Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Playboy Revolution


Is Playboy responsible for the current state of America? Sort of.

From the piece...

The collapse of the U.S. Postal System’s de facto censorship apparatus? Playboy had a hand in that. Changing attitudes about sex outside of marriage? Playboy was part of this, too. The specious notion that a high-earning, free-spending bachelor is some kind of epicurean rebel? Playboy yet again. The feminist movement? Playboy “was partly responsible” for it, as Gloria Steinem once admitted. The now common glossy-magazine practice of advertising luxuries that readers cannot possibly afford? Thank you, Playboy. The idea that a man could have fine clothes, a sweet smell, an uncorked Bordeaux, and remain masculine? Yes, believe it or not, Playboy paved the way for metrosexuality, too.

Never a great magazine, though often a very good one, Playboy was and remains iconic, and there is probably a wonderful narrative history to be written about it.

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