SI Swimsuit aesthetic and Cosmo aesthetic are pretty much the same.
Last edited Sun Feb 16, 2014, 05:07 PM - Edit history (2)
The nutritional math of human beings:
In general (always exceptions) there is only so thin a woman can make herself while having large breasts.
This was a regulator governing our body aesthetic. The buxom waif was an oxymoron. We had flappers and waifs sometimes, and sweater girls and swimsuit models (once quite fleshy) as distinct types.
When wide social acceptance of breast implants biologically decoupled from the genetics and nutritional aspects of legs, butts and bellies we had the possibility of a large, replaceable population of tall women made only of muscle, yet "marked" as very female by the most display oriented of the female secondary sexual traits.
So out model-aesthetic was able to move into that, and men, for some ghastly reason, like that. But not as much as women do. Women really, really like the "lean boy with boobs" aesthetic.
One can get into special pleading about *why* women like it, but explanation is not contradiction. Whatever the cause, women are really into skeletons with boobs.
And if one objects that not *all* women think that, well duh. Not all anyone likes anything.
But if we extrapolate, as a useful generalization, "what men like" from a bunch of models then we must also extrapolate "what women like" the same way.
Watch the upcoming Olympic women's figure skating solos in a big crowd of people and keep track of who favors broader-based female body types. Hint: Men and women will tend to disagree on Kaetlyn Osmond versus Gracie Gold. Men are not foisting skinny butts on everyone. Men are, in fact, greatly influenced by fashion imagery.
And most images of women we grow up seeing, the definition of what a pretty lady is that culture gives us, are aimed at women and men alike.
And the great majority of consumption of images of females of the SI Swimsuit type is done by women.
And because we are so shaped by mass-media, I doubt that male and female aesthetics have ever been closer together than they are today.
Take fitness. Most contemporary Americans think female fitness looks good. That was not always the case. Any hint of exercise and hint of exposure to sun were once seen as lower class and masculine. A muscle on a woman was an undesirable aberration.
Today the only place we see unfit, unhealthy looking women as commodities is in female fashion magazines, but fit women are also welcome there. Men and women both like fit-looking women. That is our broad aesthetic. It was not always.
So in that sense SI is more female-friendly than Vogue. (Liking people to be healthy is friendly, versus the alternative.)
On the other hand, the breasts in SI (real and otherwise) will probably tend to be a little larger, so give Vogue a slight wholesomeness edge there. (But make no mistake, breast implants are super common in Vogue. Even the female-optimal breasts are not typical of someone who has not eaten anything but tic-tacs for a year.
Folks, it is our cultural body aesthetic, not something men in particular like. And it is quite compressed. Men and women do not vary widely on these aesthetic distinctions. (Not you and your friends... people. In aggregate. Consumers.)
So the problem is that, unlike a hundred magazines aimed at women that have the same content, SI has a male readership and thus it is feared that some man might enjoy looking at women who escaped from Vogue, into his magazine.
I find it a commidification more than objectification. As an artist I have no problem with objectification. Art objectifies. But when the object is a commodity that is a poor, crass sort of objectification.
And it appears that men and women (in broad culture, which is largely white culture) have largely come together on what the optimal comodified female is.
A six foot tall athlete turned anorexic with somewhat anomalous boobs.
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I wait all year for that one. 
Although I probably do need to face the fact that I am getting older. The grey in my hair is beginning to show. I might top out at #57 or 56 and not make the cut after all.
Oh well. It'll be close either way.
