Real working female aquatic athletes. The type that don't get into magazines.
Every February, the nation's premier sporting magazine takes a diversion from its declared mission and stoops to publish an issue that is supposedly dedicated to swimwear, but in reality reflects the truly chauvinistic world in which that particular issue first appeared, which I think would have been sometime during the late 1960s. At that time, the journal created by that certain ossified creep who devoted his life towards enslaving women via images towards once single purpose, under the guise of making taking those publications out of the gutter and into the grocery store rack, had reached its zenith and achieved, briefly, that image of respectability to which it aspired, just shortly before the rising power of women in society, combined with a race back into the gutter in order to compete with copy cats, sank it back down.
In that era of the approximate late 60s and early 70s, however, the sporting magazine determined to tap into the same low stream with their annual issue that came close to what that other glossy rag offered, but with its subjects still clothed, albeit only barely. In a true irony, however, the ossified creep's rag, which has caused untold damage to the image of women, and which is partially responsible for a trend which has been ironically shown to frustrate that basic impulse in men, because of the neurological and psychological damage the massive exposure of what it ultimately helped to get rolling on the Internet causes, has in desperation required its subjects to put their clothes back on, albeit only barely, while the sporting journal has gone the other way, with some if its models now clothed, if you will, only in paint. That's a farce, obviously, but apparently its a sufficient farce that they've managed even to entice some real stand out female athletes to participate in this, with those athletes apparently ignorant as to how and why the male viewers actually view their images. Sad situation
If this turn of events was pioneered today, i.e., if the sporting magazine introduced an issue like this today, it'd be justly howled down in derision. But instead the February issue has become a big issue for it and has spawned a calendar that's also a big deal. It has garnered increasing criticism over the years, but it keeps on keeping on nonetheless.
And this year, I'd note, it did receive some criticism, and that's what this comment is about.
But it's not the criticism I've levied above. Indeed, I'm slightly defending a decision it made this year, ironically enough.
This year one of the subject of the photographs is in the "plus" category, which sort of simply means big, or what passes for big.
Now, there's been a recent trend in this direction in modeling anyhow. And frankly, the trend is sort of balkanized, which doesn't seem to feature much in the news stories on it. We have plus figures who are truly fat now being portrayed in this industry, with it being advanced that they should not be ashamed of their size, and we have some women who are simply big.
Now, before I get howls of derision, I'm not stating here some sort of moral position on being fat. I'm not fat, but I'm also not thin, and I could afford to drop a few pounds myself. While in our secular yet Puritanized society being overweight takes on a moral stigma with some people, for no really good reason. And indeed the more we know about it, the more we know that with some people this is simply due to a genetic propensity they have to deal with. And for others it reflects the living and dietary conditions most Americans deal with. By the same token, however, being overweight now afflicts such a high percentage of Americans that there is a certain recent trend towards trying to ignore it a public presentation sort of way, which includes some of what we've above mentioned. Again, I'm not going to really comment on that other than to note that I suspect, in a society so afflicted with the behavior noted in Fairlie's The Cow's Revenge that I doubt that's going anywhere.
Anyhow, what actually wanted to comment on here was the fact that women, like men, are sometimes big, and that's just that. This year the above mentioned journal has a woman in the issue who is big. As in tall and normally proportioned.
Good for them on that.
Now, the logical question would be how do I know that, and the reason is that even though I don't get any sporting journals, or even read the sports page of the local newspaper, the female residents of the house sometimes buy a weekly journal devoted to personalities, and that showed up there. They noted it. And frankly the subject of those photos looks to be athletic and normal, based upon the few, and decent, photos that showed up of her in that magazine.
So, when I heard on the news that one of the prior models from this issue dating back to the 1970s or maybe the 1980s had criticized this issue for including this individual in the magazine and apparently on one of the covers, I was surprised and a bit taken aback.
While I think the entire issue ought to be dumped, and I think it's appalling that real athletes are now included in it attired only in paint, which means not at all, I also think its high time that women don't have to have the industry image of beauty resemble sticks.
That might be something that's actually dawning on women themselves, and the more power to them if it is. An oddity of this is that for years and years that's been what the industry has done, and women have bought off on that image, but men never have. Indeed, the fact that the figures of this journal who became well known often didn't rally match that image says something. And the former figure of the photos who issued the criticism on the basis that the photos depicted something that was encouraging an unhealthy lifestyle ought to back off. To be overweight is one thing, and everyone is well aware of the risks associated with that. To be big is another, and that's just the way some people are. Indeed, most people aren't built like sticks.
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