A History Of Pin-Up Girls

It is no longer surprising to see world class athletes in the provocative poses and skimpy clothes of pinup girls. These are world champion athletes and some of them are Olympic medalists. They have achieved the pinnacle of their sport and won worldwide adulation for their achievements on the tennis court, sports field or swimming pool. It therefore begs the question why they would do something that is normally reserved for film actresses or models.

One has to see the reception that these photographs receive to understand why top notch athletes want to be pinup girls. The women who do these are very attractive in addition to being talented and their fan base sky rockets after these photos come out. This helps to drive sales of products that these women endorse. It is quite interesting to note that these days athletes can make more money from product endorsements rather than from actual winnings. The situation is such that a woman does not need to be the best at her sport in order to be the most popular person involved in it.

There is another aspect to this as well. These women put in a lot of effort to strengthen their bodies and improve their game. It must certainly be very refreshing for them to be viewed by the world as a beautiful woman and not just a record breaking athlete.

These provocative photographs do serve a useful purpose as well and the sport does benefit from them. They increase awareness and interest in the particular sport and increasing numbers of people take it up thanks to this free publicity it gets. Young girls will feel less worried about losing their feminine aura after seeing these pictures of beautiful and healthy women.

These saucy pictures are not without controversy. There are plenty of people who do not appreciate this new turn of events. They say that these photographs of athlete pinup girls trivialize this game, catering to the lowest common denominator. Feminists decry these images saying that they are pandering to base male instincts by sexualizing these strong women who have achieved glory by physically dominating their opponents. They point out that you don’t often see photographs of men in these poses. The issue gets really heated up when certain athletes shed all of their clothes for some well known publications.

The stock response that these women athletes give is that they are doing it to celebrate the variety of the human figure and to demonstrate that you don’t have to be ugly in order to win world championships or Olympic medals. They argue that they deserve the right to be viewed as sexy athletes, in the same way that male athletes are idolized by their female fan following.

However, the view that prevails is that they do it for the money so that they can extract as much as possible from the time they are famous, because these days fame is fleeting and lasts only as long as they can remain in the public eye.