Two-Pièce de Résistance: All-Star Cover Girls, 2006

I know I’m on record saying that more than two girls in a single photo is overkill. But …

Photo: Raphael Mazzucco

This one is different. These girls aren’t posing. They’re standing around in an unguarded moment. Some them seem to be laughing at a comment one of them made. They’re not twisting their bodies or finding their light or trying to tilt their “best sides” to the camera. They’re just … kind of … standing there. Being beautiful.

This particular shot is from Mazzucco’s book Exposure. The shoot is full of sultry, posed shots: one girl, two girls, all eight girls, purring at the camera, lounging on the sand, resting their bodies upon other bodies. “Heaven” is a great title for Walter Iooss Jr.’s swimsuit book, but it might even be more appropriate for Mazzucco’s. The fact that they’re all in white lends it an extra sense of eternal paradise.

I mean, good lord.

There’s something I find amazing about multi-girl shoots that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before.

Sara and Gigi, Julie and Jessica, Angie and Rebecca, Ashley and everyone — each girl knows she’s not only offering up her body as a male fantasy, she’s also allowing herself to be half that male fantasy. She’s collaborating with another model, knowing she won’t even be the exclusive focus of the male gaze. It’s that “objectification” thing I keep trying to describe (without sounding like a creep) — but multiplied.

Even now, after decades of looking at the swimsuit issue, I still have this joyful bewilderment that the models are okay with us looking. It’s that “permission” I’ve mentioned before. Every time a model in an interview makes some fun, winking, giggly reference to how small her swimsuit is, or how much skin she’s exposing, it brings a smile to my face. And here we have eight smiling models, all in on it together.