So I see that Playboy got themselves into something of a nadir this month by displaying “a provocative image of a woman's bare back and buttocks against a black background” as their cover, together with a headline reading “SA Sex Survey: No means?" with a number of options which all read "No" ”.
Now you can call me a male chauvinist pig – and truth be told I wish you would – but isn’t Playboy a softcore porn mag? It exists for the sole purpose of showcasing things like, say, women’s bare buttocks and such? So if that is a given, how then does Sonke Gender Justice Network and Gender Links justify getting upset about it? After all, Playboy is doing what it set out to do, which is to sell magazines featuring scantily clad/unclad women. But in true entrepreneurial style, they managed to tap into the current rape outrage happening in the country and yet at the same time do, what I am sure to them must seem to be, their civic duty. And it is this civic duty that has the crusaders for women’s rights hot under the collar. Well, warm, it’s not like they’re going to be taking any of their clothes off thank you very much.
I don’t understand that. It’s like buying season tickets to Ellis Park even though the Lions are out of the Super 15. How can you then get upset if they don’t play? And how can you get upset if Playboy features women as objects in their magazine? That is what they do and you know that it is what they do, so why the indignation? Would it make sense for Playboy to feature a set of brightly coloured dodecahedrons as their centerfold instead of a set of heavily airbrushed boobies? Of course it would not because if it did, then they would have been called Playdodecahedron, wouldn’t they? Playboy exists to show off half-naked women and even though you may not like it, some other people seem to, which in turn means it is not going to go away simply because it upsets your sensibilities. You can’t get upset at a porno mag for showing porno. To me, it would be more reasonable to get upset if a publication that has nothing to do with the female form started publishing pictures of said form. So get upset if Women’s Value starts showing all sorts of cookies, not just the homemade kind. Or if Sports Illustrated started featuring attractive women, ostensibly advertising swimwear, cavorting incongruously in the Arctic Circle.
Oh wait…
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
