What A Story!

The Sports Illustrated model issue in February in the beginning was suspected to be sacrilegious. Sports is one of the religions with an unfair amount of absurdity to its structure and as a practice: dangerous. The danger of this religion is the overriding contradiction it enjoyed for a long time that men declared in the spirit of domination! This empowering emotion took pleasure excluding women from the inner sanctum in front of the family TV on any Sunday!

When women stepped outside of their prescribed assignment: serving food and drinks and retiring to another room men would typically get upset because their mental focus on the screen was incapable of venturing in but one direction. When the idea of making bikini clad white models the focus of the holy text of 'the' American sports magazine for February, a lot of men were upset! That was what Playboy was for; not this publication! 

And then was the threat that wives would take exception at the growing excitement, and acceptance of this issue as sensual stimuli legitimized by the respectability of Sports Illustrated! What happened was a bonus! The issued became the proverbial pat upon the head! Wives decided to let their husband's this one pleasure, in part; I suspect, because it was very public. Without secrecy sensuality in this medium was given a status Playboy could not, did not have! Wives could live with this and be amused at the same time.

Over time, the monthly display of flesh in the sun during the worst of winter time blues was welcome and the models began to come from other ethnic groups, straying not far from the white standard of beauty.

It all comes together in this one publication. Western contradictions abound upsetting cultures around the globe. Despite the turmoil Europe created in the images and perception of Beauty, womanhood, and sex they've mysteriously taken over the images that dominate and control billions of people's concept of self in this monthly issue!

It is a powerful demon, at best. It comes alive much like Lazarus from the dead with each publication of the Sports Illustrated's swimsuit magazine, in February. What a story!

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
Jan. 22, 2018

Sports Illustrated model Genevieve Morton in the 2014 swimsuit issue.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover has been revealed for 2015, and it stars none other than Hannah Davis.

Sports Illustrated model Ariel Meredith (2013)

Sports and Beauty.

The best part of sports, for me, became the Sports Illustrated swimwear issue until my wife introduced me to Lingerie Football! Thank God, for alternative things during the football season! And then there are books, and the quiet outdoors during the games on the weekend, and delightfully the quiet outdoors during the Super Bowl, unless the wife takes me to a Super Bowl party at someone's house! Those are fun!

The food, at least with Black folk, is exceptional, and in abundance we have full course meals in big houses with large televisions! Laughter, jive talking, the soft smacking of lips sucking meat off bones, and the soul music coming from a room just off the side. Then the commercials and the biggest relief: one can watch the halftime show! There is no talking heads running off at the mouth endlessly during this time. I love it because during the regular games the most annoying thing is the constant stream of men talking from beginning to end, and worst of all: during the halftime shows.

People, groups, schools hustle all year to perform at these games and do not get in the national spotlight anymore! It's a shame, a damn shame! I can compare it to my childhood watching the games in black and white with Daddy understanding more than I do now about the game. Those halftime shows were something! They stopped fans in the chairs, rose them off their sofas! It was really something before the endless chatter in the same kind of voices took over the spotlight, the cameras and center stage!

Anyway, that's all I got for now! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 1/26/18

Emily Didonato - SI Swimsuit 2015

Chrissy Teigen's Sports Illustrated swimsuit picture. (2015)

Sports Illustrated model Genevieve Morton in the 2014 swimsuit issue.

Xena, the Warrior Princess (r.) and Gabrielle. Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor.

Lingerie football team players. (2016).

Beauty to question, to be...

stunning photos of Bregje Heinen in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2014 issue.

Beauty asks the soul of you to stand still because stillness in intelligence is an emotion causing one to see clearly what isn't clear to the vulgar mindset. She wants to know where you situate yourself within her demands on tireless bones of truth about essence, and existence as a liability and the probability of pressing on beyond the tired extremities of trying to define what cannot be defined!

This is a lot of spirituality. Where beauty is sanctity can become a spiritual quality. On the other hand, beauty can become vain improperly tossed about, and used for gain on such a level the base of the whole concept of being beautiful of body is supplanted by an ugly spirit holding distain for what was once coveted: one's worth.

These are simple words. The truth. Where have they gone within you? - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories Nov. 20, 2016 

 Brown Honey

soft light, Lauren Monday, and a special appeal.

5 views of one Standard.



Gregory E. Woods by Wesley Boyd at 20th Million Man March celebration in Washington DC in sacred circle set up & protected by a warrior society in red shirts. (October 2015)

"Because of my bloodlines and who I am in the real worlds I live in some people, in person, have asked me about the images of white women on my blogs. They never ask about any other ethnic group. It is the white women that draws the speculation. The question is why and the answer is plural."

Over the years the profound impact of the image of white women becomes more powerful. Of particular importance is the notion of measuring, superiority, and fear of who she is and what powers she represents. White men believe complicated versions of their women are not to be examined but accepted. It is part of conquest. If the white man could turn Jesus white, and Christianity into a Western religion who is going to argue against the idea that white women are whom our women should measure themselves?

"Do white women have spiritual qualities to measure against? Have they ever in history?"

That is a seldom asked question in public, and when answered by women of melanin it is done in silence because a significant number of their men respond to white women in a fashion that invites the anger of their women, or the admiration of their male friends, if sexual conquest is the measuring stick of masculinity and radical politics.

"Do white women have what is superior to other women?"

The answer is often a subtle one. Despite what women the world over say their actions speak of horrid realities. Asian and African women are bleaching their skin. Iranian women are altering their noses. Black American women have long embodied the essence of and the soul of white women as a survival mechanism, and as a model for being a woman. There are women who have killed themselves because the pressure to accept 'white women domination' is contemptible and heavy upon their essence, their soul. Central American and West African women quickly learn to model their parenting styles and sense of place in the social construct of the U.S. after white women, and suffer for it over time watching their children reject more and more of their cultures to become white American citizens, or distort themselves to make white people, in general, comfortable.

Women the world over are trying to be accepted by white women, and measure their esteem against the myths about white women, and as conquered people open protest against this standard is done by women holding on to their culture and languages as best they can.

"Are white women's bodies the ideal, or affordable?"

Apparently, white women's bodies are the ideal. They have become the ideal over time. The second insinuation about affordability is worth investigating because women of other ethnic groups spend millions of dollars to create the visual illusion they are white, or could somehow be respected or mistaken for one because they thinned their waists, narrowed their nose, obsessed over what white women fuss and fret over in the media circus, and the tendency to digress into comparative studies of their men against the standard of successful white men in business!

My last thoughts are complex; not for the shallow, the faint of heart or the pretentious.

"If Mary, the mother of Jesus is white how did she become intertwined with the spirituality of women from various tribes and nations with deep connections to their wombs when the spiritual powers of white women have been held in contempt in European and white American sensibilities?

In short, how do white women measure, or stand in the esteem of the ancient and modern spirituality of other ethnic groups with deeper roots in womanhood than white culture allows?"   - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6.12.16






Sports Illustrated models Samantha Hoopes. Hailey Clauson. Kelly Rohrbach. Genevieve Morton. Anastasia Ashley.

 

Bare Naked Sacrifice

Aly Raisman, 6-time Olympic medalist for Sports Illustrated magazine 2017. 

Aly Raisman on topless photo shoot: 'Women do not have to be modest in order to be respected'

by TAYLOR MAPLE
April 13, 2017

Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman said she gives no heed to critics of her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit photo shoot -- it's something she expected.

"I knew people were going to say that I wasn't a good role model and all of this stuff," Raisman, who posed topless in the magazine, told Motto. "I did the issue because I love my body. I can express myself in any way that I want. But that doesn't give anyone the right to judge me. I think being a role model is about being a kind person."

"It really made me realize women do not have to be modest in order to be respected," Raisman added.

Raisman is often outspoken about body image and the need for young women to have confidence. She's recently partnered with Playtex Sport to encourage women to continue participating in sports while on their periods. Raisman spoke about the need to support girls when they are going through puberty.

"Girls feel really insecure and awkward at that stage -- your body starts to change," she said. "Instead of feeling uncomfortable and not talking about it, I think it's important to have this conversation."

Raisman also tackles the issue of sexual assault and the need for girls to speak up when someone's behavior makes them uncomfortable.

"It's very hard for young women to speak up," she said. "I think young girls need to understand that if something doesn't feel right or they feel uncomfortable, then it's probably wrong. And it's OK to speak up."

Lena Filanea in white light

COMMENTARY 


There is an irritating unreasonableness on the border between arrogance and assumptions of privilege American women, white American women, in particular, flaunt. Their contradictions mislead with aplomb. Here, they have an urgent need to feel and be free, on the other hand the culture we live in is violent towards women, and any social advancement made was hard won because the fundamentals of European thought viewed women as chattel. For hundreds of years, white women have endured these conditions of spiritual squalor, and in the infancy of freeing themselves from it, somehow believe nudity, or near nudity is an expression of freedom!

We, all enjoy it, but on deeper reflection, and in particular raising daughters and sons, the heaviness of the contradictions prey on common sense; and unless there are deep connections to the spiritual teachings that discipline the spirit, and mature the emotions women increasingly fall prey to the lusts of uncontrollable energies men cannot intelligently control. What I am saying is the obvious, but the innate pride of American women emboldens them dreaming of a righted wrong that is barely controlled by law!

Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman flaunts each contradiction, I suspect, because she doesn't know any of the things I recalled. Talking directly into a generation of disturbingly unsophisticated young people, in comparison with past generations, she said, "... women do not have to be modest in order to be respected."

As if she caught herself she adds rather stupidly: "It's very hard for young women to speak up. I think young girls need to understand that if something doesn't feel right or they feel uncomfortable, then it's probably wrong. And it's OK to speak up."

Her immaturity and non-grasp of the depths of sacred womanhood, or being a conscious and intelligent woman in a violent culture aimed at taking from the female species as much sex and power as possible; she sounds foolish. Sadly, millions take her advise and step into an unknown: the provinces of the sex trade in all of its variables, and forms.

In various ways we are all complicit.


Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
April 14, 2017

lying down Daniela Cavalieri

Oh, Hannah !

 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover has been revealed for 2015, and it stars none other than Hannah Davis.

Hannah Davis' Victoria's Secret photoshoot

 

EVERYTHING (one) has to be modeled WHITE

Irina Shayk Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013 Seville, Spain: http://bit.ly/X3ABS1



Jessica Gomes Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013 Guilin; China: http://bit.ly/X3AEgA



The white standard and how it affects the majority of the world is a spiritual dilemma.

HANNAH DAVIS

Hannah Davis

Hannah Davis running!!

Hannah in New Orleans, LA

Hannah

Hannah Davis

Hannah Davis was featured in Sports Illustrated magazine for 2013. The strange thing about this kind of photography is the how and the why a woman can sport no bra underneath a sheer top and have no nipples!

Hannah Davis

a collage of Hannah Davis

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

Adaora Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013 Namibia Africa: http://bit.ly/X3Bc67