Men Athletes Can Be Sexy Too

When San Francisco Examiner reporter Gwen Knapp wrote about tennis star Steffi Graf posing for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue, I read the piece with interest.

I expected the Feb. 25 story to tell me something new and fresh and maybe even challenging about gender exploitation.

And then I read this paragraph:

“The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue corralled Graf, whose form follows function as gracefully as Michael Jordan’s. Jordan, of course, won’t be asked to don a bikini for a national publication any time soon. The Bulls are in midseason when the swimsuit issue is assembled, and, well, you know how athletes hate distractions.”

And then Knapp passed on this rhetorical-question quote from Stanford head women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer: “Would they pose male athletes that way?”

Which started me thinking: Hadn’t I seen just that very kind of photograph in the current issue of Esquire magazine?

Sure I had. For right there, on page 43 of Esquire’s March issue, stands none other than the World’s Greatest Athlete, former Moscow resident Dan O’Brien, the sole feature in an otherwise stark Versace ad.

See O’Brien now, wearing only a set of black Versace briefs, his thumb strategically looped under one drooping side as if anxious to effect a quick exit. With his muscles flexed in all the appropriate spots, O’Brien poses invitingly.

His torso and legs are bathed in a sheen of perspiration. His wide-legged stance suggests readiness. His expression is a cross between a withering come-hither and an embarrassing sense of are-we-being-serious-here?

The answer to that last question is, of course, yes. Or, at least, as serious as we can be in a world that passes off mere lust for true passion, sexual prowess for mating potential, and does it all in the name of advertising.

Which brings us to this: Knapp has a valid point to make. Women typically are seen as sexual objects first and athletes second.

But she goes too far when she writes, “Any century now, anthropological advances will bring us advertising aimed higher than the typical man’s belt.”

To pretend that modern advertising, or magazine cover stories or television shows or movies or virtually any pop media are aimed only at men is reverse sexism.

Versace sells to women, too.

Just ask the creators of the Dan O’Brien ad.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo