Predictable Feminist Howls About Hefner And Playboy
Eekers, Playboy oppressed women! Oh -- that is -- except all the women who worked there who said it was the best job they'd ever had.
First, with the predictable feminist howling, here's Christina Cauterucci, writing on Slate:
But the women in Playboy, no matter how much they enjoy posing nude and reaping what minimal payment comes of it, are not doing sexy things on their own terms--they're following the explicit instructions of the men who make and buy the magazine.
Shockingly, people who sell magazines tend to sell them better if they show what their readers want to see. This, not any sort of greater humanity, is why they show photos of $2,000 boots in Vogue and not greased, glistening toyboys.
This is quite understandable -- for anyone who doesn't deny evolved sex differences, as I explain in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck":
Because male sexuality is all about the visuals, men's maga- zines are filled with pictures of naked women with freakishly large breasts and women's magazines are filled with pictures of beauty products and ass-cantilevering $2,000 stilettos.Men evolved to go for signs of reproductively hot prospects--an hourglass figure, youth, clear skin, symmetrical faces and bodies, and long shiny hair: all indicators that a woman is a healthy, fertile candidate to pass on a man's genes.
Women co-evolved to try to make themselves look reproductively hot, though that's not how we think of it.
...Because men are turned on by disembodied photos of boobs, butts, and coochies, they're quick to pull down their pants, click their cameraphone, and text some woman they just met a close-up of their zipperwurst. Really bad idea.
Men who've done this should pick up a Harlequin romance, which is basically porn for women (from the ravishing by some hot gazillionaire to the final commitment-gasm).
See any photo spreads of male crotch shots tucked in there anywhere, boys?
This is not an error of omission. Women aren't fantasizing about seeing your willy; they're fantasizing that somebody in the royal family will pluck them out of suburbia and marry them in Westminster Abbey.
But back to Cauterucci, who continues her lament:
When I looked at Playboy's encyclopedic collection of 734 centerfolds earlier this month, it struck me that the bodies in the magazine functioned as both a reflection of and prescription for male desire that, by the '90s, Hefner and his acolytes had made into hairless, glistening, plumped-up forms into which no human could ever transform.
Does she also lament the lack of realism in bodice-rippers?
Hefner didn't just help make the commodification of female flesh into a multimillion-dollar industry. With his bourgeois gloss and chatter about sexual freedom, he made it the topic of respectable conversation.Perhaps his most stunning rhetorical feat was convincing a certain segment of women--and men, for that matter--that women could channel power from the patriarchy if they performed sexual desirability for men.
I don't think he did anything of the kind.
Being a Playboy centerfold or a Playboy Bunny was way for women -- especially those who had little going for them beyond their looks -- to earn some money and maybe even a very decent living and maybe find a high-achieving man as a partner.
Hefner looked at what men want, created it in magazine form, and became rich and lived every day like life was going out of business -- for years and years.
Bemoaning this because you don't want to get naked for pay (or perhaps because nobody would want to pay to see you naked) is like bemoaning NASCAR, baseball, or, uh, competitive crocheting because you find those activities a tedious waste of time and/or not a valid way to earn a living. In your opinion, anyway.
Speaking of baseball, I got lucky last weekend in having Gregg ask me if I wanted to stay home from the Dodgers game. (Somebody gave him tickets.) Yes, stay home. A man who doesn't know me would ask me the opposite -- whether I wanted to go.
For the record, I live to stay home from baseball games. Gregg went with two guy friends, one of whom brought his son.
Naturally, I spent the evening writing furiously about how baseball demeans men -- turning the commodification of male eye-hand coordination into a multimillion-dollar industry!
Yes. Of course I'm kidding.
Cauterucci was so busy screeding that she forgot to wonder about the other women who earned money through Playboy -- the women employed as writers, editors, and receptionists by the magazine. In ELLE, Glynnis MacNicol reports that it was "the best job she ever had as a writer. She wasn't alone, as a woman, in finding it a great place to work:
"It was a truly wonderful place to work," says Barbara Nellis who started at Playboy in 1970 and stayed for more than three decades, rising to the position of editor, and working with such luminaries as William Styron. "Whatever hostility was directed at Hefner, bunny ears and tails and all of that stuff, had absolutely zero impact on working there."Patty Lamberti, who worked as an editor from 2000-2005 and is now a college professor, concurs. "What I remember is how much fun it was. I teach journalism now, and that spirit of funness is gone, and even the students know it. Those days are gone."
...Outsiders may be surprised to hear that that support reached all the from the top to the bottom. In fact, from the sounds of it, Playboy was leaning in before Sheryl Sandberg was in kindergarten.
"When I arrived, there was only one female editor" says Nellis. "More came after that obviously, but when my daughter was born in 1977 there was no maternity policy at Playboy. They worked it out with me so that I could take three months off and not become impoverished, and my daughter had a crib in my office. So when I had to come to work to move copy, she could come too."
..."Playboy encouraged you to go back to school," says Jennifer. "In Chicago some of the low level secretaries when they started they didn't have a college degree so Playboy paid for their degrees."
...And then, of course, there was Hef, who, whatever one thinks of his media persona, was personally involved in every part of the magazine and fostered a work environment open to all ideas, regardless of the source. "It was a completely non-hierarchical environment, says Nellis. "If you were manning the receptionist desk in the front of the 10th floor at 919 North Michigan and you had a good idea, they were happy to have it."
Said Patty Lamberti: "Hugh called me when he heard I was leaving to say that he was sad to see me go, and I'd done a great job. To get a call like that from Hugh Hefner is one of the highlights of my career. When I left my other jobs, no one in charge ever said goodbye, and they were no Hugh Hefners."
Tomorrow Christina will call her self a sex positive feminist and decry slut shaming and defend women wearing burqas for the self-empowerment.
jerry at September 29, 2017 12:02 AM
Feminist spew vs pleasant reality (courtesy of Amy)
jim simon at September 29, 2017 5:02 AM
I think Hefner did make smut more acceptable. Not fully a 'topic of respectable conversation' but far more respectable than it had been before. But yes, while Playboy sold to men (and playgirl too) it has been run by and for women for decades. Hefner himself has been a figurehead for decades while his daughter runs the company.
Ben at September 29, 2017 5:49 AM
"...they're following the explicit instructions of the men who make and buy the magazine."
AKA "bosses" and "customers". Good thing she doesn't work in the real world, there's expectations out there.
I really start to lose interest when I see made-up words like "commodification", just makes me think the writer is starting to reach.
Brad Kelley at September 29, 2017 6:40 AM
The same left who thought grabbing pussies was horrific, applauds a man that taught generations that women were just tits. Hmmmmm.
Momof4 at September 29, 2017 9:06 AM
Maybe we should note the incredible schizophrenia of the American public. They turn up their noses at Playboy and those nasty and artificial sluts within, then reach eagerly for a copy of Cosmo, which promises, "50 ways to drive your man crazy with the latest sexual trick!"
Nobody seems to have a problem with that being in the supermarket checkout stand.
Years ago, IIRC, Hugh Hefner was interviewed by Helen Gurley Brown. Somewhere in the interview he was accused of being a hermit. He replied, roughly, that although he spends his days wearing pajamas, he has anywhere up to 100 guests at Playboy Mansion West. He said, "For many people, life consists of a 9-to-5 job, coming home on the weekends to relax, and maybe bowling on Wednesday night. I prefer to live with a certain amount of style."
Here's something he said that is more obvious today:
"One of the unintended by-products of the women's movement is the association of the erotic impulse with wanting to hurt somebody."
It makes sense. When I see someone who declares themselves to be a feminist, I think, "There's somebody who is mad about something."
Radwaste at September 29, 2017 10:21 AM
Feminists only want ugly people to have ugly sex, like themselves. The idea that beautiful women are desired for their beauty drives them nuts. Life is unfair. Well, in fact life is unfair. I remember as a college student being resentful that life was unfair. I didn't want to study so hard, work so hard just to make a living. I resented being judged by women, being compared to some rich guy or to a football player. But I got over it since there was no one in particular to blame--that is just how life is.
The fact is that most people can make themselves look more attractive if they take care of themselves, get a nice haircut, shower, and smile. Men can work hard and get ahead. I have successful friends who are short, have a stammer, and bald, but they are brilliant and successful and women find them attractive and they have a hot wife. So, this aspect of the game is NOT unfair because it is under your control.
cc at September 29, 2017 12:59 PM
"or perhaps because nobody would want to pay to see you naked"
Succinct summation of the whole screed.
Jay at September 29, 2017 1:40 PM
"Well, in fact life is unfair. I remember as a college student being resentful that life was unfair."
Take comfort in that.
Radwaste at September 29, 2017 3:02 PM
"I think Hefner did make smut more acceptable"
"applauds a man that taught generations that women were just tits"
The 1600s called. They want their Puritans back.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 29, 2017 3:38 PM
While I didn't live through the 50s from what I've read with the censorship and such it is pretty undeniable that the 70s made nudity in all it's form more acceptable. And Hefner was a significant part of that. I didn't say any of that was wrong Gog. Just acknowledged what happened.
As for playboy pushing the idea that women are only tits, weren't there articles and such? Personally I just found it odd that most people seemed to stock the magazine in the john. Pooping and pictures of naked women really isn't my thing.
Ben at September 29, 2017 5:40 PM
Ben honestly the only thing I took exception to in your post was the idea that Playboy was 'smut'.
Amy could probably devote a chapter of her next book to the difference between Hefner's approach and the other choices on the newsstand and how that made his magazine so successful. From a purely sociological standpoint, of course.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 29, 2017 8:48 PM
Interesting Gog. It is pictures of naked women. I thought that was a classic definition of smut or porn. Payboy tried to be high brow. Hefner always tried to be classy. Larry Flynt and Hustler took a different approach. Larry was a dirty dirty man and so was his magazine. He truly glorified in being naughty and wrong.
And as for Rad's Cosmo comments the distinction is pretty clear. Men bad, women good. It doesn't matter if they are doing the same thing. It is the same reason male focused erotic writings aren't allowed in book stores but romance novels have an entire section.
Ben at September 30, 2017 6:08 AM
But the women in [Ladies Home Journal], no matter how much they enjoy [sharing recipes and garden tips] and reaping what minimal payment comes of it, are not doing [homey] things on their own terms--they're following the explicit instructions of the [wo]men who make and buy the magazine.
lujlp at September 30, 2017 8:58 AM
Because male sexuality is all about the visuals, men's magazines are filled with pictures of naked women...
...a Harlequin romance, which is basically porn for women (from the ravishing by some hot gazillionaire to the final commitment-gasm).
It seems quite apparent that there's a fundamental general difference in what turns men and women on: men/pictures; women/words. Playgirl was aimed at women but I once read (and believe) that it was purchased by more gay men than by women (and I don't think it even exists anymore.)
JD at September 30, 2017 10:08 AM
Momof4: The same left who thought grabbing pussies was horrific, applauds a man that taught generations that women were just tits.
I looked at my fair share of Playboys (and other similar magazines) when I was young. I enjoyed looking at the naked and semi-naked women. I found them to be beautiful and sexy. That didn't prevent me from having relationships with women who I appreciated for all of their qualities: intelligence, personality, "soul" (kindness, etc.) and interests, as well as looks. It certainly didn't teach me that women were "just tits."
Why do seem to feel that if a man enjoys looking at naked women he must therefore view all women as "just tits"?
JD at September 30, 2017 10:52 AM
" It is pictures of naked women. I thought that was a classic definition of smut or porn."
Hefner. Guccione. Flynt. Praxiteles. Botticelli. Titian. Smut-peddlers all.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 30, 2017 11:55 AM
"Interesting Gog. It is pictures of naked women. I thought that was a classic definition of smut or porn."
Then, incredibly, you missed the articles, throwing the magazine away when you were, er, done with the pictures. If that's all you were looking for, then I suggest a short time considering the term, "eye of the beholder".
I never caught the Playboy Advisor in a mistake, even a small one, on subjects I understood. This is in contrast to today's newspapers, which struggle to get anything right.
You may not know that Playboy was banned from the USSR. That wasn't because of the pictures, as every pearl-clutcher in the USA assumed -- it was because it was a 100-plus-page advertisement of things Soviets couldn't have. In addition to self-determination, it included cars, clothing, watches, aircraft... a staggering number of things indicating riches beyond the Soviet "citizens" wildest dreams.
They had the pictures. Hey, everyone knows about Russian and Czech blondes.
Radwaste at September 30, 2017 12:11 PM
I thought we already settled this argument hundreds of years ago! Is there a plinth in the picture? If so then those aren't women but nymphs! Or gods or some such. Hence not porn. But if there are no plinths then they must be naked women with all the naughty bits men love. And hence they must be suppressed or the women will make our lives a living hell. It is all a question of architecture really.
Don't be dense Gog. Yes it is all porn. Men like naked women. This isn't a new phenomenon. It goes back thousands of years. Similarly women don't like men looking at naked women. Given the option they would rather not have the competition. Unsurprisingly men come up with all kinds of excuses so they can look at naked women without having the other women in their lives annoying them to tears. But just because something is pornographic doesn't mean it isn't artistic. The two are completely different things.
Rad, so you are making the claim that just because you add articles to the magazine that somehow negates the pornographic nature of the naked women pictures? What is the name of the woman you are trying to calm down?
How about you two offer a definition here of what the word pornographic means to you. Or what the word smut means to you. I use them as synonyms but clearly that offends Gog. As for porn I use webster's definition. And given how little it takes to arouse teenage boys playboy counts as porn. Classy artistic porn but porn none the less.
Ben at September 30, 2017 2:26 PM
"Don't be dense Gog. Yes it is all porn."
Ok, Sister Chastity, you win the internet.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 1, 2017 4:07 PM
Why chastity Gog. Sex is great and I think porn is fine. You still haven't offered a definition where this isn't porn.
Ben at October 1, 2017 7:12 PM
I took the liberty of editing Cauterucci a little:
But the [employees at XYZ, Inc.], no matter how much they enjoy [spreadsheets and piecharts] and reaping what minimal payment comes of it, are not doing [businessy, shareholder-valuey] things on their own terms--they're following the explicit instructions of the men who [owe their high-paying jobs, perks, and status to] the [corporate shareholders].
Grey Ghost at October 2, 2017 5:44 AM
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