Dear Sports Illustrated,
Hey. What’s up? Ok, enough pleasantries. Let’s get down to business.
I hear your newest Swimsuit Issue is going to contain not just scantily clad women in swimwear, but completely naked women covering up their nudey bit with their limbs and “empowering” words written all over them in marker or something. I even hear you let the naked women CHOOSE which words would be emblazoned on their flesh. KUDOS on that one. Super-liberating. The New Yorker says your “In Her Own Words” feature in the softcore porn swimsuit issue is being marketed as “an aesthetic evolution fitting for the #MeToo age,” but I say it’s just another way to try and sell an issue whose sales have been flagging since they advent of constantly available Internet porn.
Well, Sports Illustrated, I’m not buying it, then, now, or ever.
Taking the swimsuits OFF your models and writing words on their bodies like “nurturer” and “creative” doesn’t do much to push forward the idea that women deserve to have their whole persons respected and to be seen as more than sex objects.
You’re part of the problem. You’re in the business of objectifying women, and a naked photo feature within a magazine filled with sexy swimsuit shots and sand-spotted cleavage is a JOKE, and a foolish one at that.
