SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, MANSPLAINING, AND BEER

Corrina Lawson wrote a short piece in Geekdad taking Sports Illustrated to task for the objectification of women. Given that their most sought after publication each year is the Swimsuit issue, there may be a point to her screed. In all honesty, I can not claim to know. Not to "really know", that is.
I do not read Sports Illustrated, and haven't bought the swimsuit issue.
Yes, I obviously know what the swimsuit issue is all about.
But I do not dig the sportsfanbase's aesthetic.
Or exposure to their eroticism.
I wish to avoid that.

Even in my sexual objectification of women I am a snob, and sneer at the common glandularism of the typical bourgeois sporty male specimen.

That, too, might not be something that intelligent women approve of.
Elitist lust is, after all, also a graphic discrimination.


From a possible bio, written by a scholarly fan after I'm dead:

"Secretly, in his dank basement library, the elderly degenerate treasured his trove of black and white copies of 'Fully Dressed Librarian Magazine', their brittle pages reeking of the chemical byproducts of wood pulp decomposition mixed with mildew.
He loved the sharp faintly sickening smell they gave off.
The 1939 midsummer edition, featuring the lovely miss Chastity MacGregor shelving geology textbooks, was a personal favourite; the textually dense article barely lightened by a few out-of-focus shots of the subject in the middle distance allured him most especially. She wore a heavy overcoat, because of the drafts and dankness; the interview had taken place in mid-winter, and North Dakota is a frigid place, where strangers wearing multiple layers randomly hug just to stay warm."

Instead of beer and truck advertisements, clerical supplies and durable eye-glass frames feature prominently. Along with detailed articles about typefaces and desk polish.

Garamond, in thirteen point!
Times sans serif, ooh!
Helvetica!


Actually, I am a normal man, and I find women very attractive.


But that isn't the object of Corrina Lawson's ire.

Quote: "they believe their audience is all men who want photos of hot women, not stories about women in sports. What they don’t realize is that by doing this, they’re part of the problem.
When people talk about rape culture, this is what they mean. When the men are valued for their achievements and treated as people, and the women are valued for being hot and looking sexually available, being prizes for the men doing the important stuff. For further examples, see that awful Draft Kings commercial that ran all last year on all the sports channels that talked about how winners of the fantasy contest went from ‘having holes in his underwear to having bikini models in them.’ "
End quote.

[SOURCE: Sports Illustrated, You’re Part of the Rape Culture Problem -- Geekdad.]


She makes a valid point. Sports on television is all about big beefy men and their spandexed rumps, interrupted by commercials for vehicles and hot steaming junkfood. Women are only important in that world if they have cleavages.

I have no clue what gets advertised during broadcasts of women's sports, because they change the channel when that stuff comes on in both of the cigar smoking environments with which I am familiar.



One of the readers took issue with her screed, and his comment is worth quoting in it's entirety.

FatFreddysCat wrote:

"Corinna is completely wrong. SI is not the problem here, Corinna’s whiny attitude – and her willingness to criminally defame all men as rapists because women don’t measure up – is the problem.

I’ve got news for you Corinna. Women’s sports are by and large, *boring*. You simply can’t accept that, can you? You can’t accept that in almost category of every sport, the very best women aren’t even average when placed among the best class of men. No shame in that, because men are bigger, stronger, faster, more coordinated, and their brains are better equipped for catching, throwing, and other tasks requiring geospatial awareness. That’s just how it is.

Nobody cares about women’s basketball, unless they happen know some girl that plays. Nobody cares about women’s golf, or women’s soccer, or tennis, etc., for the same reason. And they never will.

As far as your whine about “objectifying women”, I’ll give you half credit. Feminists have done their best to destroy chivalry, and the honor and restraint that system imposes upon men, and you are reaping your rewards. Women are indeed more than objects of desire for men. And yet, at the same time, they always have been objects of desire, and you’d better hope they always will be.

The problem is how to balance that natural situation in such a way that both men and women are honored and respected as much as possible. Your smeary little whine does nothing to achieve such a balance.

Corinna, if you want to replace the idea and system of chivalrous and gentlemanly behavior from men, balanced by demure and graceful, but self-confident and assertive femininity from women(think Barbara Stanwyck, Kate Hepburn), then let’s hear your suggestions!

But right now, all you’ve done is make the situation a little bit *worse* by tearing down men – again. Shame on you. And if you want to read about women’s sports – feel free to publish your own sports magazine. And leave SI alone."

End cite.

Personally, I think he was on drugs when he wrote that.
It's the only way all of his ideas actually fit together.
I particularly like how he blames women.
While claiming gentlemanliness.


He's a very insecure little man.

A truly confident male, secure in his own identity, would not feel threatened by any amount of femsplaining. Rather, he would be able to see that there are different and likely equally worthwhile ways of looking at such matters, and that one's perspective could depend on one's own circumstance.
Without that in any way implicitly devaluing another point of view.

I tend to think that all sports are a load of horse pucky.
But I accept that most people don't see that.
In what way does that affect me?


There's a subjectivity to the operational paradigm.



The average dog probably considers all popular sports to be nothing more than unnecessarily complicated versions of 'fetch', sadly devoid of meaningful camaraderie and slobbering.




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