Why I'm Glad I'm not a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model

It's old news.  

The 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is out.  If you haven't seen the cover yet, here's a link.  

I KNOW.  

You can stop blinking now.

This yearly special produces a whole lot of saliva production - the cultural/ethnic/feminist critics (rightfully) spitting with rage, and, of course folks of both genders drooling with desire.

It also makes the rest of us mortal women, those who are not interested in bedding a swimsuit model, sneak a peak - almost as though we were seven, and didn't have those parts of our own.  They look so different on 20 year old models!  We start wondering about -- questioning -- our own bodies, not to mention what our lives would be like if we had bodies, faces, hair like these women.  What would have been asked of us?  What choices would we have made?  Would we never have had to buy a meal, drink, car for ourselves? How would the money and fame have changed us?  

Who knows?

But I'll venture to say that I'm glad I'm not one of those swimsuit issue babes

Here's why.  

1.  I don't have to feel responsible for a seasonal epidemic of low female self-esteem, nor am I red meat for the warriors against the patriarchy.

2.  Because people don't automatically assume I'm as intelligent and articulate as a newborn hamster.  

3.  People the world over aren't shaking their parts like a faulty touch mouse while looking at images of me.

4.  Because I am not giving the young, the emotionally unstable and the just plain stupid the idea that a woman who doesn't look like Barbie is a beast.

5. Legions of men so odious they don't deserve the unconditional love of a blow up doll don't get to write trollish Internet comments about my looks and weight. 

6.  Because people don't look at me and think, "Holy crizzap, you look so much better with carefully calibrated lighting and airbrushing!"

7.  I get to wear bathing suits that fit.  No having my size D* melons literally pouring out of a string bikini top made for a toddler.  

8.  Because wearing body paint in public should mean, "I was painting my house and got some spatters on my legs and arms."  Not, "Hey, who needs actual clothes when you can just wear PAINT!" 

9.  Because when I complain about feeling/looking inadequate people don't want to beat me with a tire iron. 

10.  I don't have to have an existential crisis, wondering if in fact I am LESS intelligent than a baby hamster about making millions by being nearly naked in Antarctica , and contracting hypothermia, the effects of which lasted after returning home. 

I have to say, I'm really beside myself over the Antarctica thing. 

Why would anyone do that?  For the modeling challenge?  For the money?  Because you think the effects will be minimal and you don't want to stand up for yourself/seem like a diva?  Because you think that if you are making money you are not being taken advantage of - that it's the classic who's exploiting whom argument?  

I would love to know her "thought process."

This is a disturbing new low for SI, but I'm not sure who is more insane -- the magazine for asking, or the model for accepting.  But I shouldn't judge. I like to think I'd kick whoever asked me so hard he'd wish himself in Antarctica to ice off his man parts. But if I were an on-the-rise, ambitious model, would I be able refuse such an offer?  Glad I don't have to decide. 

What would make me feel a hell of a lot better though, would be if we could get The Onion to do an undershirt and shorts South Pole photo shoot of Todd Akin.  In the winter.  Then I could put my bullhorn in my soapbox and walk happily home.  

*For the record, I do not have size D melons. With some extra string in the back, I am a candidate for that toddler bikini top.