pktechgirlbackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pktechgirlbackup) wrote2011-07-05 10:36 pm
pktechgirlbackup) wrote2011-07-05 10:36 pm
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The magazine is unclear on the topic of ugly women's enjoyment of sex
20 minutes into a documentary is too early to have an opinion, but I'm too angry to finish it without getting this out, so:
In Hugh Hefner: Activist, Playboy, Rebel, multiple people claim that Playboy was about celebrating and promoting the fact that women like sex tooo(r depending on whose talking, that good girls like sex too). 98% of my knowledge of Playboy comes from watching The Girls Next Door and I know basically nothing about early Playboy, but I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. Or rather, it's not as good as the people saying it think it is.
Good would be celebrating women enjoying sex on their own terms. What Playboy celebrated, through its policy of including a hint of a man in every pictorial, and striving for centerfolds that had normal day jobs and "the girl next door" look,* was the idea that just around the corner was a woman who met a very specific standard of beauty that would love to do exactly what you loved. I don't want to say ingenue and sexual agency can *never* go together, but I am pretty sure that ingenues en masse don't promote agency. I also get the feeling Playboy didn't/doesn't think woman who liked sex were particularly choosy about who it was with, although I can't tell you what I'm basing this on.
To do it the right way, you'd have to find women who were enjoying sex on their own terms and just photograph them doing what them enjoy. Or here's a really radical idea- share it in a way not designed purely for men to jerk off too. Possibly you could hire some female writers. I'm just spitballing ideas here.
It's entirely possible the idea that the woman should enjoy sex too was revolutionary. I believe that no one can be more than a certain amount better than the time they're born in, and we should celebrate people who approach that limit, even if they look awful by today's standards. Much like I'm glad Howard Stern exists, providing the FCC with low hanging fruit that has the money to fight back, I'm glad Playboy was pissing off censors in the 1950s. And I get that it's possible to be an envelope pusher in your 20s and then run out of steam. But Hefner is still alive and every time I see his smug face talking about all he's done for women I want to punch it.
*Jenny McArtny says there's no way she would have been hired if she showed up to her audition looking polished. For a magazine that has always airbrushed photos until they're closer to illustrations, that's a pretty big statement on who is going to be controlling the pretty.
In Hugh Hefner: Activist, Playboy, Rebel, multiple people claim that Playboy was about celebrating and promoting the fact that women like sex tooo(r depending on whose talking, that good girls like sex too). 98% of my knowledge of Playboy comes from watching The Girls Next Door and I know basically nothing about early Playboy, but I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. Or rather, it's not as good as the people saying it think it is.
Good would be celebrating women enjoying sex on their own terms. What Playboy celebrated, through its policy of including a hint of a man in every pictorial, and striving for centerfolds that had normal day jobs and "the girl next door" look,* was the idea that just around the corner was a woman who met a very specific standard of beauty that would love to do exactly what you loved. I don't want to say ingenue and sexual agency can *never* go together, but I am pretty sure that ingenues en masse don't promote agency. I also get the feeling Playboy didn't/doesn't think woman who liked sex were particularly choosy about who it was with, although I can't tell you what I'm basing this on.
To do it the right way, you'd have to find women who were enjoying sex on their own terms and just photograph them doing what them enjoy. Or here's a really radical idea- share it in a way not designed purely for men to jerk off too. Possibly you could hire some female writers. I'm just spitballing ideas here.
It's entirely possible the idea that the woman should enjoy sex too was revolutionary. I believe that no one can be more than a certain amount better than the time they're born in, and we should celebrate people who approach that limit, even if they look awful by today's standards. Much like I'm glad Howard Stern exists, providing the FCC with low hanging fruit that has the money to fight back, I'm glad Playboy was pissing off censors in the 1950s. And I get that it's possible to be an envelope pusher in your 20s and then run out of steam. But Hefner is still alive and every time I see his smug face talking about all he's done for women I want to punch it.
*Jenny McArtny says there's no way she would have been hired if she showed up to her audition looking polished. For a magazine that has always airbrushed photos until they're closer to illustrations, that's a pretty big statement on who is going to be controlling the pretty.