Posted on 07/30/2004 9:57:33 AM PDT by AreaMan
What? You wanted pictures of Hefner in his pajamas eating fried chicken or post-coital toast?
Admittedly I'm of the "old school" still Hef is not a gentleman nor are his female's ladies.
"The same system that allows a person like Hef to flourish also allows all of us "hypocrites" to call him out for the damage his product and philosophy has caused."
It's always the question of supply and demand. There exists a supply because there is such a demand. People only think in terms of limiting the supply; the better question to ask is why there's such a demand.
Here's an interesting discussion about this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1012607/posts
LOL! What a loser.
Hey, I was just kidding man...
I suppose that is one of the limitations of this medium.
No offense meant by my response.
You are right, some people only want to limit the supply. I am not one of them.
Most of the people that think Hef's philosophy and product are bad are trying to show people how to meet their need (sexual gratification, intimacy, love, companionship, etc) as well as oppose the product.
The "need" that is present can be temporarily satiated by Hef and his ilk's stuff, but only temporarily. Much like the drunk or stoner satiates his desire to escape reality (or whatever is troubling him) with booze or dope.
Porn, like dope, will meet your "need" but it comes with a price. Heroin or coke meets the need of the junkie but in the end will kill him.
I know that's sarcasm to make a point, but didn't say any of that, only that Hef at least is not a hypocrite. He could espouse all he does and be a hypocrite on top of it. And I do believe that as pornographers go, Hef is not the nearly the worst of the lot.
Hey, I know what you mean. Sadam wasn't nearly as bad as Hitler was either.
It also preceded the "pill", open and widespread abortion, the "feminist" agenda, and the total degradation of our society.....
I think most freepers would agree that our cultural values have gone to hell.....
while I agree that there always has been some form of porn around, I also maintain that it was secreted away from polite society....
its this total acceptance that women are objects to be treated as such by men, but worse of all, how many women live their lives according to the Playboy philosophy...that they are little more than what their bodies are....
love, marriage, motherhood, family life, loyalty, devotion, faithfulness, fatherhood.....that silly stuff is slowly waning....
I admit that I have a warm spot in my heart for Hef, but that's not an endorsement of pornography in any way. I have probably picked up less than 1/2 dozen copies of Playboy in my day, and none after I passed the age of 17 or so, and I admit porn in print, video, or PC is not a vice of mine and never has been.
I think Playboy objectified and debased women and sexuality, but when you look at the type of porn out there these days - I am admittedly not an expert, but just going by the convenmtional wisdom, channel flipping, and PC pop-up screens - Playboy is tame in comparison and in its own way quite charming. It just had pretty pictures of pretty naked young women.
On a scale of 1-10, if the current 'porn' debasement of women, men, and sexuality can be considered a 9 (just for purposes of comparison), Hef's pictorals are maybe a 2 or a 3.
So a young boy growing into manhood is curious about women and sex, that's entirely natural. I know I was. There is a certain charm in finding a newstand in town that will sell you a copy Playboy when you are 16 and not quite 18. I look at it as a sort of rite of passage that I think most males used to get through well enough.
I think in the modern era, porn is just a website click away, and the debasement is far more severe - while I am sure lovely pictorals of lovely young woman are out there, it seems to me that its much easier to get to much raunchier pictorals. That's a shame on two levels.
1. The excitement of getting that glimpse of something otherwise forbidden - finding that shady newstand - is gone. It was basically innocent - after all that trouble and sneaking around, the actual copy of Playboy was almost an afterthought. The thrill was getting it - that thrill is gone, now.
2. It's easier for a youngster to get to the much more hardcore and debasing porn via the internet, meaning that their perceptions and expectations will most likely be skewed in a bad direction. Yep, they are probably downloading something far more obscene than a lovely pictoral of a fantasy woman (more airbrush than flesh) standing on a beach with that look in her eye that says 'I love you, Tiger!'
Back in the day, most males used to find out soon enough that even the models in the pages of Playboy didn't actually look like they do in the pages of Playboy. It's like the anxiousness of a young male to get within eyeshot of a nude beach - the mental image that their anticipation concocts is much sexier and appealing than the reality.
A naked woman on a nude beach reading a magazine, a naked woman in the pages of Playboy looking like as if she loves you, and a naked woman in your bed who genuinely does love you each look very different. Again, this is something that most males used to figure out somewhere along in the process, and most were not the worst for wear for it.
These days I am not so sure. Breast implants are a popular high school graduation gift for girls. Many young men's expectations of women and sexual relationships are wildly skewed and create unrealistic expectations. I think the modern nature of porn is largely (though not entirely) responsible.
If by young adulthood a male has casually digested hundreds (or thousands) of hours of video and pictures where a woman is depicted simply as a wide-eyed, anatomically impressive, sexually receptive, but otherwise undemanding and unpersonalized oriface to be knocked around for hours at a time, that man's emotional range is most likely to be severely limited and impaired.
I know many young fellas who resemble that remark, and they go from shallow relationship to shallow relationship. Is porn the cause of their problems? No. Is it part of their problem. Yes, no doubt in my mind.
A half dozen (or even three or four dozen) copies of Playboy over adolescence and young adulthood doesn't create that same image of debasement of women and sexuality, nor creates a significant disconnect from reality. It is tamer, and as life experience expands and maturity develops, men figure out that you are expected to hold your end of the relationship with a living breathing human being, who has needs and thoughts all her own, just like everyone else.
The girls in Playboy never made that clear, of course, but they satisifed a basic curiosity that most mature out of - the realization that it's a lot more fun to actully touch pretty young women, kiss them, etc, than just looking at pretty pictures of them.
I am 36, have had several fulfilling and long term relationships with young women, and I have no children yet. I'd be far less alarmed if I found a copy of Playboy in my 15 year old son's room than I would be if I found a copy of a more 'hardcore' magazine, a collection of porno bookmarks on a PC, or a DVD of "Anal SWAT Team 3."
Maybe I'll become more of a hardnose over this as I mature, but I do think a normal curiosity in pretty young nude women is healthy, but that a lot of the influences out there (probably most) are too debasing, and that a steady stream of it over adolescence and young adulthood handicaps a young man's expectations about relationships. They skew his perception and almost certainly contribute to creating a barrier to meaningful relationship with women.
I do not agree that Playboy is as innocent as you think. Although in your case it seems so.
I must say for someone with a nic like "Hitman", that was very well written. Well said. You have made some eloquent and well reasoned points.
Honestly, I'm not that bright so I primarily rely on sarcasm to make my points.
Thanks for the compliment. I am a staunch conservative and lifelong Republican, as well as a practicing Roman Catholic, to give you some background culturally.
That being said, I am not perfect and don't expect people to be. In no way am I an advocate for pornography and I think, on balance, it contributes much more of a negative than a positive to our culture.
But I admit I bought some Playboys in my time when I shouldn't have (underage).
I benefitted from great parents, a good reference group, a good education, and my basic conservative approach to life - restrained, good humored, self assured but self depricating. In some ways, I am hopelessly square - never been drunk, never smokes a cigarette, etc. Porn is no vice of mine - I have bought a handful of Playboys in my day, nothing worse. I have seen maybe a total of 60 or 90 minutes of video porn in my life (playing at a friends dorm room or house, etc). It never really appealed to me.
That's not to say that pretty young women don't appeal to me. I've been known to be quite a disarming and charming fella. I like ladies, I like their company. Enjoying a nice time with a real attractive woman beats the pants off watching some freak of nature try to 'tilt' a platinum blonde with oversized implants as if she were a 1974 Williams 'King Pin' pinball machine (anyone remember?).
Then again, I am an occasional cigar smoker, and I have been known to hustle people on pool and golf. I like wines, and I live in Las Vegas and gamble a bit for fun. Haha! So a saint I ain't!!! ;-)
So that's my way of saying I agree with you generally that something like Playboy isn't a positive - I am just saying in itself it isn't necessarily a negative. Any average male who didn't recognize that the lifestyle preached in Playboy was a fantasy (for most men) probably wound up hurting themselves and those in their lives. What can I say, by my late teens, that much was clear to me. So I benefitted from a good upbringing. I realize everyone doesn't have that.
I do think that with an impressionable person, Playboy can lead to more hardcore magazines. Those magazines can lead to ordering Playboy at Night on cable. when that gets boring, it leads to videos and DVDs, which grow increasingly obscene. Clearly, for the reasons I said in my first post, that harms males, harms females, and impairs healthy relationships.
I don't know what to do about it except lead by example though.
Thanks for the thoughts and stay in touch!
PS - I am the Hitman...of love! ;-)
Here, I think may lie (lay, whatever) one of the problems. There are lots of "average" males living here under the bell curve. Also, as you said, not all have the benefit of a good upbringing. This is the target demo for Hef and his ilk.
I do think that with an impressionable person, Playboy can lead to more hardcore magazines. Those magazines can lead to ordering Playboy at Night on cable. when that gets boring, it leads to videos and DVDs, which grow increasingly obscene.
Again, most people are impressionable and if we take into consideration the amount of familial dysfunction and abuse, those impressionable people are now set up to take the fall.
Here, I think may lie (lay, whatever) one of the problems. There are lots of "average" males living here under the bell curve. Also, as you said, not all have the benefit of a good upbringing. This is the target demo for Hef and his ilk.
I do think that with an impressionable person, Playboy can lead to more hardcore magazines. Those magazines can lead to ordering Playboy at Night on cable. when that gets boring, it leads to videos and DVDs, which grow increasingly obscene.
Again, most people are impressionable and if we take into consideration the amount of familial dysfunction and abuse present in society, those impressionable people are now set up to take the fall.
Here, I think may lie (lay, whatever) one of the problems. There are lots of "average" males living here under the bell curve. Also, as you said, not all have the benefit of a good upbringing. This is the target demo for Hef and his ilk.
I do think that with an impressionable person, Playboy can lead to more hardcore magazines. Those magazines can lead to ordering Playboy at Night on cable. when that gets boring, it leads to videos and DVDs, which grow increasingly obscene.
Again, most people are impressionable and if we take into consideration the amount of familial dysfunction and abuse present in society, those impressionable people are now set up to take the fall.
I agree with you. The only thing I question is what we can do about it, really.
The magazines and videos can't and won't ever be legally banned. If they were banned it would just push it underground and still present a problem.
The problem I think is that people lead otherwise empty lives and are drawn into stuff like that. It is seductive.
All I think we can do is lead by example and raise the issue when we can.
I agree with you. The only thing I question is what we can do about it, really.
The magazines and videos can't and won't ever be legally banned. If they were banned it would just push it underground and still present a problem.
The problem I think is that people lead otherwise empty lives and are drawn into stuff like that. It is seductive.
All I think we can do is lead by example and raise the issue when we can.
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