Putting a model in a hijab and burkini in the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is a failure on every level other than the most shameless kind of on-trend virtue signalling. Please stop the cringe.
If the purpose of these photos is the kind of winking titillation that became redundant with the advent of internet pornography, I am not titillated. And I don’t want to pretend that I am.
In the main image circulated, it looks like the normally attractive Halima Aden is lying in a muddy pond fully-clothed in gleaming purple latex. Also, maybe it is my cultural background, but the hijab and the burka signal whatever is the opposite of sexy. It makes me think of separate gender swimming pools, of housebound Saudi women asking their male guardian for written permission to visit a doctor. It’s just jarring and odd.
If the purpose is, as the Kenya-born Somali-American Aden claims, to show off that “modestly dressed” women can be “beautiful” then it seems to me a little insincere to stretch the definition of modesty to posing in an edition of a magazine designed to be ogled by men.
But like many secular 21st-century men, I do not judge women’s virtue by their “modesty,” so that’s really none of my business. It does seem a little weird to have that quality celebrated in a post-feminist society, but I guess that’s cultural relativism for you.
If, however, the purpose of the picture is to get clicks for an otherwise moribund print publication and to show that it has “moved with the times” then OK – now I know. I am sure that their new swimsuit issue concept of models-in-burkinis “shattering perceptions” while discussing diversity and empowerment will find a paying audience.
By Igor Ogorodnev
Igor Ogorodnev is a Russian-British journalist, who has worked at RT since 2007 as a correspondent, editor and writer.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.