On The Media: Playboy Covers Up

Physical: Playboy has decided to stop printing full frontal nude images starting in March of 2016. Playboy found, from re-vamping their website last year, that the website was viewed more, without the nude images.

Psychological: A quote from Harvey Cox, which was stated in the broadcast: "moralistic criticisms of playboy fail, because it's anti-moralism is one of the few places in which Playboy is right, thus any theological critique of Playboy that focuses on it's lewdness will misfire completely. Playboy, and it's less successful imitators are not sex magazines at all, they dilute, and dissipate authentic sexuality, by reducing it to an accessory, by keeping it at a safe distance. We must see in Playboy, the latest and slickest episode in man's continuing refusal to be fully human."

Hefner states in the interview, that the intrigue in Playboy is the fantasy. It's a motivation to dream, he says.

Temporal: Hugh Hefner's career in the industry began back in WWII, after seeing pin-up mags like Esquire. He wanted to see real women in magazines that looked like the Vargas girls. Playboy became a magazine for the "sophisticated" male society. Women, not only in Playboy, but in other sexual magazines as well, have been depicted clothed is less, and less clothing as the years have gone on.

Cultural: Though culturally, society says that pornography, and other things such as Playboy are unacceptable, they are still viewed, and purchased a whole lot.


I mean, if we're being completely honest here, Playboy disgusts me. It not only disgusts me that men look at magazines like Playboy, but it disgusts me that women let themselves be photographed for the magazines.

My mind keeps wandering back to an episode of The Fresh Prince off Bel-Air, where Hilary (Will Smith's cousin) is asked to be photographed for an edition of Playboy, spotlighting local weather girls. Her father (uncle Phil) is adamant that she should not be in the magazine (even though he definitely had a subscription to it). In the end, Hilary ended up sneaking to the Playboy mansion, and being photographed for the magazine. When the print came out, Uncle Phil hesitantly opened it up, and was relieved to see his daughter's bits and pieces covered up by graphics. But before the mag had been shot and printed, Uncle Phil found out that Hilary went down to the Playboy mansion shortly after she had left, and he ran down there to try and stop her. While he was at the mansion, Phil ran into Hugh Hefner, and Phil tried to explain to him that he did not want his daughter in this magazine. Hefner responded by saying, "Mr. Banks, don't worry, the images will be tasteful."

TASTEFUL?

You know what's tasteful? Put some flipping clothing on... that's tasteful. Nothing about Playboy is tasteful.

My attitude toward the no-more-nudes announcement is that it's better than nothing, I guess.

Now, in relation to Social Media, I definitely think that the development of technology has helped in the spread of Pornography, like just about everything else. People have devices in their hand that can be used to access Pornography at any time of the day, and in just about any place.