Going Forward

[Donna Tavoso]

Steve wrote - 
> 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.

I never said they lived on seperate planets but just because men and
women are equal doesn't mean that everything has to be created to be
enjoyed by both of them.  Magazines, TV shows and movies are all
written to appeal to specific targets.  And while I in no ways intend
to put words in your mouth, they way you seem to do with me, before
you point out that the sexual nature of Playboy makes it different,
I'll point out that is because you have a limited view of the
magazine.  My boyfriend thinks going to strip clubs is fun, I find
them boring (not offensive, just boring) he goes with his friends, I
do something else --

More over, I am a modern femist woman, and the magazine has never been
offensive or politically incorrect or offensive to me in way shape or
form.  I don't claim to speak for them just for me because I believe
there are plenty of women (not feminist, but women in general) who
will always have an issue with the magazine no matter what article is
in it.  As long as there is a centerfold they have a problem.

Nor is the concept of Entertainment for Men offensive to me or would
something entitled Entertainment for Women I believe be offensive to
most men.  Is it dated, probably, but not politically incorrect.  The
problem I think is that you have a one dimensional view of the
magazine and it involves the pictorials -- because if you read the
magazine you would find that there are plenty of articles in Playboy
that show a women's point of view and portray women in a positive
light.

Playboy has never been designed to be a dual audience book - you
obviously think there is a market for one, go out and start it --
Nerve tried to do, I think they lasted a little over a year and then
they went back to being just online, where it worked.

> 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.

Just because you don't read the magazine with your partner doesn't
reduce it to this level.  I could make a guess as to why you think it
does but it wouldn't be nice.

> 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 does treating your partner as an equal have to do with this; the
magazine has never ever advocated treating your partner as an anything
other than an equal.  And don't point out Hef's relathionships he
doesn't live in the real world instead read the magazine and what the
articles say.  Read the advisor and what it says there about
relationships.

Moreover just because you have an equal relationship doesn't mean that
you have to share everything -- you don't always have to enjoy the
same entertainment whether it is a magazine, ballet, going to a strip
club or reading Playboy.

> 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.

How can a magazine that is written by men, be the feminists revenge?
I don't love Maxim, but I understand it and I understand why guys like
it.  It's mindless entertainment -- I don't think less of my guy
friends who read it, I get why they read it, the same way they get why
I occasionally read Cosmo.  It doesn't make them uncultured,
unsophisitcated or immature - any more than your enjoyment of watching
girl on girl interaction makes you a sexual deviant.

That being said, in no way do I want Playboy to become Maxim, as I
have stated, I think they are two different magazines that appeal to
men on different levels, much the way women's magazines do. I know
this may be outside your scope of understanding but it is possible for
a man to read and enjoy Playboy and read and enjoy Maxim.

> 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 disagree, and just because 60% end in divorce doesn't mean that
American's don't believe in "faithfulness in marriage" -- you can't
make that jump.

> I suspect that Donna and the others who have been arguing for less
> nudity in Playboy, more Wal-Mart-approved content,

Never have I ever wrote or supported less nudity in the magazine, nor
did I ever imply that Playboy's goal should be to have Wal Mart
approved content.  What I pointed out was that your contention that if
Playboy would have more risque pictures it would have the huge growth
in circulation and that advertisers would then flock to the magazine.
I used the Wal Mart situation to point out how much sensitivity still
exists in our culture your today only because you pointed out how much
more open minded Americans were than in the past.  I disagree, and
whether you feel the Wal Mart decision is based on a small group of
small minded people, those people have some pretty big clout and I
don't see you and all your open minded people challenging them.

> 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.

You are right I wasn't around in the 50s and 60s and I agree that over
that 20 year period there was a huge cultural shift of which Playboy
played a large part in.  But I would argue that you didn't change the
culture you created a new one, one that existed side by side with a
more puritan culture that is still a holding strong in America today.
And I hate to say it but that group is getting stronger by the minute,
just this week USA Today refused to run an ad for Playboy, why because
they got so many reader complaints from the first one.

> 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.

Are you kidding?  I find this paragraph so absurd I can't even comment on it.