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Why No Swimsuit Issue of Men?
Townhall.com ^ | 2-17-2015 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 02/17/2015 2:29:24 AM PST by servo1969

On the happily few occasions when callers to my radio show make a particularly foolish comment, I ask them what graduate school they attended.

When they ask why I assume they attended graduate school, I respond, "Only someone who went to graduate school would say something that foolish."

Because it is never my intention to humiliate a caller, I always hasten to explain that my comment is not directed at the caller; it is directed at our universities. Moreover, I mean it literally. In order to say certain things that are so obviously foolish, one has to be taught them.

A prime example is a CNN article published to coincide with the release of the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, "Why no Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue of men?"

Without looking at the author's name or bio, I immediately assumed that a professor had written it.

The assumption was correct.

The article, a compendium of learned nonsense, was written by a woman identified as "an assistant professor of psychology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and a former gender scholar at Stanford University." (I am not mentioning her name because, as with my callers, she is not the issue; the contemporary university is.)

In order to be labeled a "gender scholar" -- especially at a prestigious university -- one must have internalized every falsehood our universities teach about men and women. And you cannot get more false, indeed absurd, than to seriously inquire why there is no Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue featuring men in swimsuits.

Yet a Cornell University professor of psychology and Stanford "gender scholar" actually asks: "Why has no one created a counterpart magazine featuring a scantily dressed man? Why are men so rarely offered up as objects to behold?"

Now, even putting aside the fact that the readership of Sports Illustrated is overwhelmingly male, the question is unrelated to reality -- the reality that our grandmothers and grandfathers, who never went to college, perfectly understood: In the human species, the visual excites males much more than it excites females.

There is no swimsuit issue featuring men in skimpy swimsuits because the audience for such a magazine would overwhelmingly consist of gay men.

And therein lies one proof of why the Cornell professor's question is so foolish.

Men are visually stimulated. And not because of "socialization," as our universities teach, but because it is built in to male nature. Gay men prove the point. Gay men are as interested in viewing unclothed fit young male bodies as heterosexual men are in viewing unclothed fit young female bodies. On the other hand, unless a woman knows who the man is, and is interested in him in some way, women are not nearly as interested in looking at scantily clad -- let alone naked -- male bodies. Women aren't aroused solely by viewing a male leg, thigh, chest or backside of some male model or some anonymous male. Yes, a favorite actor taking his shirt off can be a turn-on for women. But an anonymous male great body does nothing for most women.

That's why in real life -- as opposed to Cornell or Stanford -- men who expose themselves to women are arrested, while women who expose themselves to men are either thanked or paid.

The only question that remains is: Why do the best educated believe nonsense about men and women?

The answer is: because they want to believe it.

Religious people are regularly accused of wishful thinking -- of wanting to believe in God, in divinely inspired scripture, in an afterlife, etc. But the secular intelligentsia never apply this critique to themselves despite the fact that it is at least as true for most secular intellectuals as it is for Jewish and Christian believers.

Regarding men and women, they want to believe that men and women are not only equals (something religious Jews and Christians also believe), but, aside from obvious physical characteristics, the same. Feminists and others on the intellectual left are frightened by many of life's truths, one of which is that the sexes are profoundly different.

That is why there will always be a swimsuit issue depicting women as, yes, sexual objects for men to look at, and there will never be a popular issue of great men's bodies in barely there swimsuits for women to look at.

That this even needs to be said -- and that it will be mocked and dismissed as "sexist" -- is one more sign of the intellectual decay at Cornell, Stanford, The New York Times and just about every other secular institution in America.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: collegesandunis; men; sportsillustrated; women
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1 posted on 02/17/2015 2:29:24 AM PST by servo1969
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To: servo1969

Ewwww


2 posted on 02/17/2015 2:37:04 AM PST by Bullish (Not even a smidgeon of integrity or sanity in this whitehouse.)
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To: servo1969

The article even makes sense to me, a woman. However, I must say that the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is not far off of being Playboy-type magazine. They need to start putting brown wrappers on the covers when on display in stores.


3 posted on 02/17/2015 2:47:13 AM PST by beachn4fun (The only hyphen you need...American - or not!)
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To: servo1969

Why aren’t romance novels marketed towards men?

Same reason.


4 posted on 02/17/2015 2:50:51 AM PST by Cowboy Bob (Isn't it funny that Socialists never want to share their own money?)
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To: servo1969

Why no men’s swim suit issue?

The tubes are just too big and readers become too unrestrained?

People would rather look at frontal elephant photos.


5 posted on 02/17/2015 3:03:26 AM PST by Candor7 (Obama fascism article:(http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: servo1969

Look at the photos of male Olympic swimmers. Those guys are about as scantily clad as they can get. I would imagine that some of those photos end up in Sports Illustrated. If Ms. Professor wants to see such pics, she is just not looking hard enough - or ignores them because they do not fit in with her preconceived notions, and she cannot express her righteous anger so we can all benefit from her expansive education.

Yes, that was sarcasm.


6 posted on 02/17/2015 3:11:46 AM PST by mrs. a (It's a short life but a merry one...)
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To: servo1969

Because Sports Illustrated is homophobic. Not only that, they’re trans-haters. Why isn’t there an issue of transwomen, huh?


7 posted on 02/17/2015 3:41:37 AM PST by Tax-chick ("What does it give you, and what does it keep you from getting?")
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To: servo1969
Why no SI swimsuit issue for women with men as models. Only feminist nutjobs ask those sorts of questions. As if they'd buy any issues of SI swimsuits for men.

At the core of the question is the feminist belief that the SI swimsuit issue is degrading to women. I'm sure all the models used in the swimsuit issue were forced to do so at gunpoint? (snicker)

8 posted on 02/17/2015 4:07:38 AM PST by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: Tax-chick
"why isn't there...issue...transwomen"

Hey, don't give them any ideas. Like most magazines "for men" SI is dominated by liberals. Most sportswriters are extremely liberal. If nutty feminists or the homo-nazi set put the pressure on them, they'll fold like a cheap suitcase.

I haven't bought the swimsuit issue for several decades, but I'd hate to open an issue at the barbershop and see any transgendered freaks in swimsuits.

9 posted on 02/17/2015 4:12:13 AM PST by driftless2 (For long term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: servo1969

http://www.outsports.com/2015/2/11/8003813/outsports-gay-sports-swimsuit-speedo-tom-daley-matthew-mitcham-cristiano-ronaldo

The gay version of SI’s Swimsuit Issue


10 posted on 02/17/2015 4:13:13 AM PST by HangnJudge
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To: driftless2; All

Would you like to make a wager on how many years it will be before a transsexual appears in the SI swimsuit issue?

I’ll bet $100 donation to FR that it will be no later than 2020.


11 posted on 02/17/2015 4:21:45 AM PST by Tax-chick ("What does it give you, and what does it keep you from getting?")
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To: servo1969

They wouldn’t meet my price.


12 posted on 02/17/2015 4:23:27 AM PST by Ken H (What happens on the internet, stays on the internet.)
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To: mrs. a

The Prof isn’t upset because there aren’t enough pictures nearly naked men for her to look at, she is upset because men enjoy looking at the pictures of women.

She gets nothing out of looking at the men, and it really pisses her off, she feels cheated. Since she has no joy in her life the only way she can feel better is to take away the joy of others.


13 posted on 02/17/2015 4:28:58 AM PST by Beagle8U (NOTICE : Unattended children will be given Coffee and a Free Puppy.)
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To: Beagle8U

THAT...is at the core of everything leftist.


14 posted on 02/17/2015 4:51:25 AM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: servo1969
while women who expose themselves to men are either thanked or paid.

True dat!

15 posted on 02/17/2015 4:58:19 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (Uncle Sy: "Beavers are like Ninjas, they only come out at night and they're hard to find")
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To: servo1969


16 posted on 02/17/2015 5:11:58 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Tax-chick

If SI is still publishing in 2020, I’ll be thrilled.
Or any print magazine.


17 posted on 02/17/2015 5:13:47 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

That’s an interesting complication.

In that case, the wager is for print-or-digital versions: a mutilated man disguised as a woman in a bathing suit.


18 posted on 02/17/2015 5:15:14 AM PST by Tax-chick ("What does it give you, and what does it keep you from getting?")
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To: servo1969

“Only someone who went to graduate school would say something that foolish.”

LOL. Pretty spot on.


19 posted on 02/17/2015 5:17:35 AM PST by McGruff (We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq - Barack Obama 2011)
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To: servo1969

I was kidding my landlord of my office saying he should write to SI to ask for men modeling swimsuits.


20 posted on 02/17/2015 5:32:46 AM PST by ExCTCitizen (I'm ExCTCitizen and I approve this reply. If it does offend Libs, I'm NOT sorry...)
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