SI: At it Again! – take action!

By: American Decency Staff

Riddle me this, Batman:  What is a magazine without articles, sports without athletes, swimsuits without cloth? 

The answer of course, The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition – a magazine filled with pictures of female models, in pornographic poses, often wearing no swimsuit at all.

Last week the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine hit the newsstands.  For this “50^th anniversary” of SI’s swimsuit edition, the magazine chose three models posing provocatively together for the coveted cover photo.  In a flurry of media hype designed to sell the magazine, the cover models made the rounds to various television morning shows and media outlets to gush about how honored they were to be chosen for the “esteemed” cover; how appearing in this magazine was so “empowering” for women. 

However, to make the cover of this “empowering” magazine, these models had to pose topless and basically bottomless.   The magazine cover is so explicit, even NBC’s Today Show couldn’t show the cover without obscuring the nudity.

In an article for The Christian Post about the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, James Denison writes:  “… the magazine is part of a trend that should frighten us all. I recently completed an in-depth study on the issue of pornography in our culture, and was shocked by what I discovered. Forty percent of adults in the U.S. regularly visit porn sites (including 69 percent of men ages 18 to 26); 42.7 percent of all Internet users view porn. About 30 percent of Internet porn consumers are women; 90 percent of children ages 8 to 16 have viewed porn online. Hollywood produces around 400 films a year; the adult film industry produces more than 11,000.

“One expert calls pornography ‘more addictive than crack cocaine.’  It is clearly a problem for Christians: 47 percent of believers and nearly 40 percent of pastors admit to struggling with the issue. …”

And don’t let the name fool you – Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is pornography.  Each year the magazine pushes the envelope further – with more and more pages of erotic photos of nude/partially nude women.

Model Carol Alt, who was featured on the cover Sports Illustrated Swimsuit in 1982 – wearing a one piece swimsuit – told the New York Post that today the SI Swimsuit models are “certainly much sexier.”

According to the New York Post report, Alt believes the magazine would have gotten complaints if models had posed then as they do now on the SI Swimsuit cover. “Today, you can have three girls touching each other and no one says anything,” stated Alt.

Yet this year SI Swimsuit has gone even further – sticking their toe in the water of sexualizing children by featuring a little girl’s toy – a Barbie doll – as one form of suggestive imagery on display in this pornographic magazine.  As one commentator stated:  “It has a distinctive ‘ick’ factor.”

Shira Tarrant, associate professor at University of California also expressed concern about displaying a child’s toy in a sexual magazine, writing:  “It blends an object, a doll, with real women” and “infantilizes” men.    The Barbie image appeared on a handful of covers as a “collector’s item,” but was featured inside all of the SI Swimsuit magazines. 

Click here to send a message to Mattel over their use of their Barbie doll to promote pornography.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine typically sells more than one million copies on newsstands – which doesn’t include subscriptions.  Subscribers have the option of not receiving the Swimsuit edition and instead extend their subscription of the normal Sports Illustrated magazine.  Less than one percent of subscribers do so.

The magazine is empowered by numerous advertisers – many of which follow the theme by placing sexualized ads in the magazine.  In some cases there is little difference between the erotic advertisements and the Sports Illustrated photo displays. 

The worst offenders of corporations using sexually explicit imagery and themes in their ads include:  Dodge Ram, Subway, Target, DirecTV, and Lexus.

Click here to send a message to the corporations that empower SI Swimsuit with their advertisements.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit is most likely on display in a store near you.  I saw it at a local Meijer’s Supermarket – a Midwest store chain portraying itself as a “family” shopping center.  The magazine was displayed in the “Men’s Interest” of the magazine rack with no attempt to cover the pornographic cover and within easy reach of children.

We urge you to speak out against SI Swimsuit magazine in stores where you find it.  Take it to the store manager/owner and express your concern about such material in a family shopping place.  When we step out in weakness but in faith, God often does his best work in us and through us.  Take a stand for righteousness today.

In addition to speaking out in the stores where you shop, also send a message to Meijer Supermarkets here.

————————————————-

To support our efforts please click hereor mail your gift to American Decency Association (ADA), PO Box 202, Fremont, MI 49412.   

 American Decency Association is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

---