“Egalitarianism is the flattening out of differences. It tries to destroy hierarchy in the name of “all men being equal.” In reality it is a fight against gravity, against the way God made the world.  One would assume in world devoted to the “advancement of women” that the Swimsuit Issue would slowly fade away and become a relic of a bygone era of male domination.”

I read SI.com (Sports Illustrated for the uninitiated) most of the year. During the NFL season Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback is one of my favorite reads. However, every February I have to avoid the site for a few days. When they roll out their annual swimsuit issue, scantily clad women are everywhere.  Here are some facts about the SI Swimsuit Issue.

-In 2005, the latest date I could find figures for, this issue generated 35 million dollars in ad revenue. Secondary products, such as calendars, generate another 10 million dollars in revenue.

-This single issue makes up 7% of the SI’s total annual revenue.

-All advertisers, including those who make the swimsuits and jewelry that the women wear, see substantial increase in sales.

-Tourism spikes in the locations where the models get photographed .

-The Swimsuit Issue sells over 1 million copies on newsstands, which is 10 to 15 times the average sales of an SI issue. There are also over 3 million SI subscribers. Last year they launched a Swimsuit Issue website where millions more folks read it.

-It is the single best selling issue in Time Inc.’s magazine franchise, which includes well known magazines, such Time, People, Entertainment Weekly, and lesser known gems like Rugby World.

-Cover models and many of those within the magazine become famous, go on to promote numerous other products, and become rich.

The Swimsuit Issue is a cultural phenomenon and financial goldmine.

The SI Swimsuit Issue  is a good case study into how well egalitarianism works. Egalitarianism is the flattening out of differences. It tries to destroy hierarchy in the name of “all men being equal.” In reality it is a fight against gravity, against the way God made the world.  One would assume in world devoted to the “advancement of women” that the Swimsuit Issue would slowly fade away and become a relic of a bygone era of male domination. Yet despite all the protests of the cultural elite, despite years of egalitarian indoctrination, despite egalitarianism being the default worldview of most Americans, the Swimsuit Issues not only goes on, but becomes more powerful.  The Swimsuit Issues shows that gravity wins in the end. Egalitarianism has failed in its stated agenda; to make things better for women. There are exceptions to what I am about to say and this is but one slice of our cultural pie. However, we see egalitarianism’s failure in the Swimsuit issue.

First, despite egalitarianism’s contrary claim, women are different from men. Women have things men don’t.  Men want to look at those things. Put a half (mostly?) naked man on the cover and do you get the same sales? Of course not! Why? Because men and women are different both in body and in personal make up. But, of course the scholars contest this. “Men and women are really the same,” they opine. “What is in our pants doesn’t make us who we are.”  Just because women have wombs and breasts doesn’t mean they were made to have babies. I am not saying SI agrees with my assessment about why women are different. And I know they are using those differences between men and women in a twisted way. But they and their readers know that women and men are not interchangeable. The auto mechanic who reads the Swimsuit Issue knows more about how God made the world than the Ph.D. who has spent years and millions of dollars  in grants trying to prove men and women are really the same.

Second, some women are more beautiful than others. Egalitarianism denies any hierarchy, including a hierarchy of beauty. Christians tend to deny this as well. We think we are being nice by denying that some women are more beautiful than others. But in reality we are just lying. Of course, all women are beautiful in certain ways. I think my wife is beautiful. And you should think the same about your wife.  The definition of beauty can shift from time to time and place to place. Yet in every culture there are women who are more beautiful than other women. Again the Swimsuit Issue proves this. Why not just put your average woman on the cover in a bikini? Because your average woman, while probably a wonderful woman, is not as beautiful as Kate Upton. Despite egalitarianism’s claim, all women are not created with equal beauty.

Third, egalitarianism has not caused men to stop treating women like sex objects. Men buy 1 million copies of the Swimsuit Issue because they want to look at half-naked women. There is a reason for this. Women were made for sex and so were men.  SI has taken that and perverted it, but there is a truth in their perversion. I find it odd that many egalitarians fight against men who they think are too patriarchal, but refuse to protest things like the Swimsuit Issue, pornography, and Fifty Shades of Grey. You can’t on the one hand claim that women are more than sex objects, but then encourage women to parade their breasts to the watching world as a sign of their freedom from being a sex object. This goes for many of pop music’s female stars as well. They dress provocatively, dance provocatively, sing provocatively, but then they don’t want women to be treated like objects. By the way, I am not saying men who treat women like objects are justified. It is wrong to do so. My point is that egalitarians speak out of both sides of their mouths. You can’t say, “Don’t treat us like objects” and then go make yourself an object to be stared at. A vast majority of the women in this world were made for  a sexual relationship. Either they become sex objects for leering men, are rejected because they are not sexy enough, or they become objects of affection and protection for loving husbands. Egalitarianism only provides us with the first two.

So how should Christians respond to SI’s perversions and egalitarianism’s siren songs?

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