Although we are in 2017, a 'sports' magazine still fills the lull between the superbowl and baseball season with an entire issue of photos of female models in bikinis. The link with sports is not evident.
I can't remember the last time I wore a swimsuit to the beach. I'm not alone. According to a 2009 survey by that most prestigious of sources, the Tesco supermarket, almost one-third of women say that wearing a swimsuit is what they dread most about their holiday. One in eight won't go to the beach or poolside; one in ten avoids going on holiday at all. Nearly half of all swimwear purchased is never worn.
The bikini has become associated with confidence. The models in the swimsuit issue are not demure or even coquettish any more. They look right into the camera, or are completely oblivious to it, absorbed in the gorgeous landscape, the sensuous ocean, the playful labour of selling a dream. My body would desecrate that landscape. Paradise (I tell myself as I look at this representation of it) is conditioned by my absence from it.
Which comes first: the sleek, tanned, slender body, or the confidence to display it?
Ten percent of Sports Illustrated's annual budget is spent on the swimsuit issue. It reaches more young men (aged 18-34) than the superbowl. It is the subject of an absurd marketing drive which seeks, in annoyingly teasy terms, to tickle the fancy of its audience before the release date. Who will be the cover girl this year?
Between 2000 and 2011, a woman was the main attraction on the cover of just 30 of Sports Illustrated's 728 issues. The swimsuit issue accounted for 12 of them.
Men act; women appear.
Perhaps no other item of clothing has become as aggressive to (white?) women's body image as the swimsuit. The sidebar of shame frequently trails its non-stories of celebrity bikini mishaps with the adjective 'unforgiving'. So many things can look wrong, so much of us can get exposed. All of the toxic pressures on women to fit in to the ideals of the supermodel and the beauty contestant materialise in that dispiriting moment, there behind the curtain in the dingy nook of a high street retailer, when we try on a swimsuit.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
For a moment I am picturing the model from the tropical island, lips parted, her defiant gaze beaming at me from the changing room mirror. Own your body, she whispers. Be confident. Be yourself. Because you're worth it. Or some such platitude.
So I swing my body around, draw in my shoulders, open out my fingers and rest them on my hip. I look fucking massive.
I'm reminded of the time I played racketball on a crowded beach against an older woman I did not know. She was heavy-set and a bit wrinkly, but agile and relentless. I could tell she'd been a sporty person in her day. I wore my usual vest top and jean shorts, she was in nothing but a silver thong. She beat me handily. But nobody got to watch my arse wobble all over the place, so I felt like the real winner.
If Sports Illustrated has taught me one thing, it's that proficiency counts for nothing.
I can't remember the last time I wore a swimsuit to the beach. I'm not alone. According to a 2009 survey by that most prestigious of sources, the Tesco supermarket, almost one-third of women say that wearing a swimsuit is what they dread most about their holiday. One in eight won't go to the beach or poolside; one in ten avoids going on holiday at all. Nearly half of all swimwear purchased is never worn.
The bikini has become associated with confidence. The models in the swimsuit issue are not demure or even coquettish any more. They look right into the camera, or are completely oblivious to it, absorbed in the gorgeous landscape, the sensuous ocean, the playful labour of selling a dream. My body would desecrate that landscape. Paradise (I tell myself as I look at this representation of it) is conditioned by my absence from it.
Which comes first: the sleek, tanned, slender body, or the confidence to display it?
Ten percent of Sports Illustrated's annual budget is spent on the swimsuit issue. It reaches more young men (aged 18-34) than the superbowl. It is the subject of an absurd marketing drive which seeks, in annoyingly teasy terms, to tickle the fancy of its audience before the release date. Who will be the cover girl this year?
Between 2000 and 2011, a woman was the main attraction on the cover of just 30 of Sports Illustrated's 728 issues. The swimsuit issue accounted for 12 of them.
Men act; women appear.
Perhaps no other item of clothing has become as aggressive to (white?) women's body image as the swimsuit. The sidebar of shame frequently trails its non-stories of celebrity bikini mishaps with the adjective 'unforgiving'. So many things can look wrong, so much of us can get exposed. All of the toxic pressures on women to fit in to the ideals of the supermodel and the beauty contestant materialise in that dispiriting moment, there behind the curtain in the dingy nook of a high street retailer, when we try on a swimsuit.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.
For a moment I am picturing the model from the tropical island, lips parted, her defiant gaze beaming at me from the changing room mirror. Own your body, she whispers. Be confident. Be yourself. Because you're worth it. Or some such platitude.
So I swing my body around, draw in my shoulders, open out my fingers and rest them on my hip. I look fucking massive.
I'm reminded of the time I played racketball on a crowded beach against an older woman I did not know. She was heavy-set and a bit wrinkly, but agile and relentless. I could tell she'd been a sporty person in her day. I wore my usual vest top and jean shorts, she was in nothing but a silver thong. She beat me handily. But nobody got to watch my arse wobble all over the place, so I felt like the real winner.
If Sports Illustrated has taught me one thing, it's that proficiency counts for nothing.
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