I consider myself to be fairly liberal, but I think this cover is too much. I also dont get the whole, lets make our nether regions look like a 6 yr old girl. Maybe I am just getting old…
http://fashionista.com/2015/02/indie-soul-sports-illustrated-cover-swimwear-designer
I totally agree. One quarter of an inch lower on that bikini bottom and the magazine would have to have had a plain brown wrapper around it.
So is Sports Illustrated a magazine with content about professional & occasionally amateur sports or is it a " men’s" magazine?
Mine went straight to the recycle bin and I’m considering dropping our subscription. I have son and daughter athletes and last I checked oggling barely-clad women was not a sport. And while we’re on it, what about the cigarette ads??
^^^ The cigarette ads bother me too. I hate sounding like a prude but really found it offensive too.
Ick–porn and cigarette ads–things are really going downhill; 1st thing in the morning too!
We never had a subscription, despite being a sports-oriented family, until H had to use up some airline points or something and stupidly subscribed to a bunch of magazines. Sports Illustrated was one of them. I mainly follow college sports and running, so I wasn’t thrilled. When the swimsuit issue arrived, I have to admit that I was shocked. I guess it has been a few years since I have looked at that issue, and I certainly don’t remember it being a “men’s magazine” type spread in quite this way. the cover shot is completely inappropriate- and I also am no prude.
The cigarette ads are a deal-breaker for me, too.
Maybe more than a few years?
Tyra, 1997
http://www.hollywoodtuna.com/photo.php?id=tyra_banks_si_re_big&title=Tyra%20Banks%20Sports%20Illustrated%20Swimsuit%20Issue%20Pictures
Elle, 1988
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/model-elle-macpherson-poses-for-the-1988-sports-illustrated-news-photo/81993150
sorry, I think this years bottom is far lower than the two you posted.
I agree- something about this year’s picture set a new low. (pun intended)
has anyone else looked inside the magazine? (it arrived before 17yo son came home from school). The tops are non-existent (think of bandaids attached to strings) and some bottoms are far smaller than what’s on the cover. There was 1 suit in the entire magazine that I would consider wearing and could possibly fathom seeing on the beach.
The entire magazine is just soft porn for guys. Even the ads all had nearly naked women.
I laughed at one top that was a like sports bra, but half the model’s breast were hanging out of the bottom.
I’m not a prude and don’t jump on the bandwagon to stop my son’s subscription, however, I find it rather degrading to women and a joke to call these things ‘swim suits’.
PS - adding…the word that ran through my head as I flipped through it: IMPLANTS. Some of these women look like freaks. There’s no way they could get runway work with those DD’s.
Where is the swim SUIT? All I see is the bikini top and what maybe possibly could resemble bikini suit bottoms. SI should stop pretending that they are showcasing swimwear. I do not think that was an appropriate cover, and I am no prude either. Cigarette ads - double ick.
A side note… Just imagine the pain some young ladies will go through with all that waxing and shaving, not counting the increased risk of skin infections, including nasty MRSA (the bacteria that lives on the skin surface in the groin area can get into the bloodstream through nicks and cuts).
The models were all here in Nashville last week and there was a big event downtown to promote the issue. There was a big tent set up in the middle of Broadway (the famous street with all the country honky tonks). Aside from the fact that it is winter and not exactly weather than is swimsuit-friendly (at least not outdoors), the whole thing just seemed really inappropriate for our city and caused quite an uproar.
More & more, SI is “normalizing” porn and tobacco, when we as a nation have recognized that tobacco is harmful and the biggest preventable public health threat. I am glad we do NOT subscribe to SI, even as a freebie from the airlines to spend miles.
I’ve always thought that Elle MacPherson was gorgeous and enjoyed pictures of her in an aesthetic way–I am a straight woman 
– but I found those pictures of her too much back then, and I haven’t looked at a swimsuit issue in at least 20 years. It is no longer even pretending to be “good clean fun,” with pretty girls in bathing suits. It has been soft porn for a long time. It has always been objectifying, now it is totally, openly so.
And every time I pick it up in a doctor’s office, I find the actual content totally uninteresting. They don’t cover any sports that interest me any more.
It’s really only interesting to me if they cover a major marathon or the Olympics- and March Madness, of course.
Ick.
Just not good.
Outside magazine, could be described
^^^ what a good description!