On Nude Magazine Covers (Possibly NSWF?)
By Glinda
This is professional basketball player (and Olympic team member) Candace Parker.
She is obviously very beautiful and in fantastic shape. She has even had a baby, which makes me look down at my own decidedly non-six pack belly and give a sigh.
And even though she is gorgeous and talented and could kick anyone’s butt at any time, I can’t help but dislike the cover. (Maybe she should just go to Joseph M’s and get a nice Alice by Temperley coverup.
Maybe I am a complete prude. It’s OK if you tell me I am, I’ll pretty much agree with you.
When it comes to a nude woman on the cover of a mainstream magazine, I tend to flip flop. I think that women should embrace their bodies and that nudity isn’t something to be ashamed of. But then I wonder if women who pose this way are truly empowering themselves, or if they are simply cogs in the machine to sell magazines.
Discuss?
July 11th, 2012 at 8:27 am
The minute we start to see overpaid male sports stars posing in exactly this way on sports magazine covers, the nude women will be empowered, and not exploited. Until then, gorgeous and accomplished as she is, this is all T and A to sell product. You’re not a prude, you’re the possessor of a media-savvy eye, that’s all.
July 11th, 2012 at 8:28 am
I don’t mind as long as nude men get equal exposure on the covers.
July 11th, 2012 at 8:44 am
Huh… I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure this cover supports your argument. This is a decidedly unsexy pose. Not that it’s not attractive, but it’s *sporty*. She’s naked, yes, and smiling, but she’s also playing basketball. It highlights her muscle tone. You don’t even see boob! Seriously, EVERY Cosmo cover EVER has boob. Mybe it’s the Olympics, but it rings “Greek Athletic” to me. Would I like to see a male athlete also featured in the “Greek Athletic” style on the ESPN cover? You know it. Do I think ESPN featured a nude person on their cover to sell magazines? That’s the point! I don’t think, however, that they’re exploiting Candace Parker specifically, or female athletes in general.
July 11th, 2012 at 10:34 am
This is part of the trend I hate that requires female athletes to be conventionally attractive as well as at the top of their game if they want media attention and sponsorship. So long as female athletes are valued as much for their looks as their talent (if not more), there are entirely too many who will go unnoticed because they don’t fit the mold, and the idea that nobody wants to watch “unattractive” women on tv or read about them in magazines like this. She is beautiful, but I hate that she/the magazine felt this was necessary.
July 12th, 2012 at 7:44 am
Bingo! Sarah Dances. If this female athlete looked very tall and very bulky yet still played amazingly well by any standard so that she were the notable athletic star, she would not be shown on this cover. But if she’s reasonably good and can be shown to look “hot”–then you can bet she’ll be as nude as possible holding a basketball, suggestively and strategically (and, I might add, be notably absent from the magazine’s content, where she may rarely feature as an athlete at all). And the reason why this is so has to do with our culture’s very long tradition of using women’s T and A to sell everything from cars to earth moving machinery. Doesn’t matter what the pose is: athletic, maternal, industrial, goofy. Put that boob or butt in there and you’ve moved that product to the targeted male buyer.
So, yeah, when the day comes that we’re seeing that kind of thing happen routinely to male athletes in the same way, then I will say the female athlete’s being celebrated, not used. But I’ve been here a good long while and it hasn’t happened yet. I won’t be holding my breath.