Thursday, February 17, 2011

Winter distraction

My Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition arrived yesterday.

OK, OK, I know where you're going with this: you thought it took me 24 hours of leering at my SI before I even considered posting a blog about it.

And I might not even bother to deny that. The real question, however,  is where am I going with this?

Well, let's see.

I've been a subscriber to SI since my junior year in high school, which means I'm approaching my 45th year of leering at SI swimsuit models. I hope to make it to 50. I'm wondering if then I would qualify for a free lifetime subscription to the magazine. If they don't offer such a thing, they should. I should at least get a watch out of it.

It used to be great fun to get the swimsuit issue because a few weeks after its annual publication, SI would print a lengthy sample of letters from irate readers wishing to cancel their subscriptions, as if they were totally surprised such a thing existed in the first place even though the swimsuit edition has been around since the mid-1960s. You'd have to have lived on Jupiter not to know about the swimsuit edition. Those letters made for some great reading.

Many complaints, if I recall, came from women wondering why SI was so sexist and how come there were no men in swimsuits? SI was clearly pandering to the prurient interest of its male readers, etc, etc.

Lately, however, SI gives its readers a heads-up that the special section is approaching and now subscribers have the option of refusing delivery of their swimsuit edition. I can proudly declare I've never entertained that option.

In my mind, no model ever generated more personal heartthrob than Cheryl Tiegs in her unbelievably revealing fishnet suit, back in 1978. I can close my eyes to this day and...wait. Why close my eyes when I have Google? Time for a break...

OK, I'm back.

Good to see Cheryl again. What was I saying?

3 comments:

  1. Well, guess there's not a whole lot of difference in yankee boys and southern rebs after all. Cheryl....ah, I remember her well. Problem is she's now 63! What?! Are you kidding me?! Well, so far I still have my memory and that fishnet suit was cause for celebration, if get my drift, and is forever burned into whatever part of a man's brain that stuff gets burned into. By the way, the new issue I've lent the Col. Wonder if I'll get if back?

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  2. Elle Macpherson...1988 SI Thailand issue...a black one-piece...I still weep.

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  3. I talked my mom into ordering SI for me and she finally did. The very first issue that was delivered to the house was the Cheryl Tiegs one. Mom wasn't happy but I sure was. So she's my favorite too, with Christie Brinkley in the Sea Shells of the Seychelles a close second.

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