The Crotch Shot Heard 'Round the World

Lindsey Vonn has posed for ESPN The Magazine dressed, for some reason, as Sharon Stone from "Basic Instinct."Making her absolutely the first second woman in the last ten years to pose in a swimsuit for Sports Illustrated AND disguised as Catherine Tramell for another magazine.

Behold, Heidi Klum in GQ, 2002.For reference, here's the real deal.(What, do they not make this model of chair anymore?)

How Did I Miss This Story?

Jessica White was arrested for assault last month.

Jessica White is awesome. While other models have come and gone, she has quietly become a swimsuit veteran, appearing in seven issues over eight years (2003-2005 and 2007-2010). That’s longer than any current model. (Not a single one of Jessica’s fellow models from 2003—or 2004—appeared in 2010. The next year to feature any current girls was 2005, which brought us Daniella Sarahyba and Anne V.)

In the process, she’s been in no fewer than three bodypainting scenarios.
2004
2005
2009
It’s almost jarring to go back and look through some older pics, flipping through the likes of Audrey Quock and Isabeli Fontana and May Andersen and Melissa Keller, thinking that 2003 and 2004 were ancient history, and suddenly there’s a picture of Jessica White, looking incredibly young:



But I have to say, I think she’s sexier now.
Damn.
She’s lost the girlishness. This is a woman.
Damn.
She also was one of the Triumvirate of Jessicas in 2009, along with Gomes and Hart.

Here are the other two, safely contained in one photo from Complex.com, so as not to inspire White’s wrath by pulling too much focus.Because you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a beatdown from—wait a second.

Look at those arms.How could “lacerations, swelling and substantial pain” come from those skinny breadsticks Jessica is using as arms?

The defense rests, your honor.

Vote Hilary in 2011

The swimsuit issue Facebook page made a big deal the other day about revealing who one of the 2011 models would be. Readers were invited to guess at who she was based on this photo:
Later, the answer was revealed: Hilary Rhoda:
It will be her third year, and I’m happy she’s back. She’s gorgeous. She’s a worthy successor to that Carol Alt dark-hair-blue-eyes look.Gosh.
She also has something else to recommend her. And it isn’t just the fact that her name looks like someone tried to spell the name of the Secretary of State and got bored halfway through.

I have a thing for women with their legs together. I can’t fully explain it, but I think it has something to do with how feminine a pose it is. I particularly like when a woman is standing with her legs straight and crossed over each other.

It’s a pose that Hilary has perfected.I fully expect to see more of this pose come February.
“The power is yours Hilary. Use it wisely.”

I Will Never Make Out With Brooklyn Decker or Jennifer Aniston

But Adam Sandler? You go right ahead sir.

A trailer for his new movie, "Just Go With It," starring this bikini:
Also, "My Name Is Jessica Gomes TWO"?! Maybe she is promoting herself, just in Korea.

One in a Brazilian

Beyoncé may or may not be pregnant.

This Schrödinger's cat of a baby has a passing brush with the subject matter of this blog, as its possible mother was the swimsuit issue cover girl back in 2007. Count me as one of those people who thought the choice was kind of lame.

Make no mistake, she rocks a bikini. And as I’ve stated, I don’t mind when non-models find their way into the issue. But the cover? That’s for models. This cover, as pretty as it is, was when the swimsuit issue jumped the shark.

But I’m not deeply offended or anything, It’s bikini girls, not adaptations of great works of literature. Beyoncé and SI got some mutual publicity, and the viewing public got to see this:The following year, we got Marisa, and the world continued on its way.

All this is an awkward lead-in to a discussion of Daniella Sarahyba. She is pregnant, if in fact she hasn’t had her baby yet. I found this out through the Twittersphere and was kind of sad, because it meant most likely we won’t see her in the 2011 swimsuit issue.

Daniella took a while to grow on me. The first thing to jump out at me in her first appearance back in 2005 was her shoulders. They’re very broad.This was useful when she had a KISS t-shirt painted onto her in 2007. Joanne Gair needed room for four faces.But my initial impression was that they gave her a masculine appearance that I found somewhat unattractive. I dismissed her as one of those models who would appear in an issue or two and be forgotten.

But she stuck around, and gradually I noticed my affection for her. She’s so happy.

Nearly every photo features a big, toothy smile:
…or a warm, flirty grin:
…or a giant rictus of joy: While other models spend most of their time glowering or pouting or staring down the camera, Daniella’s face nearly always declares, “I love being naked!” Her smile is presided over by two warm Brazilian eyes and surrounded by a freaking magnificent head of hair.

There’s a moment in this 2007 video that sums her up nicely. As a Brazilian, she likes her bikinis miniscule. In discussing the ones she’s been wearing on the shoot, she says:

- - - - - “I love Brazilian bathing suits … because they are like, they have like, small cuts, you know, makes nice body to Brazilian women. (giggle) I’m sure you guys like it too!”
- - - - -
It warms my heart to know that there are women out there who know I’m looking and seem tickled by that.

For some reason, I recently asked myself if there was an SI model I’d consider “cute.” Sultry, sexy, pretty, pixieish—those adjectives find their way to models pretty easily. But “cute” eluded me until I thought of Daniella.

I leave you with this photo, also from 2007.On the left is Ana Beatriz Barros, her sultry smirk practically daring you to look at her. On the right is Fernanda Motta, exuding her beatific smolder.

And in the center, with her arms around them in warm, naked-girl camaraderie, is Daniella. Her shoulders broad, her smile wide, her bikini negligible.

I’m going to miss her in 2011.

Bottom Out

Every swimsuit issue has a handful of topless pics, wherein the breasts are covered by the model’s hands, a prop, or a well-placed obstacle.And with surprising regularity, a swimsuit issue will present to you a model who’s completely naked, twisting her body to hide from you that which must be hidden.But in all my years of flipping through swimsuit issues, I have happened across only two photos of models who are wearing tops but not bottoms. And they are the aforementioned Tori Praver (2008) and Melissa Haro (2009).Thank you ladies, from the bottom of my heart.


UPDATE: Add Ana Paula Araujo to the list.

UPDATE #2: And Chrissy Teigen.

UPDATE #3: And Nina Agdal.

UPDATE #4: And Kate Bock, Chanel Iman, Hailey Clauson, and Rose Bertram.

UPDATE #5: And another from Hailey Clauson plus one each from Kate Upton and Samantha Hoopes.

Women in Sports vs. Women in Sports Illustrated

I recently had my beliefs challenged.

Ana Ivanovic, a tennis player who was featured in the 2010 issue, was docked a game because of an unscheduled trip to the bathroom.The problem with this is that it directly contradicts my theory that Sports Illustrated models do not go to the bathroom.

But then I realized—this isn’t a model! This is an athlete! Female athletes have to go to the restroom; it probably helps them play sports, or something. But models? No.

But while we’re on the subject, I’ve always felt the presence of athletes in the swimsuit issue was a bit of a sideshow. More of a gimmick, like 3D. Athlete sexy is different from model sexy. It’s cool and novel to see athletes disrobe for cheesecake shots, and they look great. But all else being equal, I’d rather look at the models than the athletes, even the sexpot athletes like your Jennie Finches and your Maria Sharapovas.I do wonder if including athletes is a way for SI to defend themselves against charges of sexism.

Hear me out.

Billie Jean King once said, “Women should stop screaming about that one issue and start screaming that Sports Illustrated doesn't carry enough women's sports. That's what's important. That's what's sexist." Obviously, putting them in bikinis isn’t going to count as covering women’s sports. But maybe it’s easier finding a few female athletes willing to pose as a way of de-stigmatizing the issue. “Lindsey Vonn doesn’t have a problem with the swimsuit issue. Why should you?”

Speaking of Lindsey Vonn, there was an uproar in certain circles when she appeared on this cover:…with some critics even postulating that Vonn didn’t know what the cover would look like ahead of time and was therefore being sexually exploited.

It must have been a bit of a mixed bag of emotions a half a week later when the swimsuit issue came out, and there was Vonn in all her pinup glory.On one hand, those who felt she was being objectified probably had their opinions reinforced. On the other hand, people who assumed she’d be horrified at the thought of being featured in a sexy manner probably had to recalibrate their responses a little.

By no means am I suggesting that putting female athletes in bathing suits is an adequate way to address the dearth of coverage of women’s sports. Only that it might be disarming. If you’re offended on behalf of, say, Venus and Serena Williams, it might take the wind out of your sails when they go ahead and pose.In this interview with Misty May and Kerri Walsh, the interviewer asks if the bikinis that beach volleyball players wear are merely decorational. Walsh replies:
- - - - - No, not by any means. I think it's part of the alluring part of our sport, which is women in bikinis, but on the flip side of that, we need to be wearing bikinis. You don't want to be wearing baggy clothes and be lost in your clothes.
- - - - -
So there are plenty of female athletes who are comfortable with sex symbol status. (Ironically, neither May nor Walsh has ever posed for SI, despite the fact that their sports uniform is a bikini. Maybe the bikinis render posing moot; any SI issue they’re in will automatically feature a swimsuit spread.)As to the question of covering women’s sports… Well, this blog is about the swimsuit issue, so it might not be the right forum. But I do think SI should make more efforts.

The problem is public interest. Fair or not, women’s sports aren’t as popular with spectators. The Chicago Bulls will always sell more issues than the Chicago Sky. SI’s job is to sell magazines, not to fight for gender equity. Is there a chicken-and-egg thing going on? Maybe more coverage would spawn more interest and vice-versa? I don’t know. I don’t even buy the issues with the Bulls on the cover, so I’m not the person to ask.

But if there were a section in every issue or two dedicated to female athletes, that might be a start. Or, I know that when you subscribe you can opt out of the swimsuit issue, so maybe the replacement issue could be dedicated to women? (That might create its own problems, setting it up as a choice between respecting women and ogling them. I don’t think those activities are mutually exclusive.)

Anyway, I’m just spitballing. The point is, a more overt focus on women in sports would address the problem head-on, and I think a lot of women might stop railing against the swimsuit issue as hard.

(Although to be honest, you hardly hear anyone rail against the swimsuit issue anymore. Maybe it’s too tame, too much of an institution, or too much white noise. Matters for future posts, I suppose.)

And Ivanovic: Go easy on the yogurt.