IT IS PERHAPS the most eagerly awaited issue of any magazine in the country. It has almost single-handedly launched the modeling careers of stars like Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley. And it has caused countless uproars in American families, school libraries, and locker rooms.

It is, of course, Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue. It is also racist and sexist. And once a year, it turns America's finest sports publication into a skin mag.

Certainly the swimsuit issue is a once-a-year bonanza for the magazine. Advertising pulls in nearly three times as much revenue as any other edition, as the publishers expect to sell over 800,000 copies--about eight times normal newsstand sales.

Skin sells. Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione could tell you that. But Sports Illustrated is different--so its publishers say. "If we'd wanted to go girlie, I could have given you 34 pages of nudity," managing editor Mark Mulvoy told USA Today, his comment revealing an all too familiar mixture of bravado and sexism. Managing pimp Mulvoy's macho boast should read: if I'd wanted to, I could have ordered those women to disrobe in front of the camera. Now that's exploitation, right Mark? And hey, its all a matter of money anyway.

Don't avert your eyes yet. Mulvoy next drops his guise as sports media mastermind, revealing himself as none other than America's premiere critic of contemporary art: "what I did give you is tasteful pictures of the highest quality by one of the greatest photographers in the country." No doubt, it takes a true cultural luminary to appreciate the aesthetics--to see the symbolism, perhaps? Oh, I'm sorry Mark, we wouldn't want to read too much of our sexist society into an innocuous swimsuit-unclad photomontage.

The editors of Sports Illustrated defend the issue by claiming that they merely provide a service by previewing the latest in women's swimwear. Charitable advertising for those bathingsuit manufacturers, eh? It has never been clear which women would wear the featured swimsuits. Swimmers, perhaps?

This year, in a rare display of tokenism, Sports Illustrated has included photographs of a Black woman. In previous years, only white women with WASPy names (with the recent exception of Paulina Porizkova) were considered beautiful enough to grace the issue's pages.

SUBSCRIBER SUPPORT FOR the edition has resulted in both more and less each year: more pages of "tasteful pictures" and less swimsuit. Though it may not be the issue here, Sports Illustrated's loyal subscribers are as much to blame as are the magazine's editors for the fact that the magazine's little touch of Hustler has continued for 23 years. Readers write in to say that the swimsuit issue brings them warmth in the midst of winter. More likely, it saves them a trip out to the drugstore.

Whether they like it or not, the issue does differ from openly pornographic publications. Teenagers who can't buy Playboy can buy Sports Illustrated. Gstrings in a magazine where one expects jockstraps is different from nude women in magazines where one expects to see nude women.

But real men don't read Playboy; they read Sports Illustrated, right? Get real, Sports Illustrated is a family deal, a dentist's office rag. Young and old, men and women read it; and, no Mr. Mulvoy, we don't all get turned on by your aesthetic advertising.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED should discontinue the swimsuit issue. It will calm millions of parents who subscribed to the magazine for their teenage kids; and it will make school librarians sleep easier knowing that they don't have to keep the issue under lock and key.

Of course, the publishers know that the money they receive in advertising far outweighs the loss in cancelled subscriptions due to the swimsuit issue. Last year, for the first time, the editors received more pro-swimsuit mail than anti-issue letters. The edition is now a part of their selling point for future subscribers.

Personally, I won't be heartbroken if they don't discontinue the issue. My favorite issue comes two weeks after the celebrated edition: when the publishers print all the love and hate mail over the playmates of the year.