A momentous event: I have purchased my first Playboy magazine, my first pornography of any kind. I put it on my credit card at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport. Don Peteroy, a dear friend of my dear friend Tara, won Playboy’s annual college fiction contest, and his winning short story was published in October’s magazine. I had been working up the courage all month to actually purchase the damn thing—I’m a firm believer that writers need to support one another, and Don is an amazing writer, and well, it just felt like something I should do.
But not in small-town Marquette. I couldn’t overcome the thought of running into someone I knew while buying it—or worse, having to hand my money to one of Zac’s students, many of whom seem to work as cashiers. I’m a feminist for god’s sake—how was I going to explain that?
So I was in Cincinnati last Sunday having lunch with Tara, who whipped out her copy in the middle of a restaurant while children chattered away all around us, and who laughed about showing Don’s story to her Rabbi. And no one batted an eye. Feminist police didn’t descend to confiscate my feminist card or anything.
Tara dropped me off at the airport for my flight home to Marquette and I realized if I didn’t buy the Playboy then, I would never buy it. So I did. And I carried it through three airports. And read it. In public.
And here’s what I learned: no one seems to get riled up about Playboy anymore. It didn’t even seem to me particularly controversial, or sexy, or provocative. Besides Don’s amazing short story, the October issue contains an interview with Stephen Hawking—Stephen Hawking for god’s sake!—and a column by James Franco, and some pretty intellectual and interesting articles. Of course, interspersed with Hawking’s discussion of black holes are photographs of naked women, which is pretty weird. Weirder yet is that the women’s bodies are so highly airbrushed they don’t even appear to be bodies.
And weirder still is the fact that I didn’t blink a feminist eyelash. Is it because I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing women’s bodies sell so many things that I wasn’t surprised to see them selling sex, or selling a magazine? Because their airbrushed bodies are so foreign to any naked bodies I have ever seen? That I expected more—more violence perhaps? I haven’t figured that out yet. But I’m still surprised by how little outrage I could muster—and how un-sexy I found the whole magazine.
Of course, I won’t be buying Playboy regularly—unless Don keeps winning their college fiction contest. I couldn’t even keep the magazine in my house—I’ve already mailed it to another friend to read. But I’ve surprised myself. Have I lost my feminist sensibility? Become complacent? Does it take more to shock me these days than a woman’s naked body interspersed with articles I actually want to read? Maybe Playboy has lost whatever edge it once had. Maybe I imagined the magazine to be a bigger deal that it ever was. In any case, I feel like I’ve reached some sort of strange milestone: I bought pornography. Then actually read the articles.
Posted with Blogsy
Planet of the Blind 
Perhaps the feminist police shouldn’t be descending but should encourage this sort of freedom!
Jonny Bell (long term reader, first time commenter)
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