Posted on 04/30/2019 4:23:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sports Illustrated has released its annual swimsuit issue and declared itself proud to present the first Muslim model to wear a hijab and burkini within its pages.
The Somali-American model [Halima Aden] was born in Kenya at the Kakuma Refugee Camp, where she lived until the age of seven before moving to the United States. For her SI Swimsuit rookie spread, we couldnt think of a more perfect place travel than her birth country, where she shot at Watamu Beach with photographer Yu Tsai.
I keep thinking [back] to six-year-old me who, in this same country, was in a refugee camp, Halima said during her shoot. So to grow up to live the American dream [and] to come back to Kenya and shoot for SI in the most beautiful parts of KenyaI dont think thats a story that anybody could make up.
Aden is right about one thing - there was a time not too long ago when no one could imagine such a story. This is a nation that birthed the modern feminist movement, burned bras, sexually liberated the American woman and mainstreamed birth control in pursuit of that very idea and successfully shamed and marginalized Judeo-Christian culture for their standards of sexual/relational modesty. In a mere twenty years we have gone from disparaging religious restrictions on female sexuality to celebrating it from a culture that it is openly hostile to the progressive values the producers of this magazine claim to be celebrating.
Were Aden to be wearing a nuns habit and cross on the beach and celebrating it as progressively feminist there would be no end to the outrage and insult. She would be called a prude and accused of sending the wrong message to women about how they should be allowed to celebrate their bodies.
That we so readily accept this message from a Muslim woman is bizarrely puzzling.
It wasnt that long ago that SI was regularly protested for their objectification of women with their swimsuit issue. Since that time the culture has taken a dramatic shift thanks in part to a steady, calculated marketing campaign from the entertainment industry. Sexy = powerful. Promiscuity = empowerment. The less women wore the more they were celebrating their bodies.
I still believe the SI swimsuit issue is an act of objectification. Lets be honest - speaking strictly in terms of consumerism these issues arent produced for women and men arent buying them for the in-depth exploration of the mind of a 23-year-old model. Objectification sells.
I used to think my biggest problem with the progressive culture of sexuality was the flagrant display of the female form and the abandonment of the idea that imagination is the most influential part of sexuality. It was a gross mislabeling of empowerment and it has led to all kinds of confusion when it comes to our modern notions of romance and relationships.
I could not have imagined that an even bigger problem would one day present itself under the misleading flag of religious tolerance, a tolerance not in any way extended to the traditional Judeo-Christian communities that have long suffered ridicule at the hands of secular culture but instead aimed at one of the most sexually oppressive religious cultures on the planet.
In the same way the model in a string bikini on the cover of SI is an objectification, so is the model in a full-on burkini. It is a symbol of an idea that a womans body is unsuitable to be publicly seen, that she is an object to be covered rather that a human to be admired. In a country like America it is a huge step backwards.
SI can put anyone they want in their magazine, wearing anything they deem marketable. Any woman can wear a burkini or a bikini or a paper sack to the beach if thats what they want to do. More power to them.
But this objectification of a Muslim model in the pages of the one of Americas most celebrated magazines and calling it empowerment is a bridge too far. Its every bit as trashy as stripping a model down to her barely-there thong and telling us that this is the new girl power.
And people will vote with their feet; they will not buy this trash.
What a joke.
The contrast was stunning.
Blah..blah...............blah..........
The rest of us are jus’ interested in her birthday SUIT.
No sale.
1. The PC crowd gets what they want and wins. Or...
2. The PC crowd doesn’t get what it wants, paints us all as unimportant racists, and wins.
Yes, I used to buy SI, once or twice a year.
The swimsuit issue will sell well as always and perhaps moreso due to this novelty addition.
However we’re SI to continue along these lines of cloaking the beach babes you can wave bye bye to the popularity of this particular annual event.
Anyone who believes the SI swimsuit edition success is due to anything related to culture probably thinks people bought Playboy magazine to read the articles.
Never bought a Sports Illustrated magazine. Never will.
Female empowerment is not what I normally associate with Mohammedanism.
The prudish Victorians had sexier swimsuits than the burkini.
The same, formerly interesting, formerly testosterone driven publication that now gives Bruce Jenner The Brave Woman of the Year Award for wearing a dress over his manhood.
Somebody send them a fork.
Plus she’s a scrawny frigen air head
Sports Illustrated going the way of other Ragazines. Like Scientific American and National Geographic. Over time, they morphed into pushing the lieberal agenda, sneaking it into every nook and cranny of each and every article. No longer is the agenda limited to the editorial page or editor’s statement.
SI swimsuit issue magazines aren’t bought to see fully clothed women at the beach. Epic fail by SI.
Rosie O’Donnell approves!
I prefer T and A
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