I always thought Playboy was a tech magazine intended for showing off the latest CGI technologies. I think about 1% of anything in that magazine is remotely real, and it’s definitely somewhere in the articles.
I would have to see every edition before I was qualified to make a decision. As for the definition of porn, I agree with Associate Justice Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it.
Of course not. Not even close.
I think porn has to have an erect penis and/or gynecological detail (think split wet beaver). I am sure I could easily be proven wrong by being shown photos of people shitting on stuffed animals or something, but that’s what my gut tells me nonetheless. Playboy is erotica
if that exists as a distinct category.
Heh, I’ve always been told “it’s porn if men like it, erotica if women like it.”
This was my first thought.
I’d call it soft-core porn. In fact, the distinction between “soft-core” and “hard-core” porn is very useful here. And I submit that the gut feelings of people like Quint are being led astray by the fact that when they think of porn, it’s hard-core porn that comes to mind.
And I’d agree with Musicat that, if you went back a few decades and asked people if it was porn, you’d get more of a consensus that, yes, it is—and it isn’t Playboy that’s changed over those decades. Is it still restricted, or would an eleven-year-old boy be able to buy a copy at any newsstand?
Hmmm, I wonder what the OP’s female co-workers would opine about Harlequin-type romance novels with steamy sex scenes being porn.
Depends on how you use it. When I was 14 and found that stash of magazines, they were porn and that was a good thing.
Playboy has managed to straddle that fine line between smut and respectability for a long time. That is why the mag is so famous.
I cannot believe so many people consider Playboy to porn.
Why? I am defining it as a work whose primary purpose is to elicit sexual excitement. Clearly, the model pictorials in Playboy are to tittillate. If you prefer to call it “erotica” or “erotic art” or whatever because the connotation of “porn” is generally negative, feel free. But I can’t see any way of classifying the photographic works in Playboy as anything but a type of pornography.
Sure it’s porn. People don’t go around naked in everyday society do they? The naked chicks are in there to arouse, that’s porn.
I don’t disagree with you, but I would say that Playboy is Porn. I think everyone agrees with what Playboy is, but they don’t agree with what Porn is. To me, pictures of naked people WITH the intent to titillate and arouse is Porn. I think that is what the purpose of Playboy is, therefore I see it as Porn.
I guess to me porn needs to include a sexual act. If the girls in Playboy are masturbating or something, I would call it porn. But just nudie shots? Not porn.
I can’t agree with the definition of porn as anything that is designed to titillate. Tons of advertising, for example, is designed to titillate. Is that porn then?
Do people consider Maxim magazine and it’s ilk porn? If not, then how does revealing nipples and pubic hair make Playboy porn?
By revealing nipples and pubic hair.
I place it the same category as Maxim magazine, SI swimsuit issue, and Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders; so I voted no because most people would not classify those as porn.
Is there still pubic hair in Playboy?
My first inclination was to say no, my second thought was to say yes. Went with yes. It’s about as mild as porn can get, but as others have said in the end its intended and primary use is sexual titillation. And yes the dividing line at least in our current society would probably be the full frontal nudity. Maxim = near porn, Playboy = soft porn ( but porn nonetheless ), Hustler ( these days ) = hard porn.
:smack: Good point! Fuck, I’m old. You know what else? I LIKE pubic hair. Stupid shavey trend, get offa my lawn!!!
This is pretty much my take as well.
But, the fact is that “Porn” has almost as many different definitions as people attempting to define it. Anybody saying “Of course it is” or “Of course it’s not” is missing out on a very interesting discussion.
I tell you this: if I got busted going to the Playboy site at work, I’d surely get written up or fired for accessing porn at work. It’s a porno mag. One with well written articles, sure, but that doesn’t make it not porn.