Paulina Porizkova has revealed she felt “objectified” throughout her earlier shoots for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
The model was just 17 years old when she graced the pages of the magazine. Her first shoot took place on a Jamaican beach in 1982.
Speaking in the documentary Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue, the now 59-year-old confessed: “When I felt objectified, it was because I didn’t have a say in how I was portrayed.”
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“Now, when I put myself out in a bikini or nothing, that’s my choice. To me, it’s objectification or celebration.
“Can it be both at the same time? I don’t see why not. We have been taught that our bodies are valuable if they’re pretty.
Porizkova added: “So then if you exhibit that body, you are “technically” objectifying yourself. But you’re also celebrating yourself.”
“We, as women, this is what we have been given as our powers, and then we are shamed for using them. Women will be shamed for everything, won’t they?”
Porizkova then opened up about her relationship with the late Jule Campbell, on whom the documentary is based.
Campbell passed away at the age of 96 after serving as the founding editor of Sports Illustrated from 1964 to 1996.
“This is what Jule taught me: ‘When you have a bikini on, all you have to do is embrace your body and who you are,'” Porizkova reminisced, “There’s such a sense of freedom to that.”
The model was featured in seven issues of the publication and also made history in 1984 as the first woman from Central Europe to appear on the cover.
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Porizkova spoke about her time in the magazine, sharing: “It’s so funny because the shots are so much less overt.”
“They’re so much less sexually explicit or whatever it is these days, but this is where we get to how times have changed.
“We have, I think, evolved as a society. Things that were absolutely normal and acceptable 40 years ago no longer are,” she added.
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