Going Forward

[Steve Sloca]

Donna Tavoso wrote:
> In my opinion, Playboy cannot ignore, as it has tried to do for the
> last decade, the new world where women are equal and partners with
> men.  Thus, if Playboy is to regain "coffee table" status, it must be
> acceptable to women too.....
"I couldn't disagree more and I again feel as if we read different
magazines.  Playboy is a magazine for men and while it I think it's
great that women embrace it, I love reading it, it shouldn't be
written or edited to appease women or make them comfortable -- it
should be written for the men for who it is intended."

Sorry, Donna; but men and women no longer live on separate planets.
"Entertainment for Men" which is not acceptable to the modern feminist
woman is "politically incorrect" and can never hope to be a
mainstream, publicly-celebrated magazine.  It can exist "in the
closet," hidden from the wife or girlfriend, and masturbated over like
other "girlie porn," but it can never have the stature Playboy had in
the '60's as an icon of American culture.  Moreover, the 1960's
playboy, that jazz- loving, pipe-smoking lothario who bedded a
rotating bevy of bimbos on his rotating round bed, is a dead animal in
today's world.  He has been slaughtered as a "sexist pig" by the sharp
knives of feminist distain; and while there might be a few submissive,
low-educated women who still yearn for such a figure, most women of
today--including the women who today's yuppies are likely to be
attracted to and end up marrying--totally reject that image of male
supremacy.  The only kind of man who still aspires to be a
"Mr. Playboy of the '60's" reincarnated is one who "hasn't got it" in
today's world, who is a loser in the eyes of women and thus a loser in
the game of sex and romance which lies at the heart of what once made
Playboy successful.  Once upon a time, the average women would "swoon"
to be chosen by the rich "playboy" type with his male-oriented toys
and dominating masculinity.  There may be a few such women left, but
they are a dwindling minority. To be relevant and vibrant again,
Playboy has to have a philosophy and content which is consistent with
the "playboy" as he has evolved in a post-feminist world, one who
treats his wife or girlfriend as an equal and shares his entertainment
as well as his duties as co-provider and co- caretaker in the home.

"What women of the world want Maxim closed, I don't.  I don't love it,
although at time I will admit to finding it humorist.  I'm not
intimidated by it and while I think that it plays to a men's lowest
denominator but so do the cheesy romance novels that alot of women
read."

Maxim is the magazine personification of "Al Bundy;" and it is not
surprising that it came into being at the height of "Married With
Children"'s popularity.  The farting, beer-guzzling, boob-leering
Bundys that Maxim portrays men to be is the feminist's revenge for the
chauvinist attitudes with which men formerly regarded women.  The
women from "Sex and the City" sit around sipping their lattes and
ridicule this pathetic creature, gaining a feeling of superiority over
men who act like men do in Maxim.  There are women who like their men
to be "Al Bundys" because such men are controllable, or predictable
and thus subject to manipulation.  But I suspect that even these women
get tired of such numbskulls and dump them in time, just like the
playboys of yesteryear dumped their "bunnies" when they became
tiresome.  The Maxim image is not what the "playboy" of the 21st
Century aspires to be; and it is the complete opposite of the image
Playboy should strive to project.

"I don't think anyone would argue that Europeans are more open sexually
than Americans, most of my European friends also think that being
faithful in marriage is old fashioned as well.  Americans don't and I
think it's unrealistic to think you are going to change the culture we
live in."

I think Americans play only lip service to the idea of "faithfulness
in marriage" and are closer to Europeans in their "secret" dreams and
feelings than you think.  60% of all American marriages end in divorce
these days (over 75% among the college-educated); and in most of those
cases there has been some infidelity on one or both sides.  Once
again, facts speak louder than pulpit progaganda.  I suspect that
Donna and the others who have been arguing for less nudity in Playboy,
more Wal-Mart-approved content, or the Maximization of the magazine a
la Kaminsky's recent efforts, were not around or not grown up during
the '50's and '60's.  During that roughly 20- year span, the culture
of America changed as radically as any culture could change, with
Playboy spearheading a good part of it.  What was once "hidden and
forbidden" came out in the open; condom sales were "over" not under
the counter; birth control pills were distributed on college campuses;
"Deep Throat" and "Behind the Green Door" were movies viewed by the
masses and not mere peep shows for pathetic losers; gays and lesbians
came "out of the closet"; and "free love," swinging, polyamory, and a
whole host of different sexual lifestyles were born, seemingly
overnight.  Anyone who lived through these changes will
whole-heartedly disagree with Donna's conclusion that "it's
unrealistic to think you are going to change the culture we live in."
We did change it; and Playboy was a big part of that change.

But, unbeknowst to Hef and his hand-picked Board of Directors at PEI,
the culture we live in has changed even more radically since the
'60's.  Women have almost achieved full equality, in the workplace and
in the home; gays and lesbians have secured most of the legal rights
that straights enjoy; more interracial marriages and influxes of
immigrants from Asia and Latin America have further diversified
Americans both physically and culturely; and the world has become a
much smaller place, with daily events in Japan, Korea or the Middle
East becoming as much a part of our table conversation as the latest
local baseball scores.  The "playboy" of this new century will be a
different kind of animal from the hedonistic "Mr. Playboy" of the
'60s.  If Playboy doesn't find the right mixture of class,
sophistication and explicit eroticism that today's "playboy" aspires
to, and of which his woman will approve, then someone else will.
Indeed, "playboy" has almost become a negative connotation in the eyes
of many yuppies of both sexes; and, as a longtime Playboy fan, I would
hate to see the name of the magazine disappear.  Yet it well might if
a new Hefner emerges who has the right vision to capture the tastes of
today's men and women and the capital to start his own magazine.