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 ports Illustrated's
swimsuit issue is a ritual of the American mid-winter, more predictable
than Punxsutawney
Phil, more tacky than the Grammys. It is a sell-out on the newsstands,
it is an MTV special, it is a swaggering, high-fiving conversation
round the office water cooler. The whole spectacle is also a national
embarrassment, a shaming carnival that degrades its participants
and humiliates the rest of their gender. I refer, of course, to
men.
Guys, can we all calm down? The swimsuit issue is terminally tame,
grotesquely genteel, incorrigibly coy. Amy, Heidi, Molly, and the
rest of them are just Gibson Girls with fewer clothes, wholesomely
sexy, obscenely unobtainable. Noting the proliferation of far more
overtly sexual imagery all over today's America, NRO's Dave
Shiflett commented that the publication of the swimsuit issue
should generate about as much excitement "as the arrival of a can
of Miller Lite at the Jack Daniels Distillery."
It is a logical conclusion, and yet it is not the case. Miller time,
it seems, is still a big deal. The swimsuit issue sells 4.5 million
copies. This makes it the largest-selling edition of any magazine
in the country.
So is this, as it seems, yet another example of the transformation
of the American man into the sort of feeble creature traditionally
seen when Alan Alda is on television? Has the old wolf been house-trained,
changed into a lap dog able only to respond to the call of the mild?
Perhaps. The fact that this year's issue features an ad warning
that "one in five victims of osteoporosis is male" is not encouraging.
Say what you want, but that is an old-lady disease, at least until
the time that I am in a plaster cast.
Fortunately, there is another explanation for the success of the
swimsuit issue, one that may allow the male sex to salvage at least
some self-respect. Could it be that in the Flynt era the peekaboo
unavailability of the SI model carries its own, genuine,
erotic punch? If you live in the distillery, maybe Miller Lite is
an exciting and refreshing sensation after all.
Certainly it seems that SI's publishers understand this.
Yes, it is true that of the roughly 75 swimsuit photographs, about
a
| “The
women of America should be thrilled.” |
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fifth are topless (it was a tough job researching this article),
but the nation's nipple mavens will be disappointed. Decency is
defended by a series of strategically placed arms, couches, towels,
beads, seaweed, and NFL players. Clinging wet shirts prove a little
less effective despite a number of brave attempts.
On the whole, however, what SI is marketing, and, clearly,
very successfully, is an image of "don't touch" perfection, something
that would be damaged by the removal of that last, tantalizing scrap
of gauze. These are not the girls next door of the centerfold mags.
Even the photo locations are far away, Tunisia, Italy, Macedonia,
Siegfried and Roy's house. For anyone who actually reads it, the
text of the magazine reinforces this message of distance between
the model and the, er, watcher.
In one article, "The Babe Goddesses," the writer compares these
women to the deities of antiquity (there is a vaguely Mediterranean
theme throughout the issue). He is no Homer, but the warning is
clear, "Every red-blooded Greek and Roman stud...knew that goddesses,
however desirable, were off-limits."
So we are left with two interpretations. The men of America either
no longer know what good pornography is, or they have rediscovered
the appeal of elusiveness. Either way, the women of America should
be thrilled. They are not.
Reacting to the swimsuit issue with their customary good humor,
feminists call each year for boycotts and protests. When it comes
to ocean-shore beauty, they are on a mission — to bring an
end to it. To the folks at Americans for Fair Sports Journalism
"the message of the swimsuit issue is that no matter what women
may accomplish in their lives, they ultimately exist to sexually
entertain men." Ah yes, that message. To Laurel Davis, authoress
of The Swimsuit Issue and Sport; Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports
Illustrated, the magazine is able to attract buyers "by creating
a climate of hegemonic masculinity." This is not, we are led to
believe, a good thing.
Mind you, Ms. Davis, an associate professor at Springfield College,
Massachusetts, who cites her professional interests as "sports,
media, race, gender, class, and sexual orientation," understands
that blanket condemnation is not always the correct response. There
was, for example, the Tyra Banks crisis. Ms. Banks, who is African-American,
graced the cover of the issue a few years back. Was this a good
thing or bad? Should SI be an equal-opportunity exploiter?
Speaking to the Boston Globe at the time, the associate professor
seemed to sit on the fence, "It was both somewhat positive and somewhat
critiquable."
The problem with this sort of talk, however, is that is not confined
to academia. The idiocy of ivory-tower feminism has long since escaped
into the suburbs, where its poisonous sense of entitlement, sexual
paranoia, and deep, deep puritanism has found a natural, and receptive,
audience. The viewers of TV's Lifetime now believe that they know
that "objectification" is another male crime to be condemned alongside
the rapes, infidelity, murders, and child abuse that are the staple
of their channel's entertainment.
In such an environment, it can be no surprise that the soccer matriarchy
now takes a very dim view of the SI girls. To see this, you
only had to look at the disgusted expression on the face of a very
different goddess, Katie Couric, during a recent edition of NBC's
Today Show. What was wrong? Had someone lit a cigarette?
Was Bob Dole in the room? No, it was something even worse. Prim
Katie was having to introduce a segment on the swimsuit issue. A
cringing Matt Lauer looked apologetic: he felt the Couric pain.
So who was left to defend the spot, and, with a benign chuckle,
hint that, why yes, he was looking forward to seeing the models?
Step forward Al Roker, weatherman and sage, a suitably safe figure
to handle this toxic topic.
What a sad state of affairs. Checking out a pretty girl, across
a room, or on a page, is one of the oldest, and more harmless, of
masculine pleasures. Let's face it, men do have an interest in the
visual (although the idea that women do not is, I suspect, a myth
passed around to reassure the beer belly and Rogaine set). The usual
argument that such an interest is evidence of emotional retardation
or a desire to turn women into objects is, to borrow the language
of the sociology faculty, nothing more than an intolerant assault
on the nature of male sexuality. The attack on SI's lissome
lovelies is part of this process. It is yet another reminder that
live and let live is not an acceptable option to the feminist militants
who are setting far too much of this country's agenda.
And that looks a lot like hegemony to me.
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