pagesofjulia

It’s a bit odd to not have a new book to tell you about for this long, but Mr. Playboy is such a long one, and I’ve been fairly busy. It was fun to get some engaged responses to Saturday’s post; I was wondering if I might alarm anybody by discussing sex and gender 🙂 but you seem to be a tough bunch. (Or, the offended ones have departed quietly.) Today’s reading proceeded with the battle between Hefner/Playboy and the feminist/women’s lib movement. Watts more or less concludes that Hefner’s camp and the more extreme of the feminists were both a bit far-out in their positions; that nude pictures aren’t as significant a cause for good or evil as was claimed. I don’t know; I think pictures of naked women can be pretty degrading, but I don’t think Playboy does it in a terribly degrading manner. (By which I mean, they go for “pretty” over sordid, and include biographical details, and at least throw a bone towards the idea of these being People, not just bodies.) And most importantly, all the parties involved are consenting adults, and no one is forced to pose OR to look at the stupid pictures, so who cares?

I just wanted to share with you a quotation on this subject, from Joyce Carol Oates. Apparently she was asked by NOW (the National Organization for Women) to avoid boycott publishing in the magazine, which she had done a number of times. This is a somewhat lengthy quote but so professionally done I really do want to share. From page 248-9 of Mr. Playboy by Steven Watts:

I cannot claim to have much interest in the pictorial aspect of PLAYBOY, but I see no reason to focus upon certain pages and deliberately to neglect the very real presence of others. PLAYBOY has published exceptionally fine interviews in recent years (one of them with [feminist] Germaine Greer, who was allowed to be as frank and insulting and critical of PLAYBOY as she pleased), some important articles, and … some very interesting fiction. The stories of mine that appeared in PLAYBOY dealt with male/female conflicts – and in nearly every case, I dramatized the continuing cruelty of the myth of male superiority in such a way that any reader, male or whatever, should have felt some sympathy and understanding for women…

I have never published anything in any magazine on the basis of my agreeing, entirely, with every page of that magazine. In a democratic society, there must by avenues of communication in publications that appeal to a wide variety of people, otherwise writers with certain beliefs will be read only by people with those same beliefs, and change of growth would come to an end. PLAYBOY is astonishingly liberal, and even revolutionary in certain respects…

My personal belief is that worship of youth, flesh, and beauty of a limited nature is typically American and is fairly innocuous … [Y]our anger over PLAYBOY and its hedonistic philosophy is possibly misdirected.

Isn’t she classy? What a great rebuttal, in my opinion. I especially liked her point that diverse publications might get us all reading things that we DON’T agree with, gasp, and what a good idea that is. I’m certainly guilty of reading what I agree with, and I figure we mostly all are. I mean, obviously, what appeals to me is… what appeals to me. But reading the opponents’ position is generally a good idea – maybe you’ll learn something, maybe your mind will be expanded, maybe your mind will be changed ever so slightly, and if not, your own debate points will be strengthened by a familiarity with the opposition’s argument. I think a willingness to read different viewpoints shows intelligence and a comfort with one’s own views. That said, I’m not sure I do a lot of it. Do you? Do you read ideologies that you disagree with? Could be painful, but it might be brave.

Filed under: book reviews, musings | Tagged: biography, nonfiction |