Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: “All women deserve to wear white”

October 20, 2005

“All women deserve to wear white”

Sifting through my Playboy collection, I see a pictorial in the May 1992 issue that reminds me of what makes Playboy so special. “A Pride of Brides” [not work-safe] shows women provocatively half-dressed in bride and bridesmaid outfits. The most philosophically interesting part of this pictorial is the subtitle on its first page: “All women deserve to wear white.” What an eloquent affirmation of the essential innocence of the women in Playboy—and of the magazine’s male readers, who, by implication, are worthy of tuxedos.

At this point, I anticipate objections from some of my readers. Maxim, Penthouse, and Hustler would never bother to send this superfluous message. They give their readers credit for knowing that sex is healthy, normal, and natural. The younger, hipper men’s magazines don’t insult our intelligence by rehashing the virgin-whore complex. At this stage of the sexual revolution, the only people with this complex are the relatively unsophisticated products of a repressive society that taught them to believe that sex is dirty. At best, Playboy is fighting an old battle that has already been largely won. At worst, it’s cynically exploiting the remnants of this puritanical belief system in order to sell magazines.

My answer to these objections is inspired by the work of Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, one of my intellectual heroes. In his revolutionary 2002 book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Pinker debunks the widespread notion of twentieth-century social science that sexual attitudes are purely the result of social conditioning. For complex evolutionary reasons, humans are generally inclined to regard sex with much ambivalence and anxiety: “In all societies, sex is at least somewhat ‘dirty.’ It is conducted in private, pondered obsessively, regulated by custom and taboo, the subject of gossip and teasing, and a trigger for jealous rage.” (p. 253) If some degree of prudery is an eternal, tragicomic element of the human condition, then Playboy deserves our gratitude as an institution that continually reminds us of the counterintuitive principle that, under appropriate circumstances, sex is beautiful and good.

Let’s not kid ourselves. We do not already know that all women deserve to wear white. We need to be told this over and over again.

This post was modified on November 21, 2005, at 12:15 a.m. I replaced the word fact with the word principle.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 6:13 PM

  • Blogger Caz left this comment at October 22, 2005 7:38 AM  
    Very interesting post, and excellent connection of concepts - I would never have thought of any of this; really puts a different spin on things. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at October 22, 2005 10:04 PM  
    Caz,

    Thanks much. If I’ve introduced you to a new idea, then I’ve really done my job. You’re my second commenter. The first one is also Australian. Looks like I’m developing an international fan base.
    :-)

  • Anonymous Anonymous left this comment at March 12, 2006 12:42 AM  
    I don't think the judgement is really fair to assume that everyone who opposes pornagraphy or sex as will is the unenlightened or even unintelligent product of prudishness. Some may be that way, but it is, in fact, possible to have deeply thought out philosophical reservations. It is even possible to wish to hide sex because of a believe in the inherent goodness and even sacredness of sex.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at March 12, 2006 7:40 AM  
    Anonymous,
    I agree. Modesty, chastity, and celibacy deserve honor and respect as legitimate options. I think you may have taken some of the words in my second paragraph out of context. I was summarizing another way of thinking in order to refute it.

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