The 23-year-old, who led the U.S. gymnastics team to gold medals in 2012 and 2016, posed with inspiring words scrawled on her body, such as "survivor" across her chest, "live 4 you" and "every voice matters" down one arm, and "fierce" on the other. "Women do not have to be modest to be respected" ran down one side of her body. There was no swimsuit, no clothing at all, just those words, which Raisman ‐ not the photographer or stylists ‐ chose, as did all the women featured in the what the magazine called its "In Her Own Words" project.
Women do not have to be modest to be respected.
That's a bald statement without any backup documentation. She's a really pretty girl, with a really nice birthday suit, but I can't think of many religions that don't at least encourage women to be modest. Tantrism, maybe. The rest of it is just standard blah crap. Labeling yourself a "survivor" just means you're not dead. Life's full of things you survive, child abuse by an athletic director sometimes among them. Calling yourself "fierce" doesn't mean much. One moment you're fierce, another you might be cringing in horror. It depends on the circumstances: the accuracy of the enemy's artillery, whether the wing's gonna fall off your plane because there's a big hole in it, whether you can outrun the mudslide. I'll betcha the Herculaneum Volunteer Fire Department was "fierce" until the volcano blew.
The time when women were taught to be ashamed of their bodies might be over,but why's it so absolutely necessary to flaunt? Spend a day on the internet and you can find thousands of pictures of women, from prepubescents to granny ladies, nekkid as eggs, in positions that would make a gynecologist blush and sometimes doing things that would gag a goat. "Respectability" sounds so trite and corny, but it has advantages, among them a degree of social stability and personal comfort. I'm guessing, though I don't know, that Aly Raisman was raised in a stable home. Her mother put her in gymnastics when she was two years old, which bespeaks parental interest and encouragement, a decent family income (lessons ain't free), and considerable application on her part. She is to be admired for her accomplishments; we don't need to see her titties.
But nobody listens to me. I'm just an old crank.