The sporting behemoth has robbed us of our lust!
It is the time of year when ESPN’s Body Issue comes out and, I’ll be honest, I wish they would stop making it.
I assume that the sporting behemoth launched the idea back when they were competing with Sports Illustrated for print magazine market share. Do you remember the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition? It dripped with PG-13 sex. Oh it had nothing to do with sports at all and oh completely objectified women but my young self didn’t care. It was legal Hustler. Do you remember print magazines?
In any case, the Body Issue has taken on enough cultural weight to be featured on daytime talk shows, etc. The media thrills at seeing professional athletes ripple. How magnificent! How stately! And it generally includes one or two surfers. Who could forget Kelly Slater or Coco Ho? What about Laird and Gabby Reese?
Theoretically it is all very titillating except do you know what ESPN has stripped away along with the clothing? Any semblance of sex! The athletes, standing proud in their birthday suits, have as much sexual fire as a race horse, gleaming in the sun. As much carnal stir as a well-polished bicycle.
Just look at Courtney Conlogue, pictured above. She surfs very well and may be interesting but…but… I’ve got nothing! I’ve been visually neutered!
Maybe it is just my Judeo-Christian values, or the fact that I am not French, but nudity = mmmmmm. Equating nudity with machinery is an unnecessary bummer. Especially when the world is going to hell and all we have left are dreams.
Give us back our mmmmmm!
This claims, Aloha also and Thanks also for that this i of Mr. C. Smith’s said columns for ‘ ‘ BGrit ( for SHORT ) ‘ ‘ magazine on that and it with it now here STILL concedes also that in this case also, this now here cites also of course MOURNING also the LACK of youseewhat type of feeling for himself for himself, for fans, for OUTSIDERS, for readers, for visitors, for others also and even for us, too…. <u< u=””>
green is goddamn gorgeous.
to my dearest vonr,
i ascribe to no sex or gender. my identity spectrum is according to the following equation:
amount of alcohol consumed + type of alcohol consumed + who i am attracted to at that point in time
imagine yourself as a wonderful flower opening up and reaching toward the light.
do you have that image in your mind?
now, i beseech you, how do you know the person in the image is a man. can you believe otherwise? can you liberate your dreams from the ideology of gender? all you have to do is believe, my dear vonr. all you have to do is believe.
sometimes, this is me. https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Classy AF
Pull on black turtle neck.
rearrange beret.
touch up eyeliner.
stroke beard.
stare into existentially into space.
But …. but … these are athletic bodies. Look at them. Look at them and how they ARE machinery, the humanist mythologies bled out of the flesh for the post-industrial age. Isn’t that like, fascinating? With that bleed goes the sexualisation that is the ideological footing for such humanism. We are forced to attend to our expectations for such sexualisation and humanism and muse on why we have those expectations i.e. how they become so commonplace and normative. Here we have a new paradigm of ‘the gaze’: what we can now call the ‘athletic cyborg gaze’ – a gaze borne of a post-terminator era. John Berger once wrote
“One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object — and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”
Do not these images shatter such a long-established paradigm enabling us to see the hegemonic humanist patriarchal sexualising gaze that is hidden in plain light in sport but now superseded by the technological materialism that signals the birth of a cyborgian sporting epoch?
flick hair.
recline.
glance across to the ghosts of Derrida and Heidegger.
i need more coffee.
Eschew the coffee, Jen! Start on the morning prosecco.
X
i like how you think.
Wow. Brilliant! You should write articles.
Sexuality is basically something psychological; including psychological projecting via psychologically enticing & suggestive body postures & poses. The body itself is just a lump of flesh & not in itself particularly enticing. When the protruding (erect) & erogenous (crevices) aspects are hidden (that stimulate boy penis), all that is left is lumps of muscle & flesh; like found in a butcher’s freezer; ‘cadavers’.
After saying that, personally, I think Courtney rocks; I have always been a huge fan; a mature woman amongst girls & my type of lady. A clearer photo on Magic Seaweed projects Courtney’s mental strength & purity of intent, which is what I admire about her. But then, I am more into people’s minds rather than their bodies. Maybe it is just my ‘Christian’ (non-Judeo-non-Islamic) values.
Calling Nick Dee…I have a message from above. It says “Get Fucked.”
OK then if it is so fucken all fired easy to look sexy in the Nude, let’s see a BeachGrit nude off. Chas, Derek and Rory can all stand around in the nude taking photos of each other. Then publish them on the Internet. What could possibly go wrong.
As long as it’s not another picture of a female snowboarder in big chunky snowboard boots. That’s not sexy at all and there’s absolutely ZERO reason for that to be the only piece of equipment she’d be wearing…
How else would we ever be able to enjoy this issue without some cliche fuckin sports equipment. I imagine some art director being like “let’s see what we can use from your gear bag. Oh these chunky fucking boots will look great!”
But imagine if you will, the awkward positions that must have happened when Laird had to acquire his standup position while Gabby lay prone beneath him.
I’m calling it: that’s Medina’s body with Courtney’s head. Someone in graphic design is getting fired . . .
There are plenty of clothed and emotionally engaging photos of Courtney. They are less likely to get eyeballs though. The ‘nude’ in espn photos is just a gimmick, it works too.
If it was nude and sexy, most of the athletes would not do it. Crosses the line between using attractiveness for self-promotion and being in the sex industry.
Never mind, I’m told there is no shortage of nude and sexy photos on the internet of people who specialise in that type of image.
Courtney looks great. A healthy, strong, self-confident, empowered woman. That’s attractive.
If you like dudes!
Just add fist…
that Kelly photo is timeless
I imagine this how he greets all his visitors to the Purps Research Compound,you all stand out the front waiting.. then,here comes! Bounding down the lawn all like “Haha! Hey guys, WELCOME!”.
I reckon Courtney rips but that pic is cold and totally emotionless – may as well have been a stone statue
Looks a bit like the statue of David I reckon.
That’s exactly what I was thinking – didn’t want to say it!!!
never seen a chick’s ass look that serious. nothing the least bit playful. a chess ass.
You could bounce a nickel off those things,or crush a young coconut.
I don’t like objectification for objectification’s sake either. But isn’t swinging so wildly the other way just as bad? She is very ripped, strong, etc. but there is no emotional connection. No sex. Sexless! Ugh!
Yeah, I think you’re right on this. I feel like they’re trying so hard to be unsexual — gah, that can’t be a word, but whatevs — that it ends up feeling a bit empty. Like the images are super nice and obviously someone worked hard for them, but they’re missing the emotion that makes compelling photography.
There’s a Dutch photographer that did a series of nudes with athletes a while back and they were really compelling. If I could remember his name this story would be much better! But I’m really dumb this afternoon, so that’s pretty great.
It’s weird, right? But maybe it’s just that ESPN has absolutely no edge at all and when people are naked you hope for some edge at least.
They do feel very safe. And maybe that’s the problem? It seems like nudes shouldn’t feel entirely safe.
You two are surfing’s Huxley’s and Rothschild’s debating genetics.
So cute!
surely its completely appropriate for people to be nude sometimes and there be no ‘sex’ in it?
Yes.
sure! and i think there’s a way to do nude photos that are human and interesting without being objectifying. idk. these images just feel a bit chilly and not super engaging. which, isn’t a knock on the athletes or their bodies, but more on how the images were conceptualized and created.
You’re not dumb Jen. You’re sexy. You make the comment section sexy. The comment sextion. Mmhmm my girlfriend hates it when I scream your name at night. Love the handsome Prince.
Androgynous models are so in vogue right now tho…
Im sure some art director is behind the look. They obviously hiring a more named photographer. In the end its the photographer job to have the connection with his or her subject. That is truly were the fireworks are made. Love to see a few of the images Lipman created for himself. I thought Coco images were not that strong and photographer got the nod for that job before he was ready.. in the end a photo editor or art director usually choose.
maybe you are right but i cant figure out why there needs to be sex in nudity. maybe the photo is not dynamic. but no sex in it?
i dream of a world where i can be nude and nobody rushes to sex me, but alas i must stay hidden in my cave.
I think courtney is very attractive usually, but I think she looks like the brachosaurus on its hind legs from jurassic park in this pic and i cannot unsee it now…..
That pic of Courtney is not only sexless, it’s uncomplimentary and lacks any aesthetic appeal. And where’s the token Brazilian? The Brazzo crowd will be showing up with their tedious accusations of “racism”. The least ESPN could have done is had a nice feminine pic of Gabs in which they can indulge their fantasies.
That is a picture of Medina . . . they just put Court’s head on there.