| 12. Brandi Chastain
No one born before the '90s should need a dossier on muscular badass and Women's World Cup winner Brandi Chastain, but this iconic photograph may refresh your memory. In the exciting fifteen minutes that followed, Chastain posed for some less iconic photographs, including this one from the cover of Gear. — Peter Smith |
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| 11. The Naked Women of Curling Sexy firemen and ripped rugby players are right at home in saucy promotional calendars; in 2006, female curlers from across Europe and Canada stripped down and joined them. The idea behind it: to change the image of curling and give the sport more "exposure." (Mission accomplished, tee-hee!) And these ladies aren't stopping — there's a second calendar out this year. — Kristin Gangwer |
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| 10. Chyna
Joanie "Chyna" Laurer has lived an interesting life, even discounting her long career in professional wrestling. She's been arrested for domestic assault, she's marketed a brand of specially designed, semi-functional breast implants (the "Chyna 2000" model), and she's appeared in a sex tape notorious for revealing a) steroid-induced acne on her ass, during a prolonged anal sex scene; and b) her large clitoris, which became something of an internet phenomenon. (Click that link at your own peril.) Together, those revelations suggest this Playboy spread may have been slightly airbrushed.— PS |
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| 9. Shep Messing A quintessentially '70s athlete — scope that mustache — soccer star Shep Messing also embraced the freewheeling attitudes of his era by posing nude for the December 1974 issue of Viva. Explaining himself, he stole our joke about bringing the sport more "exposure." — PS |
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| 8. LIFE's Celebration of the Olympic Body
"Naked Power, Amazing Grace; A Photographic Celebration of the Olympic Body; A Meditation on Athletic Beauty" — yeah, that's plenty, Life magazine! Talk power and grace all you want, but you lost us at "naked." — PS |
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| 7. Jim Brown Actor. Humanitarian. Frequent subject of assault charges. Possible greatest football player of all time. And, as this 1974 Playgirl spread proves, owner of a substantive johnson. — PS |
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| 6. Lauren Jackson & Brooke Hanson These well-toned Australians both posed nude for Black + White, an art magazine best known for featuring Australian athletes posing nude. Olympic swimmer Hanson posed with her long-time boyfriend, fellow swimmer Jared Clarke, remarking, "It was great to do it together so we can say to our kids, this is us in our prime." I think that's a weird thing to say to your kids. — PS |
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| 5. Dieux du Stade Or "Gods of the Stadium," for you non-Francophones, these popular calendars feature statuesque players from the French national rugby team nude in ostensibly classy "art" photos. (Ostensible classiness is apparently a prerequisite for getting athletes naked). The French team's mascot? Un coq. — PS |
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| 4. Gabrielle Reece AskMen.com says the extremely extreme Gabrielle Reece "projects a strong, natural and positive image of the contemporary uber-woman." They also note that "you won't find much body fat on this babe, and her abs are as tight and flat as any we've ever seen." (That's what you get for asking men.) Men everywhere thrilled to nude images of the contemporary uber-woman in the January 2001 issue of Playboy. — PS |
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| 3. 2002 Brazilian "women's soccer team" Some things are better in Brazil: bikini bottoms, plastic surgery deals, soccer. And, as internet postings proclaim, in 2002 the Brazilian women's soccer team took the sport to a steamy new level with their spread in Brazilian Playboy. Not only did the lovely, toned ladies show off their country's waxing skills, they posed in the showers, locker room, and on the field. We also saw the teammates exhibiting good sportsmanship: massaging one another, and if that sports bra chafed a bit, they weren't too proud to get down on their knees and lick the tickle away. Too bad someone turned on the sprinklers and got the girls' white T-shirts all wet and clingy. Upon closer inspection, it would seem Playboy assembled a bevy of models who posed as the Garotas da Copa (World Cup girls). As a spokeswoman said, the magazine featured "a world team with Brazilian models." We feel so used. — Nicole Ankowski |
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| 2. The Women of the 2004 Olympics You may remember swimmer Amanda Beard clutching her teddy bear on the medal stand, after winning a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics, at the age of fourteen. That comically exaggerated Lolita moment presumably made her a natural fit for a 2004 Playboy "Women of the Olympics" spread, wherein she and a statistically disproportionate number of pole vaulters (good one, Hef) pantomime their sports in traditional Olympics gear. — PS |
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| 1. Katarina Witt Witt's figure-skating record makes her one of the most successful figure skaters of all time. Her 1998 Playboy pictorial was just as monumental in its realm: it featured full-frontal nudity — pubic hair and all — which shocked sports fans and made the issue the first to sell out since the magazine's debut issue in 1953, which starred a naked Marilyn Monroe. — KG |
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