Towards a second-wave Playboy Philosophy

[Brian Sorgatz]

This post of mine is theoretical rather than practical.  It deals much
more in abstract ideas than concrete suggestions.  Many of us wish for
PLAYBOY to aspire to intellectual sophistication again, as it did in
the Sixties.  But this requires a willingness to discuss ideas that
have no immediate practical application, and I haven't seen this
willingness here.  Our dialogue has been so strictly nuts-and-bolts as
to be almost anti-intellectual.

I hope to stimulate dialogue on that set of ideas loosely defined as
the Playboy Philosophy.  I believe that some of those ideas ought to
be clarified or modified over the magazine's next fifty years, and I'm
eager to find out whether you all agree or not.  I hope that Peggy
will devote some space in her final report to our philosophical
debate.  Ideas, after all, do matter.

I have chosen two of many possible topics.  If not for my reading and
writing problem and the approaching end of this forum, I would have
covered more topics.  Of course, I would love to participate in
debates over philosophical subjects introduced by others.

I. Reverse puritanism

In December 2002, Salon.com published an interview with Geraldine
Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic
Women.  Brooks says that the anti-woman, anti-sex regimes of the
Taliban and the Saudi royal family do not represent Islam as a whole,
which is much more congenial to women and to sexuality.  At the end of
the interview, she urges Western feminists to

> support Muslim women and listen to them. And if they say, "It's
> important to us that our daughters have the right to wear a head
> scarf to school without being teased about it," then try to figure
> out a way of having a bit of consciousness raising for our kids in
> school so that they don't tease girls about that, and then try and
> see the benefit for ourselves of having a range of approaches to
> teenage sexuality available for our own daughters.
>
> A lot of us don't have a problem that our daughters might be in
> school with somebody who's wearing a bare midriff and a bellybutton
> ring and has 10 boyfriends, but we do have a problem that she's in a
> class with a girl who wears a head scarf and doesn't date. Now
> that's pretty cockeyed to me, because it seems you would want her to
> be able to make her way with a whole lot of options in front of her.

Many readers reacted defensively to this call for more freedom of
self-expression.  One letter to the editor accused Brooks of wanting
to outlaw bellybutton rings and dating.  It claimed that Brooks "has
one very strict range of options she'd like all women to adhere to:
the Islamic range, which runs from Cotton Mather to Pat Robertson."
Another letter asked, "How does one talk about the 'right' of a girl
to wear a head scarf in school when she has been forced to wear it by
her family?  That's not a choice."  Apparently, it never occurred to
this letter writer that a young woman might actually *want* to dress
modestly.

I would characterize the attitude revealed in these letters as reverse
puritanism.  PLAYBOY occasionally shows this attitude (albeit less
frequently than its critics think it does).  In his book Reaching for
Paradise, Thomas Weyr observes its historic tendency to respond to
opponents of its philosophy by essentially saying, "What's wrong with
you?"  This has needlessly alienated people and spoiled opportunities
to make more subtle arguments about the perennial human ambivalence
about sex and how it can adversely influence social mores and public
policy.

I envision a second-wave Playboy Philosophy that not only advocates
the decriminalization of pornography and prostitution, but also
harbors genuine respect for modesty, chastity, virginity, and
celibacy.  The June 2003 Forum says, "Let [the clergy] marry so they
can enjoy sex with other adults.  Look at what happens when they
can't."  Objection!  There are some fairly strong arguments for
abolishing the celibacy requirement for Roman Catholic clergy, but
does anyone really believe that a vow of chastity can turn a healthy
man into a sexual predator?

Celibacy is not just for prudes.  For a splendid example of a pro-sex
celibate, take Andrew M. Greeley, Catholic priest, sociologist, and
novelist.  The URL below links to one of his essays, in which he
reveals an almost Hefnerian attitude towards sexuality.

http://www.agreeley.com/articles/eros_art.html

I have some personal reasons for opposing reverse puritanism.  When I
was growing up, my parents had a lot of trouble understanding why I
resented their teasing about my sexuality.  They completely dismissed
my protests.  The memory still makes my blood boil.  On a more
positive note, female modesty provides the context that makes PLAYBOY
pictures sexy.  If most women weren't inclined to keep their bodies
covered most of the time, it wouldn't be such a privilege to get to
see them naked.  Too much social pressure on women to display their
bodies spoils the game.  Naturally, being a guy, I will utter a Homer
Simpson-esque "D'oh!" when a particularly attractive female refuses to
pose nude.  But I will nonetheless be thankful for the part she plays
in keeping me agreeably tantalized.  Aphrodite and Artemis must both
have their due honor.

II. PLAYBOY and humanism

On at least one occasion, Christie Hefner has described PLAYBOY as a
humanist magazine.  This term well describes PLAYBOY's devotion to
individual human freedom and pleasure.  But humanism, like feminism,
comes in a multitude of varieties, some of which are congenial to
PLAYBOY and some of which aren't.  Critics from the left, right, and
center who condemn PLAYBOY's "objectification of women" or
"commercialization of sex" are inspired, I believe, by a
not-so-enlightened variety of humanism (not necessarily secular or
"liberal" humanism).  In this view, everything is reduced to an
interpersonal scale.  Sexuality has meaning and dignity only within a
psychologically intimate relationship.  But I have found that a
relatively impersonal, commercial expression of sexuality such as a
professional striptease or a PLAYBOY centerfold can be gloriously
meaningful, sometimes making me feel as though I were communing with a
goddess.

It's easy to ridicule the excesses of the feminist far left or the
religious far right.  It's harder to challenge the humanistic pieties
that are conventional wisdom all across the political spectrum.
PLAYBOY could break a lot of ground by doing this.

Brian Sorgatz