From Scott Lemieux, I found this awesome review of a new book of collected writings for Playboy, and by “awesome” I mean, “properly contemptous and snarky towards Hugh Hefner.” The official feminist stance on Playboy is it is cheesy objectification, and while that’s true, I can’t help but note that Hef’s major crime against my nerves is being so full of shit. Luckily, the reviewer John Leland not only nails Hef to the ground for this, but he realizes nothing drives home the point than Hef’s own words. And he opens the reivew by quoting him.
In the first issue of Playboy magazine, published in December 1953, Hugh M. Hefner wrote an essay speaking for its envisioned readers: “We like our apartment. We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph, and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.� On first blush his commercial strategy here seemed straightforward: Men who make a habit of inviting female acquaintances in to talk Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz and sex will have a lot of free nights for reading Playboy magazine. Empires have been built on lesser principles.
Ask the average Playboy reader/Hef-worshipper the difference between a Nietzsche and Picasso and enjoy watching them fumble. And if you’re about to earnestly explain to me that you can’t compare a philosopher to an artist, you’re probably also the sort of bore who thinks there’s value in this image that Hef has painted of the vaguely educated man “discussing” Nietzsche with a woman dressed in a bunny suit and/or is a model/fixture around the Playboy Mansion—in other words, whose very job is to be dumb and non-threatening and fuckable, but certainly not to actually discuss art or philosophy, even if she knows what these things are all about. Hefner himself has strained not to live up to this fantasy of the old-fashioned concubine, who could trade witty barbs with men before bedding down with them. If there’s any greater disrespect for the idea of intelligence in women than the list of turn ons and turn offs that accompany centerfolds in Playboy magazine, I don’t know what it is.
The question in my mind is why does he even bother to set up this image of pseudo-sophistication while also pandering to men who fear the idea of a spark of intelligence in a woman more than death itself? Well, my theory is that Playboy’s pseudo-sophistication is the art of selling denial to men. On a certain level, sexist men are often aware that it’s pathetic to want women to be dumb and compliant. And that is an embarrassing thing to realize about yourself, that you’re so incapable of holding your own that you squawk at the idea of socializing with women that aren’t giving your ego a handicap with a Hooters uniform or a bunny costume or playing dumb or whatever. So in comes Playboy with Hugh Hefner, who needs a who string of women playing bimbo to calm his ego, but claims to be The Man and that by reading his magazine, you too can convince yourself that you’re actually not a feeb, but a sophisticated man of the world.
As the review notes, this particular sales pitch lost its allure.
The fix was in from the start. It held sway over American men until the arrival of a medium even more effective at replacing male curiosity with useless pudding: 24-hour sports television.
Which is to say the American Male Sleazebag gave up even pretending to be intellectually curious and just dove right into not giving a shit at all. Anti-intellectualism is as American as apple pie; Hef’s little routine is very 50s-60s and a quaint relic. Not that sports fans are all anti-intellectual, of course. In fact, I wouldn’t even point to 24-hour sports TV as evidence that the Pig Brigade has given up even trying to seem sophisticated or sharp. Maxim magazine and the ubiquitious Hooters chain is far better evidence of that. “I go there for the chicken wings!” vs. “I read it for the articles!” tells you everything you need to know about that.
Still, it’s well-understood that Playboy’s need to project pseudo-sophistication meant they were willing to pay top dollar to some of the best writers. Call it the Law of Unintended Consequences or just the silver lining in the cloud. I can’t help but be mildly supportive of any endeavor that enriches the pen-pushers out there, so it’s a shame that there’s not more of an audience out there anymore for a little fake sophistication to decorate the pictures of 18-year-olds posing naked with deliberately dumb looks on their faces. Outside of that, though, I actually prefer the dumb sexist crap a lot more than the pseudo-sophistication thing. It has a certain intellectual honesty to it that I appreciate, an acknowledgement that being a sexist pig is stupid but that the pig in question doesn’t give a shit.
By leaps and bounds it’s less pathetic than watching Bill Maher get a rise out of anti-feminist nutjobs in miniskirts spout off at the mouth as if they’re saying anything worth listening to. Still, as the Maher example shows, there’s still a few guys out there naively buying into the Playboy crap. Reader Will sent me an update on this poor soul that I’ve had some fun with before, who not only buys into the Playboy myth but is unsurprisinglyly a libertarian as well. As usual, he’s ranting against the monolithic Left, who interferes with the deep pleasure he gets in being a tool. He’s very upset at Ms Magazine’s “No Comment” section this time around. He thinks it’s because the evil feminists “blacklist” images that sexually arouse him in order to open up his wallet so he can spend money on useless crap that won’t actually get him any closer to the thighs of the models in the ads, but I also get the strong impression that he doesn’t like the fact that they just put the pictures up without comment and expect you to think about what they mean.
“No Comment� shows miniature reprints of newspaper and magazine ads that supposedly degrade women enough to require angry letters and phone calls. With a few remotely possible exceptions, the outrage reinforces the stereotype of the humorless feminist. An ad can offend merely by associating a product with the sensual appeal of the female form or laughing at the foibles of human sexuality. Some might seem to glorify violence against women—if you’re determined to see that message in them. Does this ad for Royal Elastics shoes, blacklisted in the summer 2005 Ms., encourage men to kick women in the head? Was the “crushed flower� sniffed on one occasion by animated superhero Mighty Mouse actually cocaine, as AFA chairman Rev. Donald Wildmon alleged with about as much plausibility?
The irony is that the pictures in “No Comment” usually link male sexual desire for women with violence or degradation, which is exactly what our young libertarian finds appealing about them, but instead of saying, “No, I get a hard-on and then go buy the products advertised with violence and objectification,” he tries to deny that the very message he’s responding to is even there. Is this ad implying there’s something sexy about kicking women in the head?
If you don’t get that idea from the picture, I guarantee you the marketer will be disappointed, because he couldn’t have made it more fucking obvious. Here is a woman getting kicked in the head, her legs apart, a look of ectasy on her face. The only way I think you could be confused about the message is if you didn’t understand that legs-apart-ectastic-look is what women are supposed to look like when getting a properly satisfying roll in the hay. Needless to say, I’m open to that possibility that he doesn’t understand that, though how you could avoid knowing that is beyond me. Sexual inexperience wouldn’t be the reason, because sexually inexperienced people may not have firsthand knowledge of that look, but they still live in our society and are bombarded with women giving good fake versions of it to sell products. (A lot of porn has that fake ectasy in it as well, but porn is just selling itself.) So maybe he lives under a rock?
That would seem to be the case in the comments where he denies, after being pressed by the same Will who sent this to me, that there’s a patriarchy.
No, I do not believe that the United States is patriarchal in any significant way. The last nail was driven into patriarchy’s coffin with ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. A group that makes up the majority of the voting population need never worry about being oppressed. Disparities in income and representation in various occupations are not necessarily civil-rights issues at all; they may only reflect differing career choices that men and women tend to make of their own free will.
The simple-minded libertarian right’s major fallacy, which is in thinking that only government power counts as power, is evident here. Social power and economic power may technically exist, but are not worthy of consideration, because they disappear in a poof if you apply “free will”. Similiarly, if the blogger wanted to start writing exclusively in Russian, he could do so this very second by willing it. Some puritanical liberals might say that he’s not writing in Russian because he doesn’t know it, due to social forces (namely, everyone around him speaks English), but that’s balderdash. He is only writing in English and not Russian because he coolly examined his choices and freely chose to write in English. Now, some people say that one could switch languages not by will but by a huge amount of effort and that it would require collective action, i.e. finding a teacher to teach you Russian, some books written by people on learning Russian, moving to Russia and learning it from the people around you. But that’s crap. There’s no legal ban on you using Russian, so you can speak it right away without help from anyone else just by willing it. To say otherwise is to deny the existence of free will.
The stubborn unwillingness to think, the attachment to cheap libertarianism, the insistence that one is an intellectual anyway—Hefner still has acolytes, all right, and they’re getting dumber all the time.
61 Responses to “The superiority of anti-intellectualism to pseudo-intellectualism, as brought to you by Hefnerites”
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You’d think that, being such a huge fan of free will and all, he’d be ecstatic that the market provides opportunity for individuals to critique a companies output. I mean.. that’s that “Invisible Hand” right there, correct? Company X comes up with socially stunted, craptastic advertising; the public says, fuck that and I’m not buying your shitty product, either. That’s the market. He’s basically a libertarian bitching because he lives in a market economy.
Is the picture in that cropped? Because, otherwise, that is just goofy looking.
Well, for what it’s worth, these magazines gave up on even pseudo-intellectualism a while ago. They found out that the essence of what they were selling wasn’t Nietzsche or Picasso but access to a market that was either high end or that thought that it was high end. The formula became sex plus high end ads. That’s what the pseudo-intellectualism morphed into.
is that barbie benton on the cover?
Oh my god, I love you for saying that. I can’t believe how many times I’ve heard the “well you have the same opportunities as men do, you just choose to remove yourself from the workforce to have kids, so if you get paid less it’s ultimately your own fault” argument. Which to me, translates as “you were born a woman, so too bad, eh?”
I do like your point about Playboy paying its writers well. Back in the day, Playboy used to be the market that all aspiring and publishing SF authors wanted to crack, because it paid so much and was an absolutely platinum credential in publishing terms. For a long time, they were also one of the only slick magazines that would even consider publishing SF. I recall Harlan Ellison talking about how he reconciled publishing many stories in “men’s magazines” with his openly feminist stance at the time (admittedly imperfect, but better than the majority of his male contemporaries), and he said he was trying to make their readers pause and think a bit before going on to the next picture. (He said it much more colourfully than that, though.)
My wonderful astute boyfriend brought up an interesting point about that ad: If that woman isn’t being kicked in the head, she’s almost certainly sniffing or kissing the soles of the man’s shoes. While that’s less bad than the kick in the head interpretation, that’s a little bit like saying Ebola is less bad than smallpox, or something.
Do you have more on the libertarianism/anti-woman link, or have your ever thought that libertarianism on its own is by definition antifeminist? I’m convinced that libertarians and libertarianism represent some of the most anti-feminist points of view you can have without being publicly scorned for outright misogyny. It’s just another reason why their poorly-examined worldview pisses me off, but I think it’s an underemphasized one.
It’s also probably why there are almost no female libertarians out there, and when you do find something like a female libertarian blog, there’s a fair chance it’s being run by a guy who lifted a picture of a hot girl from a Russian bride site. That was a funny little episode.
I had a comment, but never mind.
I’m not sure if Libertarianism is misogynist as a political ideal. I doubt it, as actively oppressing others seems to jar somewhat with the ideology. Nope, IMO Libertarianism only exists because those who espouse the political ideal have no clue as what really goes on in the world. Most libertarians (all? I can’t say all. I haven’t met all) are white men, from middle or upper-middle class backgrounds. They have lived in the US in a position of privilege — social, economical — their entire lives and simply take it for granted. They have NO CLUE how much of their position and status was handed to them simply for being white men.
It is very easy to say “I’m self-sufficient” when they simply take for granted — really, don’t even see — the vast structures and history that put them where they are. Most libertarians are such because they only see the world from the height of their privilege.
I agree with Interrobang — if she’s not being kicked, it looks like this woman is licking the man’s shoes. Another lovely message.
Hugh Hefner grosses me out. I see pictures of him, or even read his name and I just cringe. He’s so sleazy, and creepy and cheesy and pretentious despite his tackiness, and so comically out of date and out of touch with the here and now that it makes me embarassed for him. Ew. I have almost the same reaction to James Bond movies because they’re all just like the embarassingly cheesy, tacky, out of date world of Hugh Hefner, except with violence. Every time a new one comes out I roll my eyes and think, “Could we please just let this franchise die already?”
It figures Playboy Avenger man is a libertarian. Just as Playboy has pretentious pseudo-intellectual ambitions, so too does the libertarian party. Pretentious pseudo-intellectual dudes just love to apply that label to themselves because they think it makes them sound smarter and more discriminating. Most don’t have a clue what the major tenets are or who the leading lights of the party are, as evidenced by things I’ve actually read by these so-called libertarians on other blogs in which they say things like, “I’m a pro-life libertarian!” and “Libertarians support the Iraq war because it expands the idea of the free market and free trade into markets previously shut out from the global economy.” I’m not sure who equated misogyny with libertarianism in one of the earlier posts, but I can say for certain that even as recently as a couple of years ago the Minnesota Libertarian party had openly adopted the MRA platform as their own and all its tenets were posted on their website. They’ve taken most of that down now, but their events calendar still lists Association of Free Men meetings, which is a total MRA outfit. Ew!
Quitter,
I’m a female libertarian and a ragingly militant feminist at the same time.
Maybe I’m missing something about the libertarian point of view. Which part of libertarianism is misogynist and anti-feminist that we’re talking about here?
We cannabis users are very happy to hear that. Hooray! We’re no longer criminals.
ARGH
“i’m a pro-life libertarian”
i have met a couple of these people in real life and every time i do all i can think is I WANT TO SCOOP OUT YOUR BRAINS WITH A SPOON RARRGH
i don’t know what to add to that. anyway apparently a bunch of these dumbasses exist. like, if you’re going to be an asshole, AT LEAST be consistent.
Several points …
- Yes, that IS Barbi Benton on the cover (ah.. fond memories of when you had to steal porn, not download it)
- My initial impression was that she’s licking his foot. Abusive, but in a different way.
- Mezosub, the version of libertarianism that is popularly expounded conforms very neatly to Quitter’s take. My own experience is that all self-described libertarians are upper-middle to upper class white guys. They’re also not generally all that libertarian, but they’re the ones who define libertarianism in the popular mind. Kind of the way George Bush defines conservatism right now.
The one real, serious Libertarian I ever met was actually a man that came from such poverty that he once told me his family had to eat dandelion greens out of their lawn. Nevertheless, he supported all manner of profoundly stupid republican policies, loved Ayn Rand, and overall exhibited such a wide disconnect with his usually rational and intelligent opinions on other subjects that it was, well, really weird. But I think I figured it out. It takes two things to pull oneself up from poverty, brains and luck. It’s natural to want to have an internal locus of control, and so he really, really wanted to believe that his success (he was middle/lower middle class when I met him) was entirely due to his own powers. It’s sobering and depressing to think “there but for the grace of god go i” I think.
I’m pretty sure the woman is sniffing the shoes. There’s no evidence of motion in the picture — it looks as if he’s just holding his feet there for her to sniff.
As for libertarianism, it isn’t misogynistic or overtly anti-woman — it was founded by a woman, Ayn Rand, and I’ve met many libertarian women — but it is utterly ignorant of what it is like to be a *mother* specifically. You can be a woman and live mostly free of institutionalized sexism nowadays. Yeah, you’ll be bombarded with images of other women who are sex kittens, but it doesn’t take a lot to distance yourself from those images, especially if your philosophy is that those women have freely chosen to let themselves be presented as sex kittens. It’s not until you try raising kids that libertarianism shows its true colors. Libertarianism assumes that everyone is of equal ability (not true, but at least can be plausibly argued in the case of *adults*), and that everyone does things out of free choice. Therefore there is no societal responsibility to people who are not of equal ability, and if you freely choose to associate with and be responsible for such people, you freely take on the burdens. *no* person raising children can possibly compete on a level ground with people who aren’t, but libertarians think that’s okay because the choice to raise children was freely made.
A libertarian society which worked in all other regards would quickly die out, because women would be *very* strongly disincented from becoming mothers by the fact that there would be no institutional support whatsoever for them. The playing field between mothers (or anyone else raising kids) and non-mothers cannot be level, and since it cannot, the smart libertarian woman would not have kids. And the smart woman who wants kids would leave the libertarian society. So what you’d quickly end up with is a society where the only women are committed childfree and/or 20-somethings, and the men would be unable to do anything to get more women into the society because it would violate their principles to impede women’s freedom of motion, which would lead a lot of libertarian men to freely leave the society because they can’t get laid at home. Self-destruct in less than a generation. Libertarianism could work if people were robots, but since we need to reproduce and we do have weaknesses, it cannot function.
I don’t think the original meaning of libertarianism is necessarily anti-feminist. In fact, there are feminist libertarians. They just don’t happen to have anything in common with the more common libertarians you see out there, the ones who oppose just the government power. Feminist libertarians are suspicious of all power.
You left out the role of Christy Hefner in all of this. You know, Playboy’s CEO.
As for libertarianism, it isn’t misogynistic or overtly anti-woman — it was founded by a woman, Ayn Rand…
NOOOO! Rand founded Objectivism, the ideology that takes the enlightenment out of enlightened self-interest. She did not in any way, shape or form create the philosophy of Libertarianism. The word was first used by Joseph Déjacque (an anarcho-communist) in a letter to Pierre-Joseph “Property Is Theft” Proudhon in 1857. A letter, interestingly enough, which in large part had to do with Déjacque blasting Proudhon for accepting the patriarchy as part of an anarchic community.
‘Libertarian’ encompasses not just minarchist (which Rand was… at best) and anarcho-capitalist ideas that form the basis of ideological American Libertarianism but also anarcho-socialist and syndicalist ideologies which are anathema to Randian Objectivists.
The official feminist stance on Playboy is it is cheesy objectification
Feminism is united by its dislike of playboy, it is however divided on precisely how and why it dislikes playboy.
I’m a female libertarian and a ragingly militant feminist at the same time.
Have you considered being an anarchist? it’s the exact same thing except you don’t go around legitmising selfish sociopaths who hate the poor.
Please?
I liked Playboy when I was in college, and yeah, I read almost all the articles. But I outgrew it about the same time I outgrew Beer Pong. But then, most Ann Rynd fans outgrow her too (I never liked her, fortunately) and about at the same time….
Now Quiter, what’s this about a maler liberterian using photos from a Russian Mail order Bride site for a blog? really? this sounds interesting….
I’m not sure if Libertarianism is misogynist as a political ideal.
The problem is that if you believe in The Market, then discrimination can’t exist, at least not for any length of time, or in any significant way. Because any business that refused to hire the best employees just because of their skin color, or a university that did not want to admit women, would get its lunch eaten by competitors who say “We don’t care what you look like, we just want the best and brightest.” Therefore, your choices are:
1) Discrimination does not exist.
2) It does exist, but it’s merit-based and fair; women really can’t do those jobs and that’s why they’re not hired.
3) Okay, it does exist, but it’s a lesser evil compared to the government intervening, and anyway it will be corrected in the long run by market forces.
Amanda, I don’t think it’s true that Playboy was trying to resolve dissonance between guys who want brainless women and guys who see themselves as capable. Remember that before Playboy, skin magazines were lowbrow and considered unfit for public view. By selling his magazine as an upscale, intellectual reader’s magazine, he made it acceptable for men to buy and discuss in public. (Hence the old joke about only reading it for the articles.)
The man discussing Nietzsche and Picasso isn’t really discussing it, anyway; he’s holding forth to a woman who’s just bright and educated enough to nod along as his marvelous insights. If you remember that this was also an era where fucking your students was considered to be one of the rightful perks of being a college professor, the attitude is very obvious.
*”In the long run” and “by market forces” are the rough Libertarian equivalent of “they’ll be sorry for their sinful ways when The Rapture comes.”
She looks like she’s getting off on smelling the guy on the swing’s farts.
I just assume that the guy on the swing gets off on farting on swings, and she gets off on sniffing farts.
You guys never heard of the S&F (Swarters&Farties) community or something?
I know a fairly large number of libertarians, ranging from smart, sincere, compassionate people to crony capitalist aristocrat-wannabees who are basically straight-up Republicans who like to pose as intellectuals.
Unfortunately the majority of self-described libertarians seem to fall closer to the latter category than the former. I suggest the use of the term “Glibertarian” for these people. It captures the essential poseurisme of the type.
Naw, the ad is not about violence, fart sniffing or submissiveness. Some appropriately twisted misogynist jerk could certainly take it that way but for my money it is just about “sex sells”. The swing is about penetration, the shoes are the penis and the woman is spread to accept and moaning. The shoes are the focal point in the picture and just screaming to the materialistic males out there that: “See here buddy, you buy my shoes, you will get laid.”
In the end though, whether it is violent or not, it is still demeaning to women, and if you are a man who buys into this crap, you are not a pseudo-intellectual so much as you have sold your rationality and free will out for a fucking pair of shoes (no pun intended) and the fantasy of getting lucky. That goes beyond some pretense, stupidity or gullibility. Willful ignorance of being manipulated?
R. Mildred,
I will take your suggestion under advisement. Let me read up on this anarchy thing and get back to you.
In the meantime, I think I understand what was said about Libertarianism legitimizing sociopaths who hate the poor. We’re referring to TANF and other social programs that encourage poor people to become dependent on government for help, but won’t help them with things that might actually change their lives. I’m thinking of the government’s willingness to provide nutritional assistance or housing subsidies, but refusal to provide abortion on demand or childcare facilities. Am I close?
“There’s no evidence of motion in the picture”
Except for the swing?
In the meantime, I think I understand what was said about Libertarianism legitimizing sociopaths who hate the poor. We’re referring to TANF and other social programs that encourage poor people to become dependent on government for help, but won’t help them with things that might actually change their lives. I’m thinking of the government’s willingness to provide nutritional assistance or housing subsidies, but refusal to provide abortion on demand or childcare facilities. Am I close?
That’s a pretty good, legitimate critique of how our government is trying to fight poverty.
Why do you infer from that that we should eliminate nutritional assistance and housing subsidies, rather than providing abortion on demand and childcare facilities?
(I’m assuming you’re making that inference, since otherwise you’d probably be a modern liberal or lefty rather than libertarian.)
Matthias,
I wasn’t suggesting that government eliminate housing subsidies or nutritional assistance. I do believe, however, that providing contraception and abortion on demand (for those who just don’t want to have children) and childcare facilities (for those who do) would go much further toward giving poor people help to change their lives than the housing subsidy and the food stamps would. From a purely financial standpoint, I’d rather see my tax money spent on abortion and contraception and childcare than housing subsidies and food stamps.
If I really want to stick with pure Libertarian philosophy, I’d say that government’s business is not to provide any of those things. No food stamps, no Section 8 housing, no public health clinics. Pure Libertarians would say that the only purpose of government is to secure the nation’s borders (no engaging in foreign conflicts) and to regulate industry and commerce just enough that the corporations don’t work us all to death for fifteen cents per day and pollute our environment to the point that we all drop dead from the toxicity.
While that’s a nice ideal, it’s too broad to really do us much good here in North America, and we need to delegate a few more responsibilities to government than just the national defense and the regulation of commerce.
That’s the shame about Clinton. I sincerely believe that he was trying to figure out a way to formulate a national health program, but he just couldn’t sell enough tickets for that train.
Start with Emma Goldman.
The problem I’ve always had with Glibertarians is that I can pay for my living expenses more easily with government assistance. government assistance is both cheaper, and tailored (To some extent) to those of us with mental illness then products that come purely from the market.
Given that self-interest is one of the most revered motivations in libertariansm, why should I support a libertarian society when a more socialist one serves my needs better?
Objectivists especially go completely nuts hen you ask them this. Libertarians can fall back on concepts of altruism and sacrifice for the greater social good, or even be some kind of anarcho-sydacalist or something, but Objectivists expressly state that altruism is an evil force.
As such they have no real answer besides sputtering rage. It’s pretty hilarious.
Playboy started as a kind of upscale version of the Beat Generations’ stuff, the conversations, originally in a commerical, collective setting got moved to a place with perhaps more light, and certainly a lot more privacy
The thing I find annoying about Playboy is that they can be every bit as humorless and uptight about their “philosophy” as the worst, most obnoxious Christian fundamentalist. Anyone who dares suggest that maybe it’s, well, undignified for women to pose nude for men’s sexual pleasure gets immediately branded a Victorian, prude, 19th-century finger wagger, etc. And the tone they use for these lectures is grating: seething resentment barely hidden behind a facade of condescension.
Bitter Scribe
Dec 28th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
The thing I find annoying about Playboy is that they can be every bit as humorless and uptight about their “philosophy� as the worst, most obnoxious Christian fundamentalist. Anyone who dares suggest that maybe it’s, well, undignified for women to pose nude for men’s sexual pleasure gets immediately branded a Victorian, prude, 19th-century finger wagger, etc. And the tone they use for these lectures is grating: seething resentment barely hidden behind a facade of condescension.
Bitter Scribe, there appears to be lots of people that act just like that. Talk very condescending towards others. But only when they disagree with you.
Well put. I had long felt there some kind of connection, but you put your finger right on it; pseudo-intellectualism, Libtertarianism, and Playboy. Like “night clubs” that ban denim in some phony version of “classy”, it’s the kind of mentality that judges lame objectifying porn as “quality” merely because of the production values.
And I agree with you, 24-hour sports and Hooters (and, I’d add, low-rent strip joints) have something more appealing at least in their basic honesty/stupidity. They at least represent a populist counterpoint and lack of artifice about their intent.
And yet I still suspect there’s a dearth of real, non-objectifying, but actually explicit porn. Maybe, like organic food, it’s something that just loses its value rapidly with scale - amateur porn is about as far as it can go without dumbing itself out of qualitative value; due to the imperatives of the dollar, it either becomes regular porn with punk haircuts or else intellectualized (and not porn). OK, that will be the first and last time I compare organic food to amateur porn. Though maybe not - I suspect there’s actually something to it.
Pardon me for jumping over all this interesting commentary, but I just have to say again, Amanda you are a genius. I knew it before, but I have to say it yet again. Thank you. It is not easy to understand patriarchy.
The Russian analogy is a perfect description of the cultural patriarchy and I am stealing it to use on the dim and/or resistant.
Christopher:
Objectivists also have a big problem with things like industry and safety standards (e.g., prescription drug regulations, speed limits, OSHA guidelines, and vehicle emissions), basic corporate competence (e.g., punishing companies that make dangerous or deadly products), and just in general, anything that has anything whatsoever to do with behaving responsibly towards other people. Or really, anything that would require them to admit that people other than themselves exist at all, especially the poor and people who work in labor-oriented jobs. They then conclude that such workers do not deserve any protection from their employers. After all, there’s no point in protecting someone who doesn’t actually exist.
In my experience, Objectivism appears to be nothing more than an excuse to be a self-obsessed bully.
I haven’t paid much attention to Playboy in years, but I’m pretty sure I remember Hefner getting busted a couple of times, and I don’t think either of them was for upholding the Patriarchy. Playboy was against the Vietnam War, helped fund Norml and a host of other progressive causes, and paid its writers and staff better than decent rates.
Which is to say that I enjoyed the Leland piece because it was clever and funny, but if you’re just going to pile up a laundry list of complaints (mine would be that Hefner seems to have a pitifully narrow range of taste in women these days), you might want to consider any graces that might exist.
I also wouldn’t mind having lunch with Christy Hefner sometime. I think she probably has a lot of very interesting stories to tell.
Amanda Marcotte: The official feminist stance on Playboy is it is cheesy objectification, and while that’s true, I can’t help but note that Hef’s major crime against my nerves is being so full of shit.
Yeah, Playboy. How pleasant to read a sympathetic sensibility!
Myth, I see what you’re saying, but I guess I’m saying that gross, unapologetic misogyny has been treated like low class for a long time now, and Playboy playing at feminism is actually a part of its selling point—see, we are all about female liberation and sophistication! But their definition of it is yes, to sit and nod blankly while getting lectured. More interesting to me is what they want from those blank nods. I’ve been lectured by many a man on this or that, but in all honesty, I’ve been able to learn from it if they knew something about what they were talking about. I don’t get the impression that the bloviaters are comfortable with the idea of women learning while they nod and listen.
I don’t get the impression that the bloviaters are comfortable with the idea of women learning while they nod and listen.
I think their fear is that women might speak up and might even disagree with them. They’d probably be glad to know they were actually able to teach you something.
One of the most sincere libertarians I know is a woman who put herself through college as the single mother of twins, on food stamps.
She’s a libertarian, IMHO, because she’s really stubborn and hates, *hates* being told what to do. I also think that she supports my theory (which is mine) that libertarians are people who don’t believe humans are social animals. She has been reluctant to accept help from others, to rely on a social network (e.g. for child-rearing), and she also once told me that she finds the idea of “peer pressure” incomprehensible: it’s not just that she doesn’t think it’s right, it’s that she can’t imagine responding to it.
So, although being an educated white male helps in being a libertarian, it isn’t strictly necessary. I think it’s the feeling that there’s no such thing as human sociality that makes the big difference.
I think your friend is right, Doctor Science. There’s also a certain blindness about how social and interdependent humans actually are. It’s a sort of Utopian viewpoint: nobody is ever sick or helpless unless they want to be, or cause it to happen; everybody is rational; all humans need to behave properly is freedom.
and to regulate industry and commerce just enough that the corporations don’t work us all to death for fifteen cents per day and pollute our environment to the point that we all drop dead from the toxicity
Actually achieving that goal takes a lot more regulation than the average Libertarian finds tolerable.
I’ve been lectured by many a man on this or that, but in all honesty, I’ve been able to learn from it if they knew something about what they were talking about.
Sure, but I doubt that the lecturers were really hoping to do more than educate you as to how smart THEY were. Playboy is all about liberating women, as long as women know that their first job is being attractive and sexually available to men. Educated women make better trophies.
JT: yes, that is a problem. There’s not much out there that doesn’t require a modicum of holding-one’s-nose-and-waiting-for-the-good-parts, but I’m a fan of beautifulagony.com (G-rated, but very hot stuff) and ifeelmyself.com (pretty explicit, but still rather ‘tasteful’, meaning subtle lighting and full-body shots). The former has both men and women; the latter is almost entirely women-only.
Apologies if porn recommendations are unwelcome; I don’t have any stake in the sites listed above, I just like what they do.
Educated women make better trophies.
I had a friend in University who once wrote “X________ girls make better Hetaera“, on a wall, and that was back in the late ’70s.
I know a libertarian and former Objectivist who’s a public school teacher and an officer in his local union chapter. He justifies it by saying, “well, the government shouldn’t be providing public education, but if they insist, then it’s my right and duty to try to take as much as advantage of it as I can.”
(Cynicism aside, he’s also the teacher who volunteers to handle after-school events and always gets asked to act as advisor for extracurricular organizations. Also, out of disgust for BushCo, he voted Democratic in 2004 and 2006. I haven’t had a chance to sit down with him since the midterms, but he’s probably the sort of guy getting involved in that “liberaltarian” talk some libertarians have been making lately.)
Doctor Science: One of the most sincere libertarians I know is a woman who put herself through college as the single mother of twins, on food stamps.
One of the most insincere libertarians you know, surely? A sincere libertarian would have let herself and her children starve to death rather than take food stamps.
(Comment to Dr Science continued.) It’s my contention that, just as no one is a pro-lifer when they themselves really need an abortion, no one is a libertarian when they themselves really need the resources that living in a social network will give you: your friend may have been unwilling to accept babysitting help from friends, but was willing to accept food stamps rather than starve, and willing to go to college (with all the social networking that actually requires, and I’m not talking student socialising: I mean the academic/intellectual network). Sincere libertarians are people who have overlooked the social network that gives them the comfortable lifestyle they take for granted, and assume that they got to the position they’re in “without any help” and so anyone else can, too. Sincere libertarians are always sheltered/privileged people who lack empathy.
I have an uncle who calls himself a libertarian. In reality he’s insanely socially conservative is only ‘libertarian’ when it comes to government helping anyone but himself. Basically, he’s all for ‘defending marriage’ or government regulation of mine (and his daughters’) reproductive functions, but he hates taxes and any sort of social welfare (and also unions), because ‘those people’ don’t deserve any help. He very conveniently seems to forget that he benefitted hugely from those exact sorts of programs, being the white male son of a coal miner very active in the union, got a free public education, went to college on a government grant (in the late 60s), etc. He seems to think that because he did well for himself and now has his own business, that everyone else can do the same thing, but without all the advantages he had. He’s also an uber Catholic who idolizes Bill O’Reilly and despairs of my liberal, athiest self. I love him, but the way he goes on drives me insane sometimes.
As of this morning, I have officially changed my mind. I will no longer self-identify as libertarian. Rather, I would prefer to be known as an “anti-authoritarian.”
Thanks R. Mildred, and thanks for the Emma Goldman link, Cris.
As the author of Reflections on Playboy, I give my sincere thanks for this post and its comments. They have boosted my traffic and granted another opportunity to sharpen my written debate skills. If you like, you can think of me as a cockroach that keeps evolving immunity to your every new pesticide.
Jesurgislac,
I’m all in favor of social networks. I just don’t believe that government does a better job of establishing or maintaining most of them than private citizens and private institutions. You can take all the cheap shots you want at the self-described libertarians you’ve known personally, but you’re not necessarily describing libertarianism at its best.
As usual, everything here is better said than anything I could have come up with. Except (of course) that Hooters DOES have good buffalo wings. You just have to order them “to go”. ;->
30 years ago I spent a couple years in the Libertarian party, worked on Ed Clark’s 1980 presidential campaign and attended conferences, and the sexism was endemic. It’s a party of traditional male domination and privilege, even then a few women were taking note of inequality and invisibility and they were dismissed without a second thought.
One male libertarian I consider admirable used to speak on the libertarian circuit but quit realpolitik because of its sexism– Dr. Peter Breggin (who occasionally writes at the Huffingpost) and he credits sexism with his own distancing from libertarianism in his book Toxic Psychiatry.
Can we all give Mezosub a round of applause?
the only thing i ever remembered about hugh heffner is that he had something like the 1st interracial club ever in the fifties. i may be technically wrong, but i know it mustve been one of the first. which is neat. the deluded sense of sophistication in the magazine and who they know they really appeal to makes alot of sense though. and by taking a look at his 3 girlfreinds, i dont buy that he really values intelligence in women.
god, the youngest one is my age. which is 21. yuucckk
Intellectual people don’t read playboy? Or reading Playboy makes an intellectual person a pseudo intellectual?
You think that even though Playboy has hired some of the days best writers, truly intellectual people would not read the magazine due to its woman hating content? Do you honestly think that intelligent people have more control over their destructive emotional states and so are less likely to enjoy the objectification of women?
What exactly is pseudo sophistication?
I read the magazine when I was young, does this mean I’m a pseudo something?
Ayn Rand founded Objectivism, which is different than Libertarianism, but equally full of shit.
Rand herself was pretty anti-woman. Much like the werido Repblican shills today, she didn’t think women were qualified to hold public office. It’s also not hard to notice a common rape/domination theme in all of her fictional descriptions of sex or romance.
brian: I just don’t believe that government does a better job of establishing or maintaining most of them than private citizens and private institutions.
You’re entitled to your misinformed and ignorant opinion, of course. But I’ve never yet met any libertarian who was willing to live up to their principles and deal only with social networks established and maintained by private citizens and private institutions. For one thing, such libertarians wouldn’t be able to use the roads, wouldn’t be able to use the Internet, and would die young because of their principled rejection of most scientific research in the past hundred years. Basically, the libertarians I meet are quite happy to enjoy the government functions they take for granted - beginning with an educated population, and going on with roads, the Internet, and so many other things - while ignorantly claiming that they don’t think government does anything important.
People, people. Hugh Hefner didn’t create Playboy, the average male with just a modicum of intelligence did. Playboy is merely a microcosm of what men want. Think of any smart guy you know. Do you think he doesn’t like to see beautiful women naked? Think he doesn’t like to read great feature stories? Great fiction? News about tech gadgets? Movies? Games? Come on. Don’t shoot the messenger (Hef). He just did what someone else would have done at some point.