And, another thing, does it sell women’s sports?
I have mixed feelings when it comes to photographing surfer girls in a sexually subservient manner. I’ve been responsible for orchestrating some (the luminous Rosy Hodge, the fantasy of Anastasia Ashley) and was pleased with the results, that is if the net result is to balance the arousal of the reader with the dignity of the subject.
If were to examine the photos (and why not, they’re relatively suitable for work – RSFW – click on the names above) you’d find they were built on a single premise: the scientific examination of a beautiful girl at the apex of her beauty.
This is another shoot I enjoyed very much, created during my tenure at Stab although I had nothing to do with its creation, only the story that surrounds the photos.
Other shoots, I ain’t so thrilled by.
The cupped hands over the tits (might we become rapists if a nipple is shown?) or with asses elevated and pressed into the camera. Turn ’em around and their faces are like cold piss, their teenage broth barely warm. The viewer reduced to a crippled masturbator. Gratuitous and insulting to girl and viewer.
Two years ago, there was a predictable storm over using Stephanie Gilmore’s sex to promote the Roxy Pro in France. It was hardly genius but nor was it daring or revolutionary. I was numb to it. Arousing from the point of view of the masculine culture? If only women knew the perversity of man.
And that was the point. The Roxy ad was aimed at young girls and not men.
The modern feminist who sees sex as something to be parcelled out to a man, sparingly, and only on her terms, forgets there’s a generation of female digital native out there who grew up on youporn and its variations; girls who don’t believe a blow-job joyfully given or the use of men as studs mark the end of civilisation, girls who’ve been imprinted with an overt joy of mutually consensual and sensational sex.
And for that, the ad was…perfect.
It’s very easy to get haughty about such things, though. The condemnation of male onanism is divinely simple. It’s the ultimate vice.
A few days ago, the French professional surfer Pauline Ado dropped her lampoon of a surfer using her sex. It’s cool. It’s pretty funny. I like it.
But the irony!
At the hook, liberated Ms Ado says, “Are we done with your crap? Can I go surf now?”
You have to…ask? The exquisite possibilities of a power play!
Pauline à la plage 01 from PLANETBLOW on Vimeo.
I don’t think it’s wrong, necessarily and I wasn’t offended by the Steph Gilmore video. She’s gorgeous, and there’s nothing wrong with a gorgeous woman being gorgeous on video. It did strike me as the wrong story to promote a womens sports event, though. What does naked Steph have to do with the competing in a surf event? Show me women ripping, that’s what I turn on surf contests to see.
The Ado thing is pretty funny — though the lingering butt shots came damn close to turning her into exactly the thing she was parodying.
The line between promoting women athletes as athletes and sexy humans is always going to be a blurred one. If there were more videos and features about what women athletes actually do in surfing, the sexy videos wouldn’t carry the same, depressing message that women are only valued for how they look. Which at the end of the day is a bullshit message.
I think you’re on to something with the idea that some of this is playing to young girls’ fantasies about growing up to be beautiful and sexy. But that can’t be all there is — and too often that’s all surfing offers. A good friend of mine rips hard, but she flat out does not want to put her ass on the internet or starve herself to be a model. That doesn’t leave her much space to carve out a career, when currently, showing ass is one of the only ways to attract sponsors.
I find myself watching heats, wishing that pro surfer and bikini model were separate jobs for women. What if everyone in the top ten or fifteen had the power that Carissa Moore brings to her turns? What if they weren’t starving themselves for their next bikini shoot and could actually be strong athletes? I’d watch the hell out of that — and it seems to me that would be a pretty fucking good fantasy to offer up to young girls.
Sorry, tl;dr. Sexism bad. Women ripping good.
Fact is that kind of pressure is also damaging to women.
And their surfing, if we want to be completely objective about it.
Steph surfs half as good now since she’s adopted the sex symbol/skinny model deal.
Yes, agree on both counts. Body image issues aren’t that fun, really! Neither is anorexia.
And yeah, you can definitely see it in the surfing.
The fact that, and I’m guessing since most of you (us?) use anon handles, that every commenter on here is a man must certainly mean something. What, I’m not entirely sure.
I think your ambivalence, while admirable in a paternalistic sorta way, is mostly unwarranted (although I must admit from the consumer’s side its easy to say that, your the one making editorial decisions that mean life your death to this little slice of digital paradise). The economics of being a ‘surfer’ is the over-riding factor in weather or not the sexy surfer motif proliferates or dies a slow sexist death. Companies are casting a wide net hoping that good women surfers sell product -especially to women-, but the vast majority of their clientele are men so a little sex appeal goes a long way. I assume there are some studies of who actually watches women’s surfing and companies act accordingly. If this comments section is any indication its mostly all dudes.
Read any interview with a pro model/surfer and they basically say the same thing ‘I model to live the surfer lifestyle.’ Heck I’d probably do the same if given the chance. Is it moral? Well if you don’t think so, there are plenty of pros/companies who support your view. The tension between sex symbol and surfer has been around along time, and will persist. The context, as you eloquently point out, really matters. Surfers, or rather surf companies, don’t cause sexism, but can perpetuate or assuage it. Identity politics on the whole is beginning to be met with resentment, but appears like it will persist. Structural crisis might change it, but don’t hold your breath.
Its kind of compelling to see how each generation deals with these questions. Perhaps even more so than the Soul vs. Competitive or Rail vs. Air narratives that pervade the men’s circuit. A blood feud between two evenly matched competitors on each end of the spectrum would be nice, but unlikely given the trend towards ‘we are all besties on tour.’
are you suggesting that Roxy’s target market is men? If so, Roxy’s got bigger issues than whether their promo was too sexy.
In a sense. Calvin Kline uses attractive male models to sell undies because they know some women will equate their brand with sex appeal.
not really – they’re selling to gay men.
womens athletics are there to keep peoples daughters of drugs or cock… attractive or not is the only real contest happening between them, sport takes a back seat to nature.
but the surfing ends with a duckdive. and a planet blow logo. nice!
Looked like the Roxy/Gilmore ad was made by old men and aimed at Old men.
My daughter and her pals who all surf and rip thought it lame.
I’m not sure I get the gist here – I love youporn too, but don’t need to see JJF bending over to pick up his wax repeatedly in a surf video. I know a guy who has a daughter who surfs and from what I can tell, she is no different than a boy – she likes to see people surfing well and that’s about as deep as it gets.
This is a very fine art to get right, it can either be basic man marketing, or a celebration of female surfing. Either or it’s a tight rope.
She looks pretty pissed off. But then we would too if we had a style like that.
now, now, can you do a turn like she does at .39 or .44? She’s just a bit manly in the face – perhaps the same “helpers” Fanning’s on?
I don’t know what would be worse, not being able to do those turns or stating that you could do those turns in a comments section.
Yes.
Some would say ‘Great body with a face to protect it.’ Some, not us. We prefer to focus on the real hoax in women’s pro surfing: Anastasia what’s her arse.