Put your imagination to rest if you are reading the latest Sports Illustrated issue. You won’t need it.

The annual “Swimsuit Edition” released earlier this month showcases much more skin than suits. The coveted cover features Kate Upton posing in in a winter coat and bikini bottoms, with her swimsuit top quite obviously omitted. The unzipped jacket covers just enough for the photo to be PG-13, not quite R.

Is this the opinion of a disgruntled female? Yes. But just because I have boobs doesn’t mean I’m opposed to seeing others. However, I am opposed to a magazine dictating what females are allowed to “be,” an idea I will return to later. Simply put, as a girl who has subscribed to SI for nearly a decade, I can’t help but wonder why boobs are granted the right to appear in the same context as sports.

That’s not to say near-nudity is appalling. I also hold a subscription to ESPN The Magazine, a competitor of SI. “The Mag” has its own version of SI’s Swimsuit Edition, which is known as “The Body Issue.” This year will mark its fifth anniversary. I have been continuously impressed with the tasteful representations of their athlete-models, especially of the females. Very rarely do you see a model in The Body Issue clutching her boobs, gazing into the camera with drooping, makeup-soaked eyelids. Instead, she is photographed while running, jumping, dribbling, shooting, tumbling, throwing––you get the picture. Somehow her natural athletic movements cover up enough to secure a PG-13 approval. Athletes both young and old appear in the centerfold, some with surgical scars, botched broken noses, and dry, cracked palms. This is what is meant to be noticed and admired––not by their nudity, but what’s underneath it.

As Associate Professor of Psychology Melissa Clearfield notes, “The key difference between the [two] photo spreads is that the SI issue focused on what women’s bodies look like, whereas ESPN focused on what bodies can do.” While the bodies of the SI models can look seductive, the females pictured in ESPN are the best in their field. In 2011, Team USA’s goalkeeper Hope Solo graced the cover of The Body Issue. The following year she went on to win Olympic gold, which earned her the cover of a regular SI issue. Then, a mere six months later, the Swimsuit Edition reveals Solo’s teammate, Alex Morgan, on the cover, clad in nothing but body paint.

One may think that Solo and Morgan’s spreads have no real difference. However, it wouldn’t be the SI norm for Morgan to pose as Solo did, kicking a ball with all her strength, jaw clenched in focus. On the contrary, Morgan’s main objective was to blend in with the other models’ “pretty.” By posing nearly nude swimsuit models in passive, non-athletic poses, SI contributes to the separation between a body, ownership, and practicality. While ESPN illustrates the body’s responsibility to provide strength, the Swimsuit Edition claims that the body’s purpose is satisfy others. Professor Clearfield reveals this mindset that fuels the Swimsuit Edition’s popularity: “Objectification theory is the idea that women are treated as bodies, specifically as bodies that exist for the use and pleasure of others.” Research shows that this objectification occurs for women substantially more than men. How does this translate into cognitive functions? In one study, women who were asked to take a math exam in an empty room while wearing a bathing suit fared much worse than when clothed in a sweater. Men who performed the same task in swimming trunks did not vary substantially from the clothed male participants.

What’s the matter here? Girls aren’t testing poorly because of cooties, nor are they bad at math (a math major is writing this so don’t tell me otherwise). Women have learned, through devices such as the Swimsuit Edition, that they can be included or excluded in certain arenas based solely on their bodies. It may manifest itself differently for different people. To me, the models’ poses and nudity in SI remind me that society claims that I shouldn’t be “one of the guys.” It makes me hypersensitive to the fact that I write a sports blog, attend baseball games, play fantasy football, and host a sports talk show––almost as if I was in some way “breaking the rules.” This year’s multiple pages of topless models only heighten this sense of detachment.

Surprisingly, I will not be canceling my subscription to SI. The other 51 weeks of the year, I value the insight, photographs, and articles about athletes that the magazine typically contains. I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my interest in sports in order to avoid one issue of boobs, and the feeling that I should be apathetic to sports. The change starts with a little skin, and a little more fabric. A bathing suit top wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially SI’s female readership.