S.I. no longer P.I.

UncleScoopy


There have always been places where men and boys have to sit and wait, like the dentist’s office, or the old-fashioned barber shop. Only one thing made these waits tolerable. Buried under piles of magazines like US, Highlights for Children, and 51 dog-eared S.I. issues about regattas and tennis, there was a copy of a true American treasure: the Swimsuit Edition. It was marketed with some flim-flam about fitness or buying swimware for our wives, but we knew that the editors delivered that pretext with a wink and a nudge. Its true purpose was to give us an opportunity to ogle fantasy women in a respectable publication that you would not be embarrassed to read in public, even while sitting next to your minister. In this innocent context could you gaze at beautiful, unspoiled, unattainable young women, their supermodel bodies clad only in the scantiest of outfits. Sometimes they wore no outfits at all, but simply strutted around naked, their exposure disguised by a coat of paint so thin that its only purpose was to prevent our dentist’s receptionist from tossing the issue away in disgust.

Like many other great ogling traditions, its time has passed. The women no longer have to be young, or natural, or in possession of supermodel perfection. Your granny could make the edition now, maybe even the cover. Ditto the cousin that your mom always called “big-boned,” and praised for her personality. Ditto that kinda-cute Starbucks barista you dated once or twice, until you realized she had foul coffee breath, bad implants, and tattoos of weapons.

The models are no longer unattainable fantasy women of the sort that can only be bedded by men with Brad Pitt looks and/or Jeff Bezos bankrolls. In coarse terms, the S.I. Swimsuit Edition is filled with women that even internet schmucks like us, if we put in the time and resources, could actually fuck.

And that, in many ways, represents the collapse of the last, best pillar of the mighty temple of Western Civilization that was so painstakingly constructed by lustful architects from Homer to Hefner.

28 thoughts on “S.I. no longer P.I.”

  1. Well done liberals. Once again denying opportunity to those who deserve it in the name of inclusiveness. Goodbye SI Swimsuit issue. Go woke, go broke. Beautiful people everywhere should sue for discrimination.

    1. Non sequiturs aside illogically bringing politics into every discussion. Damn you must be a miserable person!

      Yielding back the balance of my time …

        1. Let the record show Steverino doesn’t disagree he’s a miserable person! The truth shall set you free!

          1. “Inclusiveness” is a liberal social construct. Unfortunately for liberals, no matter how much they want to promote 300lb unhealthy women as being, “beautiful”, “empowered” and “comfortable In their own skin”, they will never have the biological sexual appeal of beautiful women. I have no clue who SI’s target audience is these days but it’s obviously not heterosexual males. Other fat, ugly women maybe? Gays? Good luck with that.

          2. I kinda-sorta agree with you. Liberals are doing overweight people a great disservice by telling them to be comfortable with their size. Being overweight is unhealthy, takes years off your life, strains your body, and restricts your physical mobility. The place where you and I differ is that my position has nothing to do with standards of beauty.

            But …

            Being overweight also affects how people think of you. The god’s honest truth is that overweight people would be happier if they were the right weight, because other people would look at them differently. For years I didn’t give a hoot about weighing 230+ because I was active and could still enjoy sports. When I went to Norway, I started exercising and dieting just because I was bored and didn’t know anyone in a foreign country, and I thought I would try to take advantage of my free time and free gym membership to be healthier. I had always been perfectly content in the 230 range, but when I got down to about 180, my whole life changed. People looked at me in a whole different light. Men paid more attention when I gave a presentation. I never had to approach a woman again, because they took the initiative to get to know me. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as being constantly hit on by women. I had never known that life worked like that, and I was thrilled to be re-educated.

            Yes, that is all shallow, but the reality is that we live in a superficial world.

            So I say to overweight people: lose the damned weight. Not because you don’t look good. That has nothing to do with it. Lose the weight for your health – but … you will absolutely get ancillary benefits. Not only will you live longer, but those years will be more enjoyable as well.

          3. Just a general thought ~ the current conservative meme/motto nowadays is live free or die meaning no personal responsibility. Although cons messaging changes so frequently it’s hard to keep up. Many Republicans having no use for Trump right up to the point he got elected notwithstanding. btw, one of my current fav words is kowtow. 😮

            Indeed, mixed messages rule the day! ymmv

            Again, all I ask for is consistency …

        2. Or as one warped individual once put it, everything comes down to
          кто кого?, kto kogo?
          Right, Vladimir?
          As usual, you are spectacularly and completely full of shit.

    2. Hey, call me crazy, but I feel that the beautiful people will somehow be just fine.

      They always are.

    3. SI’s gone to hell in more regards than the Swimsuit Issue, which I pretty much agree with you on. Been a pretty continuous subscriber for 50+ years but the only thing keeping me with them are the baseball writers. If Verducci or Emma from Cleveland ever leave, I’m out of there.
      The Athletic is probably the only good sports site left. Maybe they could do a swimsuit issue with Ken Rosenthal (let’s hope not).

      1. Two things that SI has done wrong with the swimsuit issue, that have nothing to do with the weight of the cover model.
        First, they started having multiple covers. There’s supposed to be one, and only one, cover model per year. Spreading the wealth dilutes the honor.
        Worse, since 2019 they release the swimsuit issue basically whenever they get around to it. It’s supposed to be February. Everybody knows that.
        As for the notion that men have never regarded large women as sexually attractive: the Venus of Willendorf. (OK, it was 25,000 years ago, but still.)

  2. I mean, to each their own – I think Yumi Nu is the hottest of the four there.

    But also, it’s not like they stopped including standard supermodels – people have differing tastes, so why not mix it up with other types of models while keeping the old standards in as part of it?

    1. Agreed on both points. And I still love to check out the “standard” supermodels like Kate Bock, Josephine Skriver, Haley Kalil, and Lais Ribeiro, who all posed for SI in 2021. Oh, and Camille Kostek.

    2. “Yumi Nu is the hottest of the four there.”

      Yes, and Shemp had the nicest hair among the stooges, but nobody ever confused him with Errol Flynn.

  4. In a *handbasket*, I tells ya!!

    Might as well give the country back to the indigenous peoples!

    1. There’s no such thing as “indigenous people”, unless you are talking about a small town in Ethiopia. Almost every sovereign country in the world exists because of conquest of one people or another. Only the United States liberals seem to be bothered by this. I don’t see the Brit’s crying because they kicked out the Picts

    2. Let’s be honest: the Swimsuit Issue hasn’t been relevant for a couple of decades, at least. The cache it once had is that you couldn’t see supermodels in skimpy bathing suits on a regular basis, so it was event. Now anyone with a web browser can see that in a whim, and much more.

      Like many other things, the Internet made the sublime into the ordinary.

  5. Last year they had Trans-people in the Swimsuit edition. Didn’t buy it last year, not buying it this year.

    Only way to get it back to the way it used to be is through the bottom-line, $$$.

  6. This is all part of a master plan so that we won’t care as much when when Russia launches the nukes!

    At first when I looked at the picture I thought there where two of Kim K. with the one on the right just being a straight on frontal without her posing or photoshopped.

    1. Alas, the fappening will have to suffice. btw, Natalie Coughlin looks nice in her birthday suit! Ditto Lindsey Vonn.

      1. Did you mean nicola coughlin? And where can one view that?

        Because Natalie Coughlin is, like, 11.

          1. There’s another Natalie Coughlin, actress, who’s 11.

            You can tell I’m not into sports. Google turned up the 11yo and then a “did you mean Nicola?” and hot damn do I love me some Nicola.

  8. Musing philosophical notwithstanding try to muddle through somehow. Maybe surfing the interwebs … or not. Actually the end of civilization occurred when Bob Barker was bounced from Miss America pageant. 😛

    One of the first expressions learned after joining the USN ~ 200 years of tradition unhampered by progress! 😮 Now 246.

    Things change …

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