Twenty-Six Protest Swimsuit Magazine

Angry exchanges between chanting demonstrators and outspoken hecklers marked the annual protest of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue yesterday at Out of Town News.

Twenty-six people, mostly women from Wheelock College, participated in the yearly rally sponsored by two local anti-pornography groups. Marching around the newsstand, they charged that Sports Illustrated, in its only issue devoted to women, treats them as objects, not athletes.

Chanting "Women are not masturbation facilitators," and "Take women to heart, don't sell them as parts," the protesters urged passers-by to write complaints to the editor of Sports Illustrated and the owner of Out of Town News.

Rhea B. Becker, chair of the Women's Alliance Against Pornography, said she sees Sports Illustrated as part of a range exploitation which includes pornography to beauty pageants.

"It promotes the second-class status of women," she said. "When you objectify women, you feel they're not human, that you can do things to them."

Although some passers-by expressed support for the rally, a few observers in the Square were less sympathetic.

Ziggy W. Mayberry, a 31-year-old Cambridge resident, taunted the protesters by waving pornographic magazines in their faces.

"You got all these slutbooks. What's the difference if they have a swimsuit issue?" he asked them.

The protesters and the hecklers traded names and insults several times during the hour-long rally.

"You're just mad because you're not making the kind of money [the models] are making because you're not pretty enough," Mayberry shouted at several women.

One elderly woman stepped out of the march and replied angrily, "What did you say to me? You have no right to say that to me."

Some spectators argued that there are magazines that are far more exploitative than the swimsuit issue.

"It's kind of silly that they're protesting the swimsuit issue when they sell magazines like Big Jugs and Hustler," said Adam D. Taxin '93.

But the protesters countered that they are critical of both fashion and pornographic magazines.

"The thing about Sports Illustrated is that its not considered pornography like other magazines," said Barry A. Schulter, a member of Men to End Sexual Assault and one of the six men in the protest.