‘Sorry. Not Beautiful’: Jordan Peterson Criticizes Sports Illustrated For Plus-Sized Swimsuit Cover Model

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“Sorry. Not beautiful,” clinical psychologist and professor emeritus Jordan Peterson responded to Sports Illustrated’s plus-sized model on the cover of its annual Swimsuit Issue.

“And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that,” Peterson added.

The cover model for Sports Illustrated’s 2022 Swimsuit Issue is Yumi Nu. The cover also reads: “Be the change you want to see.”

Peterson continued, “It’s a conscious progressive attempt to manipulate & retool the notion of beauty, reliant on the idiot philosophy that such preferences are learned & properly changed by those who know better.”

Peterson linked to two scientific studies in his response.

One study published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development in 1998 showed that babies spent more time looking at faces judged to be attractive by adults.

Another study, which was published in 2009 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, found that more attractive women had more children than less attractive women.

The study also showed that the least attractive men had less children than every other group of men.

More on this story via Daily Wire:

Peterson’s tweet came in response to a New York Post interview with Nu, who will appear as one of the cover models of the 2022 Swimsuit Issue, along with model, socialite, and television personality Kim Kardashian, model and singer Ciara, and model Maye Musk, the mother of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The 25-year-old Nu is of Dutch and Japanese ancestry. She is the granddaughter of Rocky Aoki, the founder of the Benihana chain of restaurants, and the niece of DJ Steve Aoki.

In the interview, Nu expressed her excitement at the opportunity and described herself as a champion of body and race diversity. “It’s amazing. I’m on cloud nine,” she told the Post. “This is nothing I could prepare for. It’s unexpected. I feel like we’re in a place right now where people are making space for more diversity on magazine covers. It’s a big time for Asian-American people in media. I know I play a big role in representation in body diversity and race diversity, and I love to be a role model and representative of the plus-size Asian community.”

The 2022 Swimsuit Issue is Nu’s first appearance on the cover, but not her first in the issue itself, as she was previously featured in last year’s issue. She is also the first Asian plus-sized model to appear on the cover. Sports Illustrated drew controversy when it featured plus-sized model Ashley Graham on the cover of the issue in 2016. Graham’s appearance has since become a trend. Plus-sized model Hunter McGrady, dubbed the “curviest model ever,” appeared on the cover in 2020. In the Post interview, Nu said that both Graham and McGrady were inspirations for her.

The swimsuit issue also includes a number of race and body diversity firsts, including the first breast cancer survivor to appear in the issue, the first indigenous woman, and a NASA physicist, as well as the first woman to reveal a C-section scar in her photo for the issue.

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