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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Playboy, Penthouse, et. al.


Too much of a Good Thing?

I recently watched a television presentation about the rise and fall of Playboy, and that reminded me that I bought the first edition of the magazine, and many, many editions after that. Playboy consumed my imagination and changed my outlook on life. I bought not only the magazine but the whole concept. I was a Playboy Man, and I tried to embody the total lifestyle.

I took up smoking and I smoked Cool cigarettes, because that was the brand that Playboy pushed. Later, when the magazine changed to Benson & Hedges, I changed too. Then, when they said that the real Playboy man would smoke only Benson & Hedges Gold, and would carry his cigarettes in a gold case, and use a gold lighter, I went right along with all of that.

It seemed that girls were reading Playboy as well, as they seemed to know exactly what was expected from the modern woman. Life for me, at least for a time was one big party. However, if you are hearing a tinge of regret in all of this, you are right.

These were times of sexual freedom and people did some things in those days that you would have to be absolutely mad to do today. Remember, these were the days before AIDS. Herpes was something we didn’t like to think about and we played Russian roulette with our bodies. Then came AIDS, but the problem was exclusively one for the gay society, so we partied on. Then it found its way into the hetero-sexual society and that took the smile of confidence from our faces. As we came to understand more about the incubation period we became downright worried, and I turned my back on all those monthly men’s magazines.

Personally, I came to realise that something had not been added to life, but rather we were, and are suffering a sense of loss of magic. In the relationships between men and women it is not in my opinion a healthy thing that there is so much openness. We wear clothes for many very good reasons, and one of them is the guarding of the mystery of each other.

I admit that to begin with I bought and kept the magazines for the pictures of naked women. The pictures grew more explicit until I could tell what the girl had had for breakfast. There was nothing more I needed to know about her, especially as a picture on a page. That same attitude carried over into my private life and my inter-action with women. Unfortunately, women became as expendable as the magazines, and that was really the whole sadness of it all.

By comparison, we see how Islamic men and women inter-act. The woman is covered up in public, and in some cases to ridiculous extremes, but her beauty is reserved for her husband and her family. He is presumably constantly stimulated by what he only feels but does not actually see, but Western man has no need for his imagination, and consequently, without the aid of the mysterious his interest quite naturally wanes far too soon.

I recall the moment the light went on in my head. I had spent an evening out with a new woman, and at the end of the evening when I took her back home I was invited in for a “nightcap.” Generally that meant sex. However, I really liked this woman and it didn’t seem right, so I asked her to be patient with me for not asking for sex on our first date.

She broke down and cried, and spent the next hour trying to make me realize how difficult life as a woman was. We men, it seemed expected her to pay with her body for any time we spent with her. She had to decide that she would go to bed with me when I asked, before saying yes to a date. For that reason she hardly ever went out.

I felt, on behalf of all my fellow men, like a real shit!

For the publishers of men’s monthly magazines, they might have realized that a case of less would have been more, but I don’t expect that any of the people who took the money would ever see that. As time moved on, I found myself far more interested in the very excellent articles in the magazines than the girls. I started to question my sexual being, but the fact of the matter is that you can only serve up cheesecake so many ways to make it interesting. After that, I need to move on. I no longer buy the magazines, and nude pictures of women do nothing for me. Even the topless girls on the beaches of Spain leave me cold, and apparently most of the other men feel the same way. One day a woman and a man went walking along the beach, both of them topless. I doubt if much more attention was paid to her than to him. What a sorry thing to have to say.

Hugh Hefner is now about 85, and for him, in his words “it’s been a hell of a ride, and it’s not over yet.” Even if we look at his life we see a man who has seemingly grown sick and tired, or at least blasé of too much of a very good thing.

For me, looking back if I had it to do all over again I like to think I would have done many things differently, especially succumbing to the Playboy lifestyle. I gave up quality for quantity, and that is never a good thing.

Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael