Now that #MeToo has made the perilous journey from hashtag to movement, here’s the obvious next step: this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue will loosely gesture at the movement by allowing the models to be “participants” as well as “objects.”
Yes, modeling is a real job—an actual profession that takes hard work and real skill. Yes, it's a problematic industry that often fosters sexism, racism, and body issues. But if we're going to punch it, let's punch at the industry itself, and not the models doing their jobs.
Did you notice the ad on the back cover of this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? (You have a subscription to that, right?) It's a lot like the front cover, which features Kate Upton standing in freezing Antartica in nothing but undies and an unzipped winter coat (fun fact: this almost killed her), only…
One brave woman strikes a blow against the most absurd phrase of our time: "The bikini body is not supposed to be naturally occurring...it is a quasi-religious state of myth and artifice to which only the truly virtuous can aspire:"
