Conference quark::mennotes

    
     Dead time? Nay, my friend, this is the beginning of the Nascar Winston
    Cup season. The Daytona 500 has just concluded and racing is beginning
    full bore in the coming weeks. Plenty of sports action out there to
    keep you going until the first pitch and final slap shot.
    
     Oh yeah, swimsuit issue of SI. I don't see anything wrong with, but
    I'm sure in these politically correct times, many will find it
    offensive. I myself enjoy it the same way I would a magazine on artwork
    or classic cars. That is appreciate the photos, the subject and leave
    it at that.
    
    Tony
    

    Re: .0
    
    Oh, is it that time of year again?  I hadn't noticed.  (Then again,
    according to Tank McNamara, the only sports-related thing I read,
    there might be Canadian football to fill in the gap.)  As for
    SI, I don't read it, swimsuit issue or any other.
    
    And I didn't watch even 15 seconds of the Super Bowl, either!  By
    the way, who was playing this year?
    
    			Steve

    Canadian football?  The Canadian football season runs from around July
    to around November, eh.
    
    This is the season for college basketball, though.
    
    -- Mike

    I look up the swim suite issue on the stand only, I dont buy it,
    I usually go to the most busy line, and pick it up, by the time
    my turn is on iam done looking at it , opps, I mean reading it.

    I dont see any think not PC with it, admiring the female beauty
    is not un-PC !! , no way hossay !!

    hope this helps.

    \bye
    \nasser
    is the football season over?

    The only sport I follow at all is basketball. Summer is the dead time
    between basketball seasons. I have friends who follow something called
    hockey that I believe is also taking place about now. Next week end is
    the NBA All Star game. Hardly dead time.

    I don't buy the swimsuit issue. It only serves to make me more aware of
    the cold New England weather. The biggest problem is that too many
    people make too big a deal of it. It doesn't seem to provide all that
    different an image of women than Vogue or Cosmopolitan.

    In short, people who care, one way or an other, about the SI swimsuit 
    issue are sadly in need of finding a life.

    			Alfred

    SI should stick to sports.  Or, better yet, cease publication and save
    the trees.  Baseball is best covered in person.
    
    -dick

    I suppose SI needs to do something, since the content/quality thereof
    has, in my not terribly humble opinion, gone Waaaaaaaaay down hill of
    late.
    
    The only sports they seem to cover is baseball, basketball and football
    -- fine in their own rights, but I seem to recall more diversity/more
    pages in that honorable magazine in the past.  (Hell, this was a sports
    magazine that had a really interesting artcile about pit bulls when
    that was all the rage).  Even the coverage they *do* have seems thin.
    It's sorta of like the USA Today of magazines -- all the news that's
    fit to print, but only in a paragraph or two.
    
    Sigh.
    
    kim  (who doesn't care if women want to pose in unrealistic bathing
    suits, they get paid for it.  I'd pose if someone would pay me for it. 
    And if I were beautiful.  And had a nice figure.  And...and...)
    
    

    	I read it....I look at the pictures. I make judgements about the
    models and the suits. Then I wonder who buys these suits and what
    beaches they go to. I've certainly never seen the net type or
    transparent ones any beach I've been to. I've never seen the ones that
    become transparent when wet, or those ones that have a tread betwixt
    the buttocks that appear so uncomfortable that I squirm.
    	The unbelieveable thing is that the women who oppose it do more
    positive advertising than anything SI could possibily do itself. That
    one issue has made many female models multi-millionaires. By opposing
    the stupid thing so viciously, it actually promotes it. SI says it's
    just bathing suits and fashions no worse than Cosmo or Vanity Fair. It
    certainly isn't as cheapo as the annual swimsuit magazines that hit the
    stands and are literally soft porno or cheesecake. 
    	It also tells women what men are looking at and for on the beaches
    if she is daring enough to wear some of the suits. It alsoo tells us
    that the most important part of the mating ritual is catching the eye
    of a prospective mate. Male or Female......
    
    Ken

> It alsoo tells us that the most important part of the mating ritual is 
> catching the eye of a prospective mate.

hm, I get an entirely different perspective; the most important part of
the advertising ritual is catching the eye of your target buyer by offering
something he wants but can't get except with money.

DougO

    
> hm, I get an entirely different perspective; the most important part of
> the advertising ritual is catching the eye of your target buyer by offering
> something he wants but can't get except with money.

    FYI, SI reports the vast majority of increased sales of the swimsuit
    issue are to women ... so you may want to modify that last line DougO.
    
    Greg
    

    I'm curious, how do 'THEY' know that the increased sales of the
    Swimsuit edition is to women?? I assume that the increase sales are
    from people buying it off the rack and wonder how 'THEY' know what you
    are?? Perhaps because many women buy subscritions for 'their' men as
    presents and they use that statistic?? Personally I, a woman, usually
    look at the Swimsuit edition. I'm normally not offended, there are
    always a couple of shots that everyone knows are there strictly for T&A
    affect. It just hasn't been the same since they stopped having Elle
    MacPherson in it! I liked her because she's the only model I've ever
    heard admit to weighing more than 112 pounds!!!

    re:.0
    
    Get HBO, they have the Swimsuit Show.  No boycotts yet, so it's probably
    safe for another year or two until the leters and telephone calls start
    coming in.

    Re: .12
    
    Well, HBO also has a show called "Real Sex", according to articles in
    the newspaper.
    
    I loved the sendup on the "making of the SI swimsuit edition" that
    Julie Brown did on her show "The Edge".
    
    					Steve

    
    
    a lot of people in America seem to be hung up on nudity for some reason.
    
    \nasser

and affected spelling, and chess, and chicken livers, and all sorts
of other thngs, nasser.  one man's hang up is another's passion.

DougO

    when i lived in Europe i found people to be much more open minded and not so
    conservative on stuff like this. the only reason nudity is a big deal
    here is that because a lot people are hung up on it. that was actually 
    strange because when you live out of the US you think it will different
    here when it comes to nudity and all but it turns out to be the other 
    way round, i always thought more people in America will be more open 
    minded and not so concervative and be bothered by it and stuff like this, 
    but i found it  completely the reverse, especially in the northeast and 
    south .
    
    i found more people in the west cost are more open minded and have
    more healthy outlook at these things.

    hope this helps.
    
    \bye
    \nasser

.13> Well, HBO also has a show called "Real Sex", according to articles in
    
    Yeah, they do ... the older ones were good, but now they're on Real Sex
    5, and they focus more on personal stories and less on nakedness.  It
    got so bad that I channel surfed and never came back until it was all
    over.

    Okay, now that we've established that we really don't care about the
    possible controversy surrounding the Swimsuit Issue, let's get down to
    the real important issue:
    
    Who is the best swimsuit model??????
    
    I have to go with Kathy Ireland. . .
    
    
    

    .18
    
    >    Who is the best swimsuit model??????
    
    i dont know her name, but i would know her when i see her.
    
    she has a very nice body too.
    
    hope this helps.
    
    \bye
    \nasser

    
    
    <<< Note 34.19 by STAR::ABBASI "i think iam psychic" >>>
    
                                                ^^^^^^^^
                                          better think again.
    
    

    Re .20
    
    That "i think iam psychic" should actually read "i think iam psycho"
    
    Sorry, \nasser, I couldn't resist.  :-)
    
    -dick

    re;.18
    
    Elle MacPherson or Rachel Hunter.

    
    i just remembered the name. Sharon Stone ! that is the one !
    she is soo cute she can camp by my firs any day she wants too.
    
    \bye
    \nasser

    OK, here's a naive question from someone who's never looked through a
    swimsuit issue [Like, I mean, why should I? I already _have_ a
    swimsuit.]: does it include any swimsuits for men?
    
    Oh, and another naive question: are any of the swimsuit-clad models
    actually _swimming_, or are they all (as I gather from the clips I've
    seen on TV - believe it or don't, there is apparently a market for
    shows about the _making_ of a swimsuit issue) just standing around
    getting chilled?
    
    Marketing is a wonderful and mysterious thing, and is probably
    dangerous to attempt to understand.
    
    -b

    	Surveys last year showed that 14,000,000 women purchased the SI
    Swimsuit edition. Wason the news on WWOR in NYC last night and they
    were interviewing women. Most said they at least look at it, others
    said they bought it to know the latest fashion trend in beachwear,
    others said they used it as incentive to lose weight by summer, but
    usually failed.....none were anti ..
    
    <Ken

    
    .8
    
    FYI, at the north end of Hampton Beach (N.H.) you'll see some of the type
    of swimsuits featured in the SI issue. I've seen many of the
    transparent when wet suits. I did a double take at the first one: I
    didn't realize she was wearing a suit when she came out of the cold
    water.
    
    Guy (whose wife won't allow him to go to Hampton Beach anymore)
    
    

RE: a couple back

To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any male models.  But since
the publishers themselves state that so many women read this issue, you'd
think maybe the day will come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nasser, I think Sharon Stone is beautiful, too, but she's never been in the
Swimsuit Issue.

Jon

    I think most women buy the SI out of curiosity.  Curiosity about what
    the ideal woman looks like this year, and thus what she's supposed to
    try to live up to in order to be considered attractive by men. 
    Fortunately, most of the real competition, from real women, out in the
    world doesn't look anywhere near as good as the models in the SI.  The
    other thing is just curiosity as to what new styles of bathing suits
    are going to be out in any given year.
    
    Lorna
    

The Boston Globe this morning published a picture of the SI swimsuit issue's
cover.  The woman pictured is clearly NOT intending to go swimming, especially
given the dangling earrings she is wearing.  I didn't find the suit she was
wearing particularly enticing either.

			Steve

    like, who care if they are going to swim with them or not.
    they look cute in them, that all that matters.
    
    hope this helps.
    \bye
    \nasser

    Hyundai yanked their advertising this year out of SI over a developing
    protest movement against the SI swimsuit issue. Advertisers like the
    SI swimsuit issue because 1 in 4 magazine readers see it, making it
    the largest selling single magazine issue sold in a given year. Hyundai
    is the first major advertiser to do so.
    
    I have always been amazed that this magazine is so heavily patronized,
    when so many magazines that feature women completely naked are so
    readily available at the same newstands that sell the SI swimsuit issue.
    The jump in sales obviously does not come from subscribers, but
    one-time newstand sales. It is an interesting social phenomena that men
    who feel uncomfortable buying skin mags will buy the swimsuit issue,
    which isn't the state of the art of swimsuit fashion, either. Swimsuit
    catalogs are also readily available, in this world.
    
    I also do not believe that women make up the difference in sales; this
    seems highly unlikely to me. 
    
    -roger
    

    I must word this carefully.....
    
    A woman in a swimsuit can be more sexually attractive than a nude
    woman.... not sure why, except that the naked photos leave nothing
    to the imagination.  Also, the porn magazanines can be demeaning
    whereas the S.I. photos simply because they are not porn can bring
    out the beauty in a woman more effectively.  IMO
    
    Jeff

    re .31
    
>    Hyundai yanked their advertising this year out of SI over a developing
>    protest movement against the SI swimsuit issue. Advertisers like the
>    SI swimsuit issue because 1 in 4 magazine readers see it, making it
>    the largest selling single magazine issue sold in a given year. Hyundai
>    is the first major advertiser to do so.
    
    The big looser in this case is probably Hyundai.  SI probably has
    a dozen waiting in line to take their place. 
    
    fred();

    Took a peak at the mag yesterday.  Nothing I'd get upset about.
    
    One thing I did notice though, was the wagon (little red wagon
    type) with Chappaquidick (sp) Landing in the Martha's Vineyard
    section.  Does someone at SI have an issue with Ted?
    
    Joanne

    >Took a peak at the mag yesterday.  
    
    OMI'God !
    
    Joanne! 
    
    you wild woman! 
    
    \bye!
    \nasser
    
    
    
    

    So SI's swimsuit issue is heavily patronized.  It's also heavily
    patronizing.
    
    Many people buy it who would not buy porn mags because it's not porn,
    therefore it's okay to buy it and trade it among your friends until the
    pages get too badly stuck together by all the handling.

 >until the pages get too badly stuck together by all the handling.

 Of what?!! :-)

    You don't want to know.

    	I went to buy Athlon's Baseball and the SI Swimsuit Isuue was on
    the shelf so I took a look. Kathy Ireland is a featured model again
    this year and there are a couple of models with one name. Vendela,
    Amber and Tuay. Some of the suits are real swimsuits, others are
    sunbathing suits, and a few are ....well, something else. I thought it
    was interesting that the layouts were done in Alaska, Mass., Hawaii,
    and Florida. $ locations using 4 different sets of models.....the one I
    had the biggest laugh at was the one where 2 huskies (dogs) are chasing
    a tall blonde in a bathing suit through the snow.......a she's wearing
    boots....
    
    	If you get two minutes, the layouts are very nice, some are stupid,
    others are meant to be sexually arousing......it's worth a peek for
    everyone to make their own decision.
    
    Ken....who spent $4.99 on Athalon's Baseball....put the SI back on the
    shelf. 

    If you watch the HBO show, the cold weather had a profound effect
    on... ummm... well, I'm sure y'all can figure it out.