2nd Hand Nudity

Ugh. I am ready to rant ladies, and since I have already admitted it lets just jump right in. I was in the Target check out line with my kids yesterday and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition. Why don't they just call it what it is, the soft porn edition. They don't even wear swimsuits anymore! They've been steadily going this direction for a while. It started out kind of sporty, maybe a little bit? It rapidly became more and more seductive, and when barely there bikinis weren't enough to satisfy what  C.S. Lewis described as "an ever increasing craving for an ever dimensioning pleasure" they went nude. Sometimes they will be holding a bikini, or have one painted on, I will give them that. So yesterday when I saw on the cover were three topless girls wearing thong bikini bottoms and embracing each other I thought Is that a Girls Gone Wild magazine? I am in Target right? Did I make a wrong turn somewhere and end up in an erotica store? But of course I knew better. This was Sport Illustrated. And when it comes to objectifying women and you've already stripped all their clothes, what more can you do to feed men's insatiable appetites? That's right, add more women. Let's just layer more and more women like a club sandwich. Sounds tasty!

That's kind of what I said in my letter to the magazine. I was more articulate than that (hopefully).

Here's the thing. I am training up my sons to be men of conviction that honor God, respect women, and guard their hearts. I am raising my daughter to be a woman of strength, character, wisdom and beauty that sees past the lies that our society will constantly bombard her with. I don't expect the media to do me any favors in this task. I understand that it is my job to teach them to be in and not of the world.

HOWEVER, and this a big however, there is a line that goes past personal convictions and into common sense. I believe that common sense would suggest that pornographic images are not appropriate for children. In this progressive first world society that we live in we protect kids from dangerous highly addictive habits like smoking, drinking, pornography, and gambling. There are laws against it. You can choose not to drink or gamble with your children. You can certainly choose not to take your kids to a rated R movie, but you can't make them un-see the provocative images that they just saw in what should be a family friendly environment. The closest thing I can compare it to is second hand smoke, which is still somewhat of an epidemic that health departments are trying to solve. How do we protect non smoker's health from harmed by smoker's choices. We've removed the option of smoking almost anywhere indoors. For the most part my children don't have to worry about second hand smoke because no one is allowed to smoke at my grocery store. What they do have to worry about is a magazine about sports that chose to make an issue that has NOTHING to do with sports, other than the stereo type that men like sports and sex. It is merely an effort to keep interest during sports slowest season by serving up a bunch of sexually arousing women for their consumers, and unfortunately anyone that needs groceries.

I know I am conservative, but I am not the only one bothered by this. I hear the same sentiments from  blogger Erica Voll who was featured on Huffington post last year. She claims she is not a prude and listens to Howard Stern and reads Fifty Shades of Grey and yet still doesn't appreciate the sexualization of grocery stores. She says this in reference to the questions her 4 year old had about the SI cover from 2013.

"... why do I need to have boobs in my face and the face of my kids at the GROCERY STORE?

Really, this is not a conversation I felt like having at the grocery store. Not only do I need to find a way to explain to my daughter why this woman is freezing her boobs off on an apparent Alaskan cruise, I need to find a way to tell her -- SOMEHOW -- that no woman looks like this. This was an airbrushed to hell photo that is in no way representative of what real women look like."

What this other blogger and I also have in common is that we did something about it. We wrote letters. 

I was able to contact Sports Illustrated through the One Million Moms website. I also sent an email to Target corporate headquarters that said (among other things) " I understand that you have swimsuits in the issue, but they are obviously not good enough for the cover models or they might be COVERED. I thought Target was a place where families could shop together, try on cute clothes, and get school supplies. Maybe not. " 

 I understand that this is no big deal in the day and age we live in. This magazine has had covers that were just as bad or arguable worse and still it continues to grow in popularity. Even then, I am not about to let my voice be stifled by the greedy companies that feel they are entitled to blow their second hand smoke in my kid's face!