in her own girlish script—were silly, designed to get the guys listening to think maybe they had a shot. “Hey, I’m emotionally supportive, maybe I’ve got a shot with Chrissy Tiegen! Fuck her husband John Legend!”

Kate, just 18 and undoubtedly known more for how she looks than what she says, was a little, um, unformed in her articulations. When asked what it was that she couldn’t live without, she said her mother.

Whom she speaks to every single day.

And tells everything.

An erection killer if ever there was one.

She employed a kind of whispering gibberish to answer another question, couldn’t quite pronounce Ryan Reynolds’ name and said that her favorite music included Britney Spears and Rascal Flatts. Her answers and presence were conspicuously absent from the last half of the Q & A, and so for the time being, her “sinful pleasure” will remain a mystery to us.

Fortunately, a letter that Kate emailed to herself has been discovered and leaked onto the web:

Dear Old Kate:

Mom said it would be a really cool thing for me to write my thoughts down now, when I’m 18 and becoming a mega-star, to you, the 30 year-old version of myself. She said it would offer me some neat perspective so that old me could better understand my journey, or something.

It’s like Back to the future!

If you’re not the 30 year-old me, stop reading NOW because this is ONLY to be read by the 30 year-old me!!!

First of all, you have to tell me, did they make an Avatar sequel? That movie was totally awesome!! And in real life, have we conquered Pandora yet? I hope not, because that would be sad and exploitive, but I hope we can go there for vacations and be friends with them. I got painted blue for my SI photo shoot, so I think I can relate to the Pandorans.

Anyway, things are crazy right now, as you might remember. I’m a world-class model and everybody is calling me Kate the Great! I hope after all these years you haven’t forgotten just what a Bitch McGhee that Brooklyn Decker was!! She hated me! And just because I was young and hot! Kate, I hope you weren’t such a mean, old B-word when you were 23 and had the class to step aside for the new talent.

Also, her boyfriend, that tennis guy who never wins, Andy Roddick, is a super-perv! I swear he had a boner when he was watching me do my shoot, and Brooklyn (I am sorry, but that is a stupid, no-class name) is always talking about their greasy sex life. Gross-out!!

Anyway, as you know by now, there will always be haters, and I bet you’ve gone through some tough times since we were 18. I just hope you remembered our mantra, “Kater will always be greater than the haters,” and repeated it to yourself whenever you/we got in trouble, like when Mrs. Francis used to ask us questions in Biology.

Well, I guess you’re probably not very pretty now and other models have likely come along to be “the next great one.” I hope you’ve been able to handle yourself with class in spite of what the mean girls said. I hope you now own three islands, and never forget the joy that was in your beautiful heart. I hope you’ve aged gracefully and taken care of yourself, and that you’re now a judge on “American Idol” or saving Africans by bringing them the word of our lord, Jesus Christ.

Kate, you loved life and volleyball, and I hope you haven’t lost those qualities, for they are what made you, you.

I also hope you have a dog farm and got to follow Rascal Flatts on tour.

Love,

Kate the Great at 18


Michael Murray is a freelance writer. He presently lives in Toronto. You can find more of his musings on his blog, or check out his Facebook page.









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Comments

'Fess up, MM: You faked that e-mail.

Know what gave you away? All the words are spelled correctly.

You know what I notice about supermodels these days? They never smile. I guess that kind of semi-pout on both girls is supposed to be a "come hither" look or something, but would it kill them to look like they're happy to see you? It worked pretty damn well for this girl:

www.jukjik.com/whupv.php?terv=Cheryl-Tiegs

Posted by: , at February 25, 2011 11:47 AM

The SI Swimsuit Issue has been a porn mag for kids since... well, since I was a kid, at least. Kids between 12-15. Somewhere in there Playboy usurps the role, but until you're in high school it's a bit harder to get your hands on, so SI still has it's place. Especially in those rare shots where you almost see something you shouldn't. Like that Kate Upton pic above.

But, you're right, now with Maxim, Stuff, FHM, and the rest, where we get monthly Swimsuit Issues, the SI one feels extremely anachronistic. At least Playboy has the articles.

Posted by: RobP at February 25, 2011 11:52 AM

Consensus in the office was that the cover picture was one of the more horrid ones in the issue. Either the pose was way off or they badly photoshopped her boobs or some combination of the two, but the overall effect was far less sexy and far more "that pose looks really uncomfortable."

Personal favorite shot - somewhere in the back with the athletes. The girl who's 'swimsuit' was the oar she clutched loosely in front of her. Gorgeous and - shockingly enough - healthy looking.

Posted by: twig at February 25, 2011 11:53 AM

When my son hits puberty, I will gladly agree to buy him all of the SI issues, and maybe even an occasional Playboy, if he agree to stay off the internet.

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at February 25, 2011 12:03 PM

30-yr-old Kate isn't going to thank Kate the Great at 18 for all that running along the beach with no boob support. Droopsville ahoy...

Posted by: Big Moo at February 25, 2011 12:10 PM

, I know what you mean. Every "super" model is so interested on being the hottest that they forget the disarming power that a pretty smile can have on men. We may want to fuck the pouting seductresses but we will die for the cute smiles.

I remember when the SI Swimsuit Issue would arrive at the high school library because it was the one that librarians rushed to hide in the office to prevent the kids from ogling and tearing and destroying. It does seem so quaint and almost innocent for today's age -- Playboy and Maxim took all the famous people and made them undress for them.

And yet, I think there's something perfect about the SI issue. Because while it is about sexuality, it's not demeaning or disturbing or in your face. It's very PG-rated sexuality. And in the day when you can go online and download midget hookers involved in acts with a septuagenarian and a donkey, it's good that there's this chaser of just pretty girls to wash it all away with.

Posted by: Fredo at February 25, 2011 12:16 PM

This whole thing just fills me with a deep, desperate sadness.

"I'm from Florida, so I know what beaches are like!"

Oh, honey.

Posted by: figgy at February 25, 2011 12:34 PM

You're a class act, Micheal Murray. May your children be belligerent and numerous.

Posted by: The_wakeful at February 25, 2011 12:54 PM

I don't mind SI or anything, but I think Victoria's secret really corners the market on "talent" and also picking women that are somewhat likable. The SI girls are generally bustier, but the ones that aren't also in Victoria's secret don't have terribly lasting careers.

Posted by: stump at February 25, 2011 1:05 PM

, and Fredo, that's why I always like Brooklyn Decker (despite the dumb name and blondness.) She smiled in the 2009 SI Swimsuit, at which point I decided she was the hottest model and should totally be the next cover girl. I could not have been happier to see last year's SI Swimsuit, where she was on the cover smiling her gorgeous face off. And her smile is STUNNING.

Posted by: GwenBear at February 25, 2011 2:46 PM

I can't believe Kate Upton is only 18. She exudes a sexiness beyond her years. Its not often I go for the blond American over the brunette Eastern European. But Upton is something else.

Posted by: Dave at February 25, 2011 3:25 PM

Ya'll do realize that models do a variety of poses in a shoot and the editor picks which one they like best? So, the smiling or not smiling isn't really the model's decision, ultimately. They probably picked that Brooklyn pic because it was the best, she had nothing to do with that decision.

Posted by: stump at February 25, 2011 3:47 PM

Maybe it's my age, but the SI Swimsuit issue hasn't really been the same since the golden age of supermodels, ie Kathy Ireland, Cindy Crawford, Elle McPherson, and Hedi Klum.

Posted by: Matt at February 25, 2011 4:45 PM

Smiling is All-American, pouting is European. I have no doubt that there's very sophisticated mechanisms at work determining who, and what agency, scores the windfall of the SI cover. Agents, like Steve Boras, only for Brooklyn Decker ( now in the movies!) and Kate Upton. There's a movement to promote Upton for next year, in which images of her, not belonging to SI, have been distributed on the net and allowed to be used for free, thus getting a grass-roots, inside-the-locker kind of campaign working for her. My guess is that it's more lucrative ( the cover) for American models, due to the language entry point in TV and film, but that's just a guess.

Posted by: michael murray at February 25, 2011 4:48 PM

@Matt--It's the Internet. Once images of beautiful women became readily available, magazine like SI, Playboy and such became big, lumbering beasts that couldn't keep up with the lightning fast, ever multiplying creatures of the Internet.

Posted by: michael murray at February 25, 2011 4:50 PM

Stump - yeah, I know. Doesn't change the fact that Brooklyn Decker has a gorgeous smile, and we get to see a lot more of it than most model's smiles. I was referring to liking her aesthetically, as all I know about her is that she's hot and has a great smile.

Posted by: GwenBear at February 25, 2011 5:06 PM

I once read that in sperm banks and fertility clinics, where men are not only encouraged to masturbate but required to do so, the most-requested spank material, by far, is the SI swimsuit issue. I'm not sure why but I think it has something to do with the wee little details that are still covered up and thus left to the imagination.

Posted by: Jerce at February 25, 2011 7:25 PM

Stump,

Yeah, I know it's not the models. But given the trend in the way the editors pick them, I doubt the shooters are out there going, "C'mon, honey, give me your GREAT BIG SMILE!" because that's not what's selling now. For reasons I don't quite get.

I don't think the VS models are that hot at all, mainly because they're trying way way way too hard to be super sexy, and pretty much expressionless; they're just human mannequins.

The SI girls (generally) look hot because they're not trying nearly so hard. They look more like girls you'd actually have a chance with, and WANT to have a chance with.

Heh-heh, he said "hard."

Posted by: , at February 26, 2011 12:03 AM

Stump, you're obviously right that the model doesn't pick the photo that makes it on the ad campaign/catalog/magazine/cover, but that wasn't the point. And as , states, it goes with the trends. I mean, growing up in the 80s, I remember that all of the SI models had great, big, beautiful smiles -- Kathy Ireland, Elle McPherson, Christie Brinkley -- which were as important as their boobs or their legs. By the 90s, much of that was gone.

It is surprising though that so few of them do smile. Maybe it's down to the demands of the editors. If so, it makes no sense.

Posted by: Fredo at February 26, 2011 10:46 AM

These girls are very cute. But that's the problem for me, they're girls. I like the wimmens.

Posted by: logan at February 26, 2011 1:15 PM