Contests…love ’em, hate ’em, can’t live without ’em?

June 25, 2010 by Dave
The SCORE Newcomer of the Year contest wasn't even a contest when Rocki Roads became the first winner in 1996.

The SCORE Newcomer of the Year contest wasn't even a contest when Rocki Roads became the first winner in 1996.

One of the unintended consequences of my blog this past week (“Shocking news from the SCORELAND Blog poll…or am I the only one who’s shocked?”) was a heated side conversation about comparing one girl to another. It started when Frankie said that so and so and so and so were much hotter than so and so, to which Jenna Valentine replied, “You guys shouldn’t say other girls are hotter than others. It’s not like they can’t read this and don’t have feelings.” And then Arianna Sinn chimed in with, “They can’t understand that this is not a competition between us.” And it really isn’t.

But then there’s the dicey issue of poll questions like the one we asked last week about your picks so far for 2010 Newcomer of the Year, and The Top 100 of the Decade contest that was held at SCORELAND and the annual Newcomer and Model of the Year contests in SCORE and Voluptuous. Which, at heart, are competitions between models.

The SCORE Newcomer of the Year contest started in 1997 and came about entirely by accident. The editor at the time ran a pictorial showing the top newcomers of 1996, and before he knew it, he was getting hundreds of letters with votes he had never asked for. The winner of that non-contest was Rocki Roads (who, incredibly, beat out Linsey Dawn McKenzie). Since then, the official Newcomer of the Year contest has been a mainstay of SCORE (we added Model of the Year in 2001).

Some models, like Crystal Gunns, really love the awards contests.

Some models, like Crystal Gunns, really love the awards contests.

Judging by the thousands and thousands of votes we get (and the fact that the awards issue is always one of our best-sellers of the year), most of you like the awards contests. Most models do, too. Crystal Gunns actively campaigned for 2007 Model of the Year and was thrilled when she did win.

But there’s a flip side to this, too. Some people ask, “How come everything has to be a competition? Why do we have to compare one girl to another?”

“I hate the contests,” Cherry Brady told me the other day. Cherry had the misfortune of coming along in 2003, the greatest year ever for Voluptuous newcomers. In most other years, she might have won…and maybe she wouldn’t hate the contests so much! 🙂

There are a lot of different aspects to this thorny debate. I love the awards. Elliot James doesn’t like them. I think they’re a way to celebrate our best girls. But, of course, there can be only one winner, so how do the runners-up feel? And how about the girls who aren’t even nominated? How do they feel?

Actually, I want to know how you feel. The SCORE and Voluptuous awards: Should we keep them or do away with them?

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8 responses to “Contests…love ’em, hate ’em, can’t live without ’em?”

  1. Jack says:

    Difficult question and excellent answers from everyone. I really enjoy the contetst and think that they are another for readers to give feedback and create interest for upcoming issues.

    Unfortunately, there can be only one winner. I think ScoreGroup run these vents in a very responsible way, yet should also congraulate all contestants for their selection.

  2. Professor Voluptuary says:

    The problem with contests is that they have several, repeat runner-ups who never hit the jackpot, even after many years of modelling. All that popularity just never seems to come together in one year as a whole. It is spread out without a title, even if the summation is far greater than most title takers.

    In fact, Angela White’s title was a shocker for me, because I figured she’d never hit #1, despite my lust for her from her first, age 18 (and I virtually *NEVER* go for teens) pictorials, and she was able to several years later. That was very refreshing to see, but it’s not going to be common.

    In the V-mag space, the young, 40-28-40″ or similar, wide hips, succulent ass with massive tits, who is still perky and tight in form seems to dominate — as we’ve now seen several times from Sharday (who also took main Score honors too) to the newer Karina Hart. I don’t see it favoring the women who keep it up year-after-year, especially into their 30s and beyond — especially those that keep that wide, full, but toned figure in a perfect shape (and God knows they are the better lays in real life, at least that was my experience when I was young and single).

    But yeah, men love to play “versus” and all the “best” arguments seem to dominate. We’ve lost the, “oh, remember her” and focusing on the flair that was all her own. I don’t like to play “versus” contests myself. Yeah, I can easily explain away how Karina Hart is much like Chloe Vevrier, that ideal hourglass. But that doesn’t do much to explain my preference for an unique Angela White, who I was very glad to see finally take the V-mag crown.

    I don’t know if you solve this by offering a contest for women who haven’t won, but have been a longer-term, “dark horse” candidate for the title at least 2-3 years, and active at least 4-5. Women who have been extremely popular with the readers, and — as God could probably attest (and if we wanted to sell ourselves on it “quantitatively” in our minds) — may have literally produced the most aggregate cum over those years of anyone. How to you accurately gage that (short of stooping to the level of literally asking readers to estimate how many cups, litres or whatever … 😉 )?

    Although the great thing about all the beauty in the world and all of the beauty in Score, V-mag and others, is that there are still men out there, arguing qualitatively, from many factors (sure, visually the most, but not always the most important) who their favorite(s) is(/are). And sometimes it’s the men who don’t want to “be a winner” by picking the “most popular” and don’t budge on their favorites that make the best cases. And there’s really no way to quantitatively gage that, not in a contest, not really in any approach of a vote.

    So what do we do? Maybe it’s as simple as encouraging the women to stay active for many years, with the words and magazine patronage required to do so. Women who are active for enough years they go beyond titles and favorites, and become legends.

    Even Petra Verkaik wasn’t Playmate of the Year, and it took her years of publications in Playboy Specials to become one of Playboy’s most notable Playmates … ever.

  3. Cherry Brady says:

    If I could just WIN…. I’d love the contests! 🙂 In all seriousness, I think they are great for sales. It’s a fun thing to think about and contemplate for a lot of folks. I see guys talking about the best sports players all the time and they can have long in-depth debates with each other for hours over such trivial nonsense. I mean they’re not debating world politics or the local economy or anything that will ever matter- it’s just sports. So, along that line of thinking, why not a contest for boob men to debate about who the best models are. On the other hand, it’s like what Angela said – that one girl is better than another based on appearance. It’s just not a healthy productive way of thinking. It’s because of all those stupid Miss America contests and media hypes and that women keep getting more and more plastic surgery – so they can look as close to “perfection” as possible. Here us V-girls have historically been outcasts compared the popular media type. We finally get a platform where we have a big boob community of men and women who like this body type, and what do we go do?…. the same thing as the mainstream world – make contests and ideals so we can compare ourselves to “perfection”.

  4. viggo says:

    @Dave: This is without doubt the most difficult question you’ve ever asked us!
    I’m not a competitive guy, and i think there’s way too many competitions
    in the world, but i kind of like the Score ones.

    @Angela White: I’m sure you’re still friends with the other girls.
    You shouldn’t feel bad because you won!
    This isn’t a “Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding fighting for a spot on the Olympic team”
    kind of competition. This is a more friendly one.

    I don’t always agree with who wins these votings (alot of the times, actually).
    But that is life! There is always someone that will be more liked than others.
    Those that don’t win or aren’t even in the contests shouldn’t feel bad,
    it doesn’t mean that we don’t like you.

  5. P.H. says:

    “Cherry had the misfortune of coming along in 2003, the greatest year ever for Voluptuous newcomers.”

    At the risk of sounding daft – who else came along in 2003? And what were the overall Newcomer of the Year rankings?

    • Dave says:

      P.H.: Nicole Peters, Ines Cudna, Angela White, Brandy Talore, Maria Moore, Sapphire, Devin Taylor for starters. Nicole won, followed by Angela, Ines and Cherry.–Dave

  6. Angela White says:

    As the 2007 Voluptuous Model of the Year I have mixed feelings about these competitions. Becoming the Voluptuous MOY was one of the happiest moments of my life and confirmed for me that I was pleasing my fans. I am very proud to have won. At the same time, running in a competition against my friends is not fun, especially when all the girls are deserving of winning. In addition, the underlying concept of ‘modeling competitions’ (that one girl is better than another based on appearance) runs counter to my feminist politics… so my feelings about the comps are very complex!

    In the last instance, I always thought that the competitions were just a form of market research for Score, revealing which models the fans wanted to see more of…

  7. Dennis says:

    If the contests are popular with your readers/customers, you should keep them. We’re the ones who put the money out there. Those of us who don’t like the concept don’t have to vote. (Dave can you give us any idea how many who are eligible to vote DON’T vote?) But if you sell more copies/subscriptions due to the contests, then it’s really in your best interest to keep them. And probably in the models’ interest as well.

    I do think the models should have the choice of opting out of the competition. And are the winners/top finishers *well* compensated for doing well in these contests?

    Modeling is a pretty subjective career to be in, so I can certainly understand why some of the women can be nervous about reading some of our comments. Even if we restrict ourselves to positive comments, some of the women will wind up getting more of those positive comments than others. Some might even be ignored altogether. That’s when those “it’s an honor just to be nominated” quotes start to ring true.

    I don’t think most of the readers of Score truly want to hurt any of the models’ feelings. I imagine a lot of the readers have dealt with some form of rejection in their own lives so it would be pretty bad for us to be doing something similar to the women of Score. Yet we gripe about things like smoking, tattoos, pregnant models, heels & stockings or whether the models will do hardcore. Talk about subjective! Or maybe that’s just human nature. (Ginger vs. Mary Ann, anyone?) But the models who appear in Score have already gotten over a pretty significant hurdle by being chosen to appear in a men’s magazine, especially one the caliber of Score. In a way, I think that’s a pretty big compliment. Especially if they ask you to pose again.

    Besides, who can judge whether the models who get lots of compliments are better off than the ones who are worshipped silently from afar? And which model would prefer the compliments of invisible web-posters over a quiet cuddle with that one true love of her life? I prefer the models who would choose the latter…

    But you models more important to us than you can know.

    And we’ll never be able to thank you enough.