So I was perusing a recent issue of Sports Illustrated magazine when I came across a letter to the editor that made me choke on my orange juice. ... Referring to a cover story on race car driver Danica Patrick, the female letter writer wrote:

"Thank you for portraying Danica Patrick as the highly motivated and talented athlete that she is, instead of a sex symbol. I am so tired of seeing female sports stars turned into objects to be admired for their beauty, not for their ability."

Say what? Sorry, but it's not that simple, and it's mostly wrong. Do you know who's really turning female athletes into objects to be admired for their beauty?

Female athletes.

The letter writer is not alone in her opinion. Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, is among the many who complain about the so-called exploitation of female athletes — "Any exposure in a sports magazine that minimizes athletic achievement and skill and emphasizes the female athlete as a sex object is insulting and degrading," she once said.

The problem is that it's the female athletes who keep taking off their clothes, and nobody's holding a gun to their heads.

Here is the modern way: A female athlete enters the professional ranks, trains, competes and then poses for photos in a bikini or nothing at all, in about that order. The photos then turn up in calendars, magazine layouts or Internet Web sites or all of the above.

Whether they are successful or unsuccessful on the field, female athletes inevitably decide to cash in on their looks and "market" themselves, which is a polite way of saying they're trying to make money.

The new Olympic theme: Citius, altius, bare gluteus maximus.

You can barely name a female athlete who hasn't shed her clothes.

• Danica Patrick sprawled seductively across a car wearing a tiny bikini, one of which features reverse cleavage. It was waxed, buffed and oiled — the car, I mean.

• Olympic high jumper Amy Acuff and Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard can't tear their clothes off fast enough. They have done numerous nude and semi-nude layouts. Beard and Acuff, as well as Olympic figure skater Katarina Witt and mediocre tennis player Ashley Harkleroad, among others, posed nude for Playboy magazine.

• Sports Illustrated featured a photo of Olympic swimmer Jenny Thompson topless (with hands placed strategically).

• The Australian women's soccer team posed naked and turned the photos into a calendar, which sold for $20. Canadian national teams for rugby, cross country skiing, water polo and curling have done nude calendars.

• Thirteen of Australia's top female golfers bared almost all for a calendar, supposedly to support breast cancer research. The breast cancer charity rejected the calendar as too racy — and because, according to one official, it featured "perfect breasts," which was certainly cruel irony.