At any point in the day, I can open my closet, pull out a swimsuit, squeeze into it, pose for a selfie in my full-length mirror, and broadcast the image to the world. It’s easy to take for granted just how much the Internet has democratized the thirst trap; with social media, we can each be a part-time model and beach bunny for all seasons. But when I was growing up, in the early two-thousands, the only photographs of young women in bathing suits which I regularly saw were in the summer issues of the teen magazines that arrived on my doorstep.
The bikini-clad models on those pages were impossibly thin; they were also, with rare exceptions, white. It was only in 1997 that featured a solo Black model on the cover of its iconic swimsuit issue, with Tyra Banks baring her washboard abs and breasts that nearly spill out of her top, in a red-and-pink polka-dot two-piece. So much for representation.
In those days, I knew of only one way that a mere mortal could be pictured in a bikini for paying subscribers. It was to submit a picture to , a weekly magazine for Black news and entertainment. Each issue included an ad for “beautiful models between the ages of 18-25,” along with instructions to fill out a “coupon” with contact information and “a current snapshot of yourself in a bathing suit.
” If the magazine liked your photograph, they would connect you with a professional photographer. From inception, in 1951, until the magazine ceased its print operation, in 2014, it pu.
