Sunday, February 14, 1999
Swimsuit issue doesn't mesh with fatherhood
BY TIM SULLIVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is less welcome than it once was at my house. The women are still spectacular. The photography is still exquisite. But the ogling grows more awkward as my daughter grows more inquisitive.
“Is she naked?” Megan wanted to know as I perused Page 88.
Gulp. “Um, yes,” I replied.
“And there's a boy there?” she said, astonished. “Ooooooh.”
Megan is six years old, a master of the mediums of crayons and Play-Doh. She is not yet comfortable with the concept of body painting, the pictorial subject designed to sell magazines and provoke prudes in this year's SI swimsuit extravaganza. To date, Megan's idea of artistic license mainly involves sticking bubble gum in her hair.
I must confess that I like it that way, that I prefer my little girl look forward to Santa Claus rather than puberty. After a lifetime of leering at fabulous babes in skimpy bathing suits, I have reached the age where I have started to wonder what the parents of said babes must think when they find their daughters undraped in national magazines.
Sarah O'Hare is as stunning as a sunset, but our first look at her in the SI swimsuit issue would make Bill Clinton blush. She appears in a tri-fold photograph, covered only by some strategically placed sand. It is a picture worth a thousand words, all of them adjectives.
She is later depicted with a missing top, a see-through bottom, naked but for body paint (and there's a boy there, touching up her torso), and then in another ensemble consisting largely of leaves. Her swimsuit, more often than not, is her birthday suit.
In another section, cover model Rebecca Romijn-Stamos goes the full monty, her swimsuits carefully draped on a clothesline, her bare body only partially hidden by her hands.
Growing curmudgeon
Normally, we wouldn't complain. Some of the most enduring works of art in Western Civilization celebrate the splendor of the female form, notably Botticelli's “Birth of Venus” (1483-84); Goya's “The Naked Maja” (circa 1800); and Hefner's Patti McGuire (Miss November, 1976). Still, a publication that purports to cover sports, that includes children among its subscribers, that is renowned for the grace of its writing and the craft of its camerapeople, should not annually seek to push the envelope of lasciviousness.
Perhaps my concerns are a sign of creeping curmudgeonliness. Perhaps they are simply a reaction to the relentless onslaught of sex and vulgarity in our mainstream media. Subjects considered taboo less than three decades ago are now the staples of daytime talk shows. Suggestive, sophomoric radio stations dominate the dial. (When one local sportscaster asked me what I thought of his show, I told him I turn it off with children in the car. He promised to clean up his language. I promised to keep listening.)
Still, it's a losing battle. As a society, we grow numb to casual crudeness and gratuitous titillation. The networks pander in prime time and we fail to protest. Pornography proliferates on the Internet. In order to compete in a sexually charged marketplace, magazines that were once playful are now increasingly prurient.
“The more paint they slather on Rebecca, the less naked she feels,” writes Austin Murphy of the body painting process. “This casting off of inhibitions occurs with all the models, and is, to my mind, a great thing.”
Sure, I'm jealous. What professional truth seeker worthy of his testosterone would not commit high crimes and misdemeanors for Murphy's assignment? How often does a schlep sportswriter get to cover uncovered supermodels? (Answer: Never. Though the Sugar Bowl comes close.)
Yet there comes a point in most men's lives where dazzling young women cease to see you as a dork and begin to think of you as old enough to be their father. Barring an unexpected liaison with Yasmine Bleeth, I will assume I am past that point. It's time to start acting like a dad.
Enquirer columnist Tim Sullivan welcomes your E-mail. Message him at tsullivan@enquirer.com.
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