In Defense of the March Hare

This is the second of my “Things I Like” posts and I’ll admit that the topic isn’t something I’ve always been comfortable with.  Let me go on record as saying that I’m a fan of Playboy magazine.  Specifically, Playboy magazine from before about 1975.  I was a subscriber in the mid-to-late 90’s and I have nothing against the more recent generation of the publication, but I vastly prefer the era before airbrushing, cosmetic surgery and full frontal nudity.  But my preference actually has very little to do with the photos and a lot to do with the fiction, the interviews and the journalism that defeated McCarthyism and ushered in a new era where adults took control of their own pursuit of personal, and cultural, pleasure.

A couple of things make it uncomfortable for me to talk about Playboy magazine:

First, I grew up in a conservative world with a lot of focus on “moral values” and “pure thoughts” being pushed pretty much from kindergarten until I graduated from high-school and entered the real world.  Any of the secular things that might have been seen as salacious or risqué were not only prohibited, they were generally treated as though they didn’t exist at all.  I doubt I had an educator or pastor from K through 12 who would admit to having ever seen a movie in a theater, as “theaters were the devil’s playground” according to Ellen White.

Second, I consider myself a feminist.  An actual, “equality for the sexes” true believer.  While I accept that there are some (physical) activities that are inherently more well suited for the average member of a particular gender’s physical build, muscle mass, and bone density; I’ve met women who could do any physical job a man could do including roughneck, work cattle, shoot things, and play american football.

More about feminism, porn and why 1975 was “The year of the bush”…