Plaboy Magazine and the Trivialization of Women

Plaboy Magazine and the Trivialization of Women

It is difficult to set an explicitly pornographic magazine aside and hold it singly responsible for the degradation of women in society because we see pornographic images in every facet of contemporary media culture. But Playboy, as the "spearhead of the sexual revolution" (Stern and Stern 389), carries disproportionate responsibility for the cultural devaluing of women because of its powerful role as the world's leading pornography magazine and because of its iconic status in U.S. popular culture. In Playboy's crusade to liberate human sexuality from its puritan past, it was apparently unable to distinguish liberation from the exploitation and objectification of women as a viable expression of sexual freedom. Proponents of Playboy Magazine attempt to pass it off as a harmless testimony to human beauty, sexuality and freedom, but in fact, Playboy Magazine is an insidious proponent of constricted and oppressive sexuality achieved through the commodification of women's sexuality and lives, and through misogynistic and culturally insensitive literature and cartoons.

Playboy Magazine is the most widely circulated men's magazine in the world ("Hef's Magazine" 3D). Peruse any well-stocked bookstore in a mall, airport or commercial zone and you are likely to see dozens of glossy Playboy covers, peering down from the top shelves of the magazine isles, tucked safely inside their plastic sealed wraps. Few people anywhere in the western hemisphere are not acquainted with Playboy's provocative content, the most famous feature of which is the monthly centerfold. Each issue of Playboy features a Playmate of the Month in a full-body centerfold-spread designed to titillate ...

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... College Good Library. 17 Nov 2002.

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