Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Queue up the fanboys, everyone's favorite soccer starlet has joined the "not really posing in the nude but almost is" club. Alex Morgan, the breakout starlet of the most recent Women's World Cup, has decided to do the whole bodypaint thing for Sports Illustrated's soon-to-be-released swimsuit issue.
You know what? Cool for her. United States teammate Hope Solo managed to pull off essentially posing nude when she was in last year's ESPN Body Issue last year and it seems to have only helped her image. It would be great if we lived in a world where women athletes doing this kind of thing wasn't a big deal, but we do.
Judging from the photo on SI's Hot Clicks, this appears to be in perfectly good taste, even if the idea of putting people in bodypaint is a little 1999 at this point. That said, it's good to see publications like Sports Illustrated and ESPN holding up female athletes as sex symbols, if for no other reason than they are far healthier images than most of their model counterparts.
4 comments
Comments
i have no problem with it
But I’m not buying your progressive read on this. I think most feminists might say that you’re not really helping out the sisters by having a very attractive athlete showing her skin for spank bank purposes. Eventhough I thought the body issues were stupid, they were at least co-ed and more of a celebration of sports physiology.
This is for the much hated (among feminists) swimsuit issue that’s catered to guys looking for SFW playboy alternative.
Like I said, I don’t have a problem with it. But she (and the magazines) certainly aren’t striking a blow for women. Nor did they probably intend to. So lets keep it in perspective.
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 1:45 PM EST via mobile reply actions
What about women who enjoy posing like this?
Or who enjoy this sort of photography? They’re out there and by no means uncommon. The feminists who will condemn this are the same ones who hold back their entire movement, and it makes me sick.
That said, you’re probably right. I doubt this was done with any sort of progressive goals in mind.
Founder and Editor of The Bent Musket on SBNation.
Twitter: @Stoehrst or @TheBentMusket
by Steve Stoehr on Feb 10, 2012 2:37 PM EST up reply actions
I'm just saying
We shouldn’t give these guys a pat on the back for not having anorexic models and instead have very hot lady in nothing but paint selling their magazine to mostly men. She’s not in women’s health or anything.
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 2:53 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
and female athletes have been held up as sex symbols since the 60s
by Mark Mandingo on Feb 10, 2012 2:54 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
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