The advertisements include pictures of disgustingly thin women like Kate Moss and infer to women that they cannot be beautiful if they weigh more than 90 pounds. If you are a female subscriber to SI and you don't like the SI swimsuit edition, don't read it. If you still have philosophical differences with the magazine, then cancel your subscription and start a magazine without swimsuit models. The swimsuit edition neither objectifies women nor is it pornography. Men have for one reason or another liked to look at women.
Men are visual creatures.
Yes, a periodical with beautiful women in bikinis will arouse men's sexual thoughts. However, a story about beach volleyball and pictures of Gabrielle Reece fully clothed may incite the same sexual thoughts in a man that a swimsuit issue could. Maybe we should ask the women's magazines to stop promoting their ideal woman before we ask the men to. Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines. Copyright 1998 by the Iowa State Daily Publications Board.