John Tinseth remembers buying his first issue of Playboy at the age of twelve, and how he learned he’d make a terrible spy.
Originally appeared at The Trad
You can never forget your first Playboy. This was mine. Purchased in Montreal when I was 12. We were visiting friends of my parents. Eight people crammed into a tiny townhouse if I remember correctly. I was sent on a errand to get milk or something at a Canadian 7/11. Instead of Playboy being under the counter—this issue was proudly displayed on the magazine rack.
With more courage than I knew I had, I stepped up to the register with the milk or whatever and plunked the magazine down like I had done it a million times. The clerk picks up the Playboy, looks at me and says something in French with “Pla-boyye” ending his sentence. “Yeah, it’s a Playboy,” I say. “Oh, you’re American. Where are you from?” I know this is all about confidence. “Virgina, we’re visiting some friends.” He’s ringing it up and says, “Va-geeenia. Thaz a looong way.” “Uh-huh.” I give him a twenty and I’m out the door with Miss July. That’s when I first learned there’s a huge pay off in taking risk.
A block or two from the townhouse, I crammed the magazine into the back of my pants and un-tucked my shirt over it. Once inside, I deliver the milk or whatever to an adult and make a bee-line for the bathroom. There, I conceal Miss July under a big pile of towels stacked under the sink. “So far so good,” I thought as I wondered if everyone would go through all the towels before I came back for my prize. I also discovered, about this time, that when I concentrated–really focused–I could do anything. Even wake myself up in the middle of the night.
Like James Bond I snap awake at 0200 hours. In a Bruce Lee-like tip toe, I dart into the bathroom and quietly collect the magazine. With hardly a thought and acting on pure instinct, I head for the garage, open our station wagon door and proceed to stuff the magazine under the front seat. The intense rush at sneaking around like this cannot be described. I don’t think jumping out of a plane ever came close.
On the way home I sat next to my father while my two sisters and mother sat in the back seat. I was always told I was the navigator but my old man never listened to my directions—which were always wrong—and still are. No, I was up front so he could reach me. I don’t remember how long we had been on the road when I first saw trouble. I do know my ballooning confidence at pulling off this amazing caper disappeared when I saw the US / Canadian Border. Police were everywhere motioning cars to pull over…other cars being searched…clothes hauled out of trunks. This was not good.
I looked at my father, a man who wore a crew cut and frowned throughout my childhood. He was two years out of Vietnam. Now a major with a real career in front of him… Unless his son put the whole family in a Canadian jail for the transportation of pornography. What would you do? I fessed up fast. “We gotta pull over now.” He looks at me confused, “What?” I breathe deep. “I have something in the car. We have to pull over before we get up there.” From the back seat I hear my mother, “What? What did he say?” My father is slowing down at this point and he looks at me like he’s gonna throw up. He’s more scared than I am. You have to remember…there were a lot of drugs back in 1971. I never went near them. Not with a Green Beret for a Dad. But he didn’t know that.
My mother is leaning forward in her seat, “What’s he saying?” My father tells her to sit back and he shoots me a look, “What’s in the car?” We’re too close now. If we pull over the cops are gonna know. “I have a Playboy magazine stuffed under my seat. If they search the car we’re gonna be in big trouble.” I looked at him expecting full furry and I remember seeing the relief. And then he laughed. “I think we’re gonna be okay,” he said. I’m sitting in a pool of sweat on cheap Plymouth vinyl and I can only look down at my hands clenched tight. I rub them on my tie dyed bell bottoms and look at him. He’s smiling as he steers into an inspection lane.
After we pull away—without being searched—he asks me quietly, “Where did you get it?” I tell him about the clerk at the Canadian 7/11. He nods. A few more miles down the road my mother is talking to my sister and my father looks at me like he never looked at me before and says, “If you ever want one… you let me know.” When we got home I was convinced I’d make a great spy (sans the confession back there at the border) and asked my father how I might go about it. “The only country you’d be good at spying on is this one,” he snorted and went back to reading Evergreen or the LA Free Press. For a career Army officer, my father was a bit out of the box. Brilliant, but out of the box.
Playboy was everything to me. Back then, I could spot one in a pile of magazines at a neighbor’s house from 50 paces save for ‘Southern Living’ magazine that would occasionally throw me with its similar binding. I look back and realize Playboy is a lot like watching an episode of Rat Patrol. Much of it hokey and cheesy. But sometimes you just wanna watch ‘em ride around the desert in jeeps.
I thought the woman in the doorway was waiting for the two in the foreground to leave so she could smell some of those colognes. Actually, it’s still confusing. I’m not sure if I’d ever take a cologne break…Maybe he just needs the bottle.
About John Tinseth
Well. I think the GMP is a well-intentioned initiative, but this really comes off as just more institutionalized sexism for me, sorry. Honestly, sorry Josh, I can appreciate your authentic budding sexuality, but don’t think for a minute that your mom and sister weren’t negatively affected by it.
Is Josh his code name and John is just his cover for all that international porn smuggling he did starting at age 12?
Whatever his real name is, I can’t for the life of me imagine how a 12 yr. old boy with a Playboy was negatively affecting his mom and sister unless he was rolling it up and whacking them with it. As long as all his whacking was done in private, I imagine neither his mom nor sister were traumatized.
Thanks ********. I mean the ‘culture of silence’ that surrounds the (paradoxical? hypocritical?) taboo – objectification of women was (still is) everywhere, blatantly obvious, but Josh had to be reassured by his dad that it was OK (in his story, in the presence of his sister and mom); I can pretty much guarantee you that most girls feel like shit around those kinds of awkward third-party conversations, which happen frequently when we are growing up. Skin mags remain one way that we are made to feel shame about our bodies and sexuality (and when we overcome that shame and feel free to express our sexuality positively, we’re considered sluts).
MOD EDIT: No name calling please
So when my housemate gets off to pictures of men being whipped she’s shaming my body and objectifying me? Despite the fact that the only connection between me and those models is that we share the dame gender.
I’m sorry if you felt bad around porn, or that you felt it was about you (rather than the person getting off). But your experience isn’t garanteed to reflect all women’s. I don’t think it’s reasonable for you to request other people not to fantasise or use stimulating material when they get off and I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea to shame children for wanting to do so.
Peter, BDSM issues are not something I want to get into here, but I will say that yeah, I do think it’s a form of objectification against men. Frankly, I don’t understand how anyone can get off on seeing others whipped (etc). It’s inexplicably ‘unloving’ to me. I know my perspective doesn’t reflect all women. I’m not really requesting other people not fantasize using stimulating material – but why not use written porn instead, the kind that doesn’t actually objectify ‘live’ people? I didn’t need skin mags to masturbate and I don’t believe others need it either. I totally agree with you that children shouldn’t be shamed – I am suggesting that there is a ‘collectively healthier way’ to explore/develop one’s sexuality than by default through industries that systemically objectify women.
If you want to avoid bdsm then fair enough, but I promise you it’s just a different set of symbols for the same set of emotions.
“I can pretty much guarantee you that most girls feel like shit around those kinds of awkward third-party conversations”
“I know my perspective doesn’t reflect all women”
See the issue?
“why not use written porn instead, the kind that doesn’t actually objectify ‘live’ people? I didn’t need skin mags to masturbate and I don’t believe others need it either.”
I have a huge issue with this. You’ve taken a traditionally female form of masturbation aid and elevated it above a traditionally male one. Looking at a printed representation of a female form is no worse than reading a description of a male one. It’s about tickling the parts of our minds that respond to sex, not oppressing other people.
“I totally agree with you that children shouldn’t be shamed – I am suggesting that there is a ‘collectively healthier way’ to explore/develop one’s sexuality than by default through industries that systemically objectify women.”
Fair enough, but I disagree that visual porn represents the objectification of women any more than written porn does.
Yeah, I’m not sure I see the real difference between text-based and visual-based porn. If looking at images is the source of objectification, then by that logic I’m not objectifying women if I masturbate to the audio of a porn film without seeing the video portion. As long as I’m not using my eyes to look at pictures, my masturbation aids are all pre-approved for non-objectifying sexual fantasy. To whom would I write to get documentation certifying that my porn usage is in compliance with non-objectification standards?
Nice snark.
I’ll write here something I offered to Marcus. I will have to generalize here.
I believe we all objectify each other for various purposes. I think women may (in their porn) need/desire more emotional context for the porn to work (turn them on), and may often need/desire a fully compartmentalized person (not parts of a body) to find the turn on.
And in books, there is no real person potentially involved, yes? Just the imagination. Whereas in a Playboy, it’s a real woman. Some people find that distinction to consider one form “higher” than another.
Considering text more advanced than visuals is unfair, since many pieces of written erotica are for shit, and many images are incredibly crafted.
I just note that in current American culture these may be reasons why one sex is told they objectify more than the other. Or why the other justifies their objectification more.
Good points. I think you’re very right about where many people make a distinction. Maybe in practice the distinction works in some cases, but in a lot of cases it looks like the old cliche about “I know it when I see it.”
(I only meant the last sentence in my previous message to be snarky. In all fairness, though, I lose track myself sometimes of when I’m being snarky and when I’m just being pointedly absurd.)
@ Julie
“And in books, there is no real person potentially involved, yes? Just the imagination. Whereas in a Playboy, it’s a real woman. Some people find that distinction to consider one form “higher” than another.”
From what I remember about Playboy, the pictures tended to be more artsy than in other mags. There was also an interview/quick reference section at least for the centerfold where you find out what she likes, what her interests are, etc.
Right, I get that, but the point is (not that I have an issue with images of real people) is that many women feel that their erotica is somehow morally superior because it doesn’t include a real person who may or may not be exploited. I’m not totally in line with that, I just know that’s a perspective.
And yes, Playboy is probably the most conservative/soft of the mags.
@ Julie
“And in books, there is no real person potentially involved, yes?”
Potentially no person, sure, but many novels will have cover art. Some of this cover art could have been adapted from real models. Vampirella and Lara Croft were adapted from actual female models. The real person may be submerged so it becomes difficult to see them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Also, when people imagine things they may subconsciously incorporate snippets of real people in their fantasies. The piercing blue eyes could be the blue eyes of the guy you saw on the bus. What happens when it’s turned into a movie or someone reads the book after it’s turned into a movie. Real people, actors, now become associated with the scenes, just some things to consider.
I think most women need to “trick” themselves into believing that they’re not satisfying some carnal desire. Shows like Naked Boys Singing got lots of female audience members. I’ve heard that there are some bachelorette parties that take in the show. A lot of women I know wanted to watch The Full Monty for the nude scene, but in public would play it off as wanting to watch a good movie. A think a book tricks them into thinking that it’s the story that they’re after and not the sex scenes. Some of this is to conform to society’s expectations.
There are women I know that would go to a burlesque club that featured female impersonators on girl’s night out. I joked one time about getting a part time job at the only strip club in town featuring men (it went coed for awhile and has since switch to featuring women only). They started asking what nights I was working and seemed excited about watching and tipping me. I don’t know if it was fear of a stranger stripper or because we were friends, it seemed more fun than seedy. Ii would sadden me if women may not be enjoying strippers because they’re afraid of them.
Man, this is a long and windy conversation. I often can’t figure out how to write what I’d easily say in a conversation. I think you are on to something, about the “tricking.” But when I’ve been to ladyclub strip shows, the women don’t sit back, calmly, looking the men up and down, in control. They freak the fuck out and scream like they’ve never seen a dick. It’s weird. Women’s lust is a strange animal. It’s damn real and I often think men are scared of it but women are even more so both because it can feel like this out of control thing when it happens, and because society tells us to shut it up.
I remember when I was getting married my husband and I had our bachelor/ette parties the same night. Mostly all the same things happened, but the boys got a “real” stripper and I got a strip tease by men I knew (one of whom was gay). So…I remember being pretty pissed off at the time, both because the stakes were entirely lower at my party but because I was attracted to one of the men stripping and there wasn’t damn thing that was gonna happen. Meanwhile, the pro stripper was letting the boys into her breasts and doing vagina tricks with dollar bills. No actual sex obvs, but still, a marked difference.
Theirs had teeth, mine was completely declawed. And it pissed me off from the inequities, but also cause I’d have been much happier if we’d had a huge debauched party all together.
Plus, I didn’t drink that much so I wound up driving home a bunch of a pukey girls.
Most recently, I watched a rock and roll show-young guys, skinny and feral and filled with talent, then watched a documentary on Fishbone and those scenes of Angelo when he was young and on fire….and I realized I didn’t want to sleep with them, I wanted to BE them.
And it’s a strange thing that kind of lust feeling.
It wouldn’t be surprising if women are afraid, not of the strippers themselves, but the feelings inside it unleashes.
I don’t know. None of it adds up, in our country. If I were to take the comment threads here at face value for what men and women felt about sex…well, none of it adds up.
A course, I came of age in punk stuff, but also felt really drawn to the Dionysian explosions of the late 60′s into the disco of the 70′s. There is something powerful about losing the self so completely-moshing, commanding on stage, it’s so vital. And I don’t know if many women get to really experience that feeling, either on stage, in an audience, or in bed-that kind of power stuff. And yeah, I guess if I could reincarnate, it would likely be a as a punk rock male with a hot body who didn’t give a flying fuck about anything. Then again, I get on stage weekly and it’s one of the biggest turn ons in my life.
This may be why so many straight women like gay male porn. Just a thought. And why straight women, love getting to go dance in gay clubs. We can unleash in a pretty primal expressive way, around men being aggressive and sexual to each other, without fear of that being directed at us. Odd, but I think that’s part of why it happens. I know it was true for me.
It’s unfortunate that your night of debauchery wasn’t as debaucherous as you would have liked. I think it’s telling that it was guys that you knew. Was there a lack of male professional strippers in your area? Did you just know a bunch of strippers or was this a favor the guys were doing for you? I’m guessing a favor and that’s why they wouldn’t go that far. I wouldn’t feel comfortable stripping, but that would be magnified in front of women that I knew. I thought about bachelorette parties and how they are on rare occasions “worse” than bachelor parties. I think part of that has to do with men’s genitalia being external, but I think some of it has to do with repressed sexual urges. If naked female breasts were a common occurrence, would men be as fixated on them?
I’m not sure how nervous I would be about a future spouse having a bachelorette party. I suppose I wouldn’t care as long as boundaries were set. Two friends I grew up with got married. They had their parties on the same night and we all met up at his house the next day. When we got there the women told us what they did. They went to a strip bar, drank a lot of alcohol, and their favorite stripper was Jay Steele. The guys stripped to g-strings and none of the women including the bride got very drunk. They asked us what we did. We refused to tell them. When one guy asked if anyone needed whipped cream for their coffee and all the guys laughed, the ladies went kind of nuts. The future bride eventually got the groom to talk, the traitor.
Perhaps a good rule of thumb for both sexes would be having a sense of responsibility in what they view or read to pleasure themselves. Women, for instance, ought to be careful not to become emotionally attached to the fictional men they read about, and thereby become dissatisfied with, and place unrealistic pressure on, their real-life partners. Men, on the other hand, ought to be careful that the real-life porn they view was NOT produced as a result of exploitation.
Sorry, I was just being cheeky (no actual offense intended Marcus – I apologize).
You can describe how you felt, but you can’t guarantee anything about what “most girls” feel or how his mom and sisters felt in that car. For one thing, some women or girls grow up more at ease with their sexuality or even porn because parents *don’t* treat it as this taboo thing that should never be mentioned around girls. For another, the story describes a father quietly addressing the Playboy issue with his son in the front seat while the mom and sister(s) have a conversation in the back, so there was nothing “in their face” about it.
My only problem with Playboy and porn and such when I was younger is that it made be feel like complete sh!t about myself. I won’t bother complaining about objectification. I’ll just admit that it was a perfectly selfish and personalized reaction. I felt that it was completely impossible that I wold ever be desired and loved in the way that men desire and love women with perfect bodies in Playboy. However, it wasn’t just porn that made me feel that way, it was also fashion magazines and celebrities. So I can’t really blame Playboy.
Actually I still feel that way a lot of the time, come to think of it. I’ve just accepted that there isn’t anything I can do about it. I didn’t win the genetic lottery, and now I’m older and it’s just going to get worse and men will like me less and less. Kind of depressing to contemplate, but there you are.
Actually that’s not true. I know a lot of guys that date older women. A coworker who’s in his 50s is dating a woman 13 years older than he is. Guy’s expectations also change with age. It’s not like we stop wanting to sleep with 20 year olds and I don’t want it to sound like we’re settling for an older woman, but sex with a 20 year old is put in the fantasy category like sex with a Playboy centerfold.
A lot of what we find attractive in women also evolves. Conversation becomes more important. Kindness becomes more important, a sense of humor, etc. A lot of times it’s how you carry yourself or how you feel. If your happy and fell attractive, you tend to be more attractive to others. At least I’ve found that to be the case for me. Sometimes when you smile even for no reason, you just feel happier.
I like almost everyone on GMP. It makes me sad when I hear things like this from people I know that I would find extraordinary. For what it’s worth, based on what I’ve read, you would be a fine catch for any man.
Sorry to hear that
. I can see where you’re coming from a little more now.
But I think this issue will arise wherever somone’s fantasy takes a physical form, whether it’s a skin mag or an erotic novel. Either way there’s the possibility that someone else can become aware of other people’s fantasies, whether it’s the wife who finds out that her husband thinks about 20 year old blondes or the husband who finds out his wife wishes he were hung like a donkey.
I think the healthiest way to deal with it is to try to remember that it’s just a fantasy, reality is a very different place and I garantee you there’s someone out there who thinks your the answer to their dreams.
I’m confused by your statements, only because I was introduced to porn by my older sisters. I walked in on them having snuck some movies out of our step-fathers locked closet one weekend morning. So, in that situation, did they harm me or did I harm them??? OR was it harmless porn?!?
This is going to sound like victim-blaming, but I’m intrigued by what Lyn said about women being “made to feel” various things about their bodies growing up.
I admit I’m an overthinking language nerd/troll sometimes, but I can’t help but notice the passive construction of that verb. It sounds to me in that statement like women are just being acted upon by outside forces. The magazines, on their own, are instruments used with the purpose of making women feel certain ways about their bodies. It suggests that the way that women feel about their bodies is essentially outside-in rather than inside-out. It also seems to suggest that making women feel bad about their bodies is the main reason that Playboy exists, or perhaps is the main consideration when discussing a man’s consumption of Playboy.
Passive constructions tend to leave out the possibility of individual agency. I think it’s much more direct, persuasive, and even empowering to claim the emotion directly. “When I heard him talk about Playboy, I felt ___.” No magazine can actually MAKE anyone feel a certain way about his/her body. The feelings are a reaction to the magazine, not ultimately caused by the magazine. It is possible, as Lyn suggests, to reframe one’s emotional response.
Curious. I wonder if how women and men react to/use language might be gendered. It could be that it is a short cut use of language.
The images on the magazine made me feel: Instead of
I saw the images of the magazine. I immediately felt X and made an assumption that the reasons those images were on the magazine was because those images are “good” representations of women, and since I don’t match that representation I experienced a level of cognitive dissonances and discomfort that I hadn’t felt prior to looking at the images.
Perhaps it’s also that such images are hard to escape (magazine images in general, media representations of hot women) and so it can feel as if they are on the attack, rather than still images merely sitting there.
They do feel active to me, interestingly. They are attempting to sell items, the magazines are. We humans often have relationships of sorts with our media, feeling close to particular shows, newscasters…
It is possible to reframe an emotional response. It takes an extraordinary amount of hard mental work. I have not been able, in my life, to always reframe that response and I’m quite conscious of the dynamic you speak of.
Yeah, I can see how that doesn’t really sound all that much different. I just thought the language seemed to put too much responsibility on inanimate objects.
If women around me express their sexual thoughts and feelings in ways I feel uncomfortable hearing, I tend to think that my discomfort is my problem, not that they are making me feel uncomfortable. I don’t think their comments are “made to make me feel” a certain way. I generally don’t react by thinking that they’re sluts. (I figured long ago that very often the women branded as “sluts” want or enjoy sex just as much as I do, and I don’t think I’m a slut, so what’s the point of calling them that when they’re just like me?) I tend to assume in those cases of discomfort that my uptight sexually repressive upbringing is holding me back. If I’m a little uncomfortable hearing them discussing a sex toy catalog, then I assume I’ve got a lot to learn about other people’s sexuality. Part of me assumes other people should be handling their discomfort about my sexuality the same way. Maybe as a male I have more of a luxury of thinking that way, I don’t know.
There is one solution to the discomfort about talking about Playboy, the the Hugh Hefner approach, but it’s just not possible for 99% of the men out there: simply surround yourself only with women who have been in Playboy, in which case the women in centerfolds are not “The Other” but are themselves. (Leaving aside the fact that even those women don’t actually look like their photos. Who walks around the house fully made up and in soft focus?)
I think what sometimes gets lost is that those images are fantasy images. Most guys know they’ll never get a girl like that, but you could pretend for awhile. Same as going to a strip club. Most guys couldn’t get the time of day from women who looked like that, but at the nudie bar, they’ll talk to you like in 38 Special’s song One in a Million. I remember a movie plot where a couple had a cheat list, five people that you’re never going to meet that your partner will give you permission to cheat with.
I figure women have fantasies like that too, about men. Just not really mags or clubs for it. Probably why rom coms are so popular. Can’t be the scripts
Not sure about the US, but porn was pretty rare here when I was growing up. There’s the internet now of course and there were always porn mags 10 ft up on the news agents shelves, but I can only remember actually having seen one once or twice.
Where to start after reading several of your replies I have to respond. You are falling into the same falsehoods as many other people. It reminds me of when I take a piss. I’ll zip up and walk out. Every now and then someone questions my actions. I smile and respond, “I just contaminated my very clean genitals with one of the filthiest parts of the body.” In fact when you have oral sex you should use mouth wash first. If your partner likes having you rub your hair over them I hope that you just shampooed; the hair is the filthiest part of the body.
What has all of this to do with Playboy? Well, when you are talking about Erotic literature and human responses. Then you have to understand about the real market not what is perceived to be the market. An excellent example is a big box bookstore. When you walk in you notice near the front door the Romance section. Near the very back of the store is Human Sexuality. It’s usually about two sections of a sixteen section aisle in the store. The interesting thing is it’s all sex and porn. Female oriented pornography is labeled Romance and Romance is usually several aisles of a store.
Think about that for a second. All of the “porn” and how-to books about positions and such combined take up a tiny part of the store. The books that are written for womens’ sexual tastes can take up to half of a store. When you go into a grocery store the only books on the book aisle are Romance. To me its high comedy for a little old lady to be talking about how nice it is for they have run all of the porn out of town and she has two or three Romance novels in her shopping cart. This all is a deliberate choice that was debated in the Senate and Congress during the sixties and seventies. The two bodies were strongly lobbied not to include Romance novels as porn. This in spite of the guidelines for writing the books are guides for what kind of sexual behavior is desired. The guide also dictates how explicit the language should be. The same is true of TV. The difference is that the Romance is now on specialist channels such as Soap Opera Channel, naturally since Soap Opera is the code words for women’s’ sex TV.
But it is as it should be. The only down side is that writers of this stuff don’t understand that they could help thousands of women and men by talking about reality not 1800’s fairy tales.
An example of this would be that workaholics would be better off having polyamorous marriages. One woman and several men; that way the woman wouldn’t be neglected and the men would get a relationship that wouldn’t take away from work!
I know its not so much about the exact magazine Playboy but oddly enough I didn’t get my hands on my first Playboy until I bought one about 8 years ago (and I’m 31 for reference). And I only bought those two issues because of the specific centerfolds in them (Maria who used to be with WWE and Bai Ling around the time she was in Star Wars Ep. 2, queue wrestling and light saber jokes).
I couldn’t even buy Creepy and Erie comics when the clerk realized that there were drawings of naked women in them. Like most boys I started out with National Geographic and the bra and panties section in ads. I don’t remember what my first men’s magazines were. It might have been Hustler. I was definitely under 13. I’d say about 10 or so. We found them in an alley. I wanted to keep them, but knew my sister and cousins, both girls, would tell. I don’t think they ever told that I looked at them probably because they did too and thought we’d all get in trouble or if my older cousin, who’s a nurse, didn’t think anything of it (she wasn’t one of the cousins I was with when we found the mags. Parents dumped kids off at her house because she loved kids and didn’t have any yet. We liked to go because she gave us $20 to buy candy whenever we went). A few years later, I found my older brother’s stash.
May I ask the detractors here how a young man’s budding sexuality is supposed to develop? Or could you suggest an alternative?
What is a 12 year old boy supposed to lust after?
Do tell.
Oh, come on, you already know the answer: boys are not supposed to lust at all. Neither are grown men. It hurts women, somehow. Apparently.
That’s a good question only boys and men can answer, Wet One. Just consider that most girls seem perfectly capable of exploring/developing our sexuality without actually objectifying the objects of our affection. As for suggesting an alternative, well, simply talking, asking questions, honestly responding to questions, and otherwise engaging in sincere communication usually works pretty well. I’m not trying to demonize anyone here, just trying to get men to think more critically about the negative impacts (like systemic sexism) that skin mags have on a lot of us, and society-at-large. I ask you to sincerely think what life would’ve been like for boys, had the tables been turned. (Incidentally, I do think men experience a certain kind of sexism growing up too – e.g. constructed cultural/stereotypical expectations about “what makes a “real” man” – and that it hurts both men and women – the big difference is that it isn’t directly tied to ‘getting sex’.) Copyleft, sarcasm doesn’t really help your argument.
Most boys are capable of the exact same thing. The difference is that when we appreciate the surface sexiness of a woman, we don’t think it’s all we’re capable of appreciating, but for some reason, you think it is. As it turns out, girls don’t have a monopoly on being able to appreciate more than one thing at a time.
That’s a comprehensive approach for developing his sexuality and lust in the same way that talking about food and how to cook is a comprehensive approach for how to deal with his feelings of hunger. What are you going to tell him he’s actually allowed to eat?
Really? Because it kinda seems like you are. It sounds like you’re saying that pornography as mild as a vintage edition of Playboy makes all girls feel bad and is all about objectifying and shaming women, when what boys should be doing with their lust is talking about it with their mothers.
If you think that male lust is healthy and have ideas about how 12 yr. olds can go about expressing it in ways that don’t demean women, you have yet to elaborate. The points you have made so far are entirely consistent with Copyleft’s sarcastic response. You haven’t said anything yet about how male lust (in a 12 yr. old or otherwise) can be healthily expressed, only how it’s a thing that hurts girls/women and should be talked about. Given what you’ve talked about so far, it sure sounds like the gist of that conversation would be, “Lust is bad and objectifies women. Only bad boys feel it.” If that’s not your message, then how would you talk with a 12 yr. old how he can masturbate without shame and without wronging women? What tips do you have for how to look at or fantasize about a woman’s body that aren’t “objectification”? If the conversation is mostly about how his lust and fantasies harm women, how would you lead him toward the conclusion that his sexuality is a good, healthy thing?
I don’t engage with people who are clearly more interested in invalidating others’ perspectives than listening to their legitimate concerns. I have elaborated, albeit not at length. If you choose to ignore it that’s not my problem. Nor is it my responsibility to explain to you ‘alternatives’. I have an 8-year-old son who I will have to figure that out with, when the time comes. Beyond that, I have nothing more to say to you Marcus.
Lyn:
Just consider that most girls seem perfectly capable of exploring/developing our sexuality without actually objectifying the objects of our affection.
Wait a minute, I thought the problem was that girls had their explorations of sexuality severely limited to the point of repression.
Now from the other side of the fence imagine that instead of being starved of your sexuality you were being force fed it. Imagine being told constantly that being a highly sexual creature wasn’t just okay (BTW I find it interesting when people, often women, like to try and stop at “being okay” for males to explore sexuality. Makes it sound all nice and fluffy and I guess serves the purpose of making the lot the girls have look really really really bad.) but its a defining part of being male, being a man.
I’m not trying to demonize anyone here, just trying to get men to think more critically about the negative impacts (like systemic sexism) that skin mags have on a lot of us, and society-at-large. I ask you to sincerely think what life would’ve been like for boys, had the tables been turned.
While thinking about such effects on women I think one more important step is for men to think how this stuff affects us. Frankly I’m getting a bit bored with people coming at the conversation of men and sex and trying to look at it only from the lens of “how does this affect women and once we get that laid out then we’ll get around to maybe talking about how it affects men themselves”.
(Incidentally, I do think men experience a certain kind of sexism growing up too – e.g. constructed cultural/stereotypical expectations about “what makes a “real” man” – and that it hurts both men and women – the big difference is that it isn’t directly tied to ‘getting sex’.)
I’m not sure I understand what you mean in that last part. Are you saying that the sexism that men face has nothing to do with sex?
Lyn,
All I got from your answer is that hat most girls seem perfectly capable of exploring their sexuality without acting like boys or men.
Somehow, that’s not very helpful.
But anyways… Plus ca change…
As well, boys don’t want to talk. They want masturbation material. When I was 8 and masturbating to underway advertisements in the department store, was that a wrong exploration of my sexuality? How should my parents have taught me to deal with it?
Do tell, though I’m reasonably certain I’m asking too much of you.
Lyn,
Let me put it to you this way. What do you tell your 8 year son about looking with interest at the department store catalogue underwear section, Playboy magazine, porn on the Internet? What does your husband or partner tell the boy?
Help me out here, I’m trying to learn.
The Wet One
IN the department store? Were I your parent I’d have told you to wank at home in your room or the bathroom, not provided you with images, but not taken them away if you found them yourself. There are social boundaries and I wouldn’t want you arrested.
Holy typos batman! My bad. That should have read “…,masturbating to underwa{re} advertisements in the department store {catalogue}…”
Now that I’ve ensure I sound like a complete idiot and perv, I’ll just STFU now..
SIgh…
When I was 8 and masturbating to underway advertisements in the department store, was that a wrong exploration of my sexuality? How should my parents have taught me to deal with it?
The only problem I see with the story you tell here is that you were doing it out in public. Even as an adult that would still be against the law but as a child its a clear sign that you still need to be shown about the time and place for everything.
Perhaps he was admitting to public wankery as an 8 yr. old, or perhaps he meant masturbating to department store catalogues, as he said in his follow-up post, and the omission of the word in the first case was accidental. I assume the latter, but just in case, let me hop on the 8-yr-olds-shouldn’t-wank-in-public bandwagon. Boo to minors who masturbate in public and the parents who encourage it. That’s bad parenting if you ask me.
If that is the case I still stand by my words that the only problem, in the words that he gave in that comment, is that he was in public. But if he wasn’t in public then, in the words that he gave in that comment, there was nothing wrong with it.
(And I’ll admit, when I was a kid I wanked to department store catalogues as well. In the safety of my room of course.)
@ Lyn
You almost sound as if you’ve never heard of children saying I’ll show you mine if you show me yours or children playing doctor. All children will have questions about their own sexuality, but they won’t just have questions, but they’ll also be curious about the other gender’s. The big difference between looking at a skin mags and these are that the boy would have to negotiate for the opportunity and he would also most likely have to give something up.
Skin mags seem like a emotionally safe way for young men to satisfy their curiosities concerning women. You may not consider it an ideal, but there are less respectful ways that young men can satisfy their curiosities. The argument people make when opposing abstinence only education is that children will often engage in sex anyway so it’s better that they know. If you boys like everyone else will satisfy their curiosities one way or another, isn’t it better to have a safe place for them to do it.
One more thing to consider is that some recent studies tracking the incidence of sexual assault have found that since the emergence of the internet and easy access to pornography, the incidence of sexual assault has in fact declined.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10
/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html
“The bottom line on these experiments is, “More Net access, less rape.” A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. States that adopted the Internet quickly saw the biggest declines. And, according to Clemson professor Todd Kendall, the effects remain even after you control for all of the obvious confounding variables, such as alcohol consumption, police presence, poverty and unemployment rates, population density, and so forth.
OK, so we can at least tentatively conclude that Net access reduces rape. But that’s a far cry from proving that porn access reduces rape. Maybe rape is down because the rapists are all indoors reading Slate or vandalizing Wikipedia. But professor Kendall points out that there is no similar effect of Internet access on homicide.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, “playing doctor” in today’s sexual political climate is more likely to result in accusations of boys victimizing girls, or the suggestion that the boy is a sexual predator in the making.
Men can develop their sexuality without lusting after anything. Lust in the brain does not affect the lifetime supply of testosterone a man’s body produces. Lust in the brain does not affect the development of sex organs, or of cognitive capability. Lust in the brain does not make anyone a more stable, more likeable, more capable, or more socially proficient person.
Lust DOES affect a man’s relationships–ALWAYS in a negative way. Lust causes men to objectify women, and treat them as a pair of boobs walking around, rather than as a person with a past, a future, and emotional depth. Lust can potentially ruin a man’s relationship with his life partner, if he chooses one, since most women do not appreciate being objectified and used. Lust is never positive, not even in consensual sex! Lust devalues the person and elevates the body. If men can learn to value the PERSON first, then they are ready to value the body too!
Then would you argue that lust is negative in women too? Just trying to understand if you’re just anti-lust, or whether you think lust is something that only men feel in a negative way?
Lust DOES affect a man’s relationships–ALWAYS in a negative way.
I’m not sure about the certainty of this. I’ll agree that improper lust can be ruinous but I think its a stretch to declare that all lust is bad.
Lust causes men to objectify women, and treat them as a pair of boobs walking around, rather than as a person with a past, a future, and emotional depth.
I don’t think its the lust that causes this. But rather something else in that guy’s mind that leads him to think that it is okay to treat women like that. Lust may be the weapon but there is a reason that he picked up that weapon.
Lust is never positive, not even in consensual sex! Lust devalues the person and elevates the body.
And if his partner is lusting for him as well and she wants to be the object of his lust?
I don’t agree that lust causes objectification. I’ve had feelings of lust for people in my day but that didn’t lead to me reducing them to just their body parts.
Someone has a seriously negative view of lust. Personally, the lust I experience for my girlfriend usually leads to positive things in our relationship!
There is nothing wrong with boys around that age taking a gander at a nudie mag. Guess what, the whole point of that type of publication is to look at the women (and men, in the case of Playgirl) contained therein. There’s no forcing going on on either sides.
When I was a pre-teen, all the boys in my neighbourhood kept a stash of Playboys hidden in a collectively chosen spot and would peruse them regularly. As one of the few girls who hung out in that troupe I didn’t feel objectified or porly about my body or sexuality. We all grew up to be thriving members of society with healthy relationships and self-appreciation. We all understand the difference between looking at fantasy images and the reality of sex, relationships and our bodies.
One thing is for sure, I feel more shame about my body from ‘progresive’ women’s magazines who tell me how to get flatter abs or a tighter butt or to lose 10 pounds in as many days, and who airbrush the crap out of their cover models. How’s this for an article title: “How to Love Yourself Exactly the Way You Are”.
amen sista!
I agree – and IMO those mags aren’t “progressive” at all either.
Okay, so I just posted this to Reddit and I found a category simply titled “Playboy” AND GUESS WHAT? Its all photos of various centerfolds dating back to the seventies! Amazing. Who knew? Okay. I gotta go.
The story isn’t believable. Shouldn’t a Playboy in Montreal have both English and French on the cover?
: – )
I actually shoplifted Playboys on a few occasions as a teenager, because I was too afraid to try and buy them outright. (So, getting caught stealing them would have been LESS embarrassing? Logic was not my strong suit.) I remember that my anticipation was always a little let down when I got the magazines home and opened them. My fantasy life was much more vivid than the pictures I saw in the magazines, which really did start to blur together. I think I realized that the fear of getting caught probably was too much of the thrill I associated with the magazines themselves. I stopped mostly because I got a little bored, not so much for fear of getting caught. (And I discovered much more interesting mags under my older brother’s bed…. Some benefits of being a middle child….)
Errr, well…not exactly. Without treading too heavily into the language debate here in Canada and all the messed up and one-sided rules, let me say this:
~At the time he would have purchased said PB, there was alot more American saturation in Canadian markets and the media percentages were alot lower
~Montreal was and is a fairly english-speaking city in comparison with the rest of La Belle Province (Quebec).
Not to launch a tirade, but I think most men have had a similar experience. I was first introduced to Playboy in the late sixties, when I stumbled across my older brother’s stash. Frankly, I think it was the beginning of a downward spiral, and warped perceptions about sexuality in my life that continues today. To place such a twisted view of life, relationships and sexuality in the hands of children, most of who, like me, were/are struggling with poor (or developing) self-image, is destructive. I think women probably can’t understand how it affects a man. They view the “porn-viewing” man as brutish and immoral…never as flawed, and trying to overcome the destruction that a “hand grenade” caused us, when we were too young to truly know how devastating it would be to pull the pin…but today, we (men) live with the effects, the thoughts continually floating in our subconscious. It has helped to ruin me, relationally, and I have to fight, EVERY day, to overcome the “Playboy” image of a man, and to be a REAL man, suitable for a real woman. I hope I can.
I don’t think that magazines presenting whichever gender are inherently bad, but I do agree with the sentiment that the culture surrounding it, as well as the unrealistic expectations and mind warping that comes with photoshopped reality can ruin people for relationships.