I’d much rather any hypothetical children I had read Playboy, with naked ladies and dumb jokes, than cosmo or cleo or any of that ilk, with all of their “You’re useless if you don’t have a man/orgasm/this handbag - here’s how to get all three with one handy oral sex trick!” articles.
Why? I mean, provided people are genuinenly fond of each other, how better to explore the recreational aspects of sex than with a willing partner? I dunno, I just feel like kids-becoming-adults need to have areas where they go and figure out where they stand and what they think without family preconceptions behind them–even if those preconceptions are “we are a Playboy family, not a Penthouse family” I want my kids to be comfortable asking me about the mechanics of sex and birth control and STDs, but their actual sex life is none of my business. You can’t have all of your kid.
Exploring is fine, but education is different. Two underage virgins in the back seat with no knowledge are like the blind leading the blind. Why not be informed before you get in a difficult situation and have to figure out why you got pregnant or infected?
And I said I’d want to talk to my kid about the mechanics. What does that have to do with getting them a subscription to Playboy?
I guess to me, developing your sexual identity is the first step in a process that culminates in you loving someone more than your parents–of shifting your “primary” family from “mom and dad and me” to “spouse and me and maybe kids”. For that to happen, your sexual identity needs to be something YOU mold, not something you are strongly guided in, the way we guide kids to eat well and study hard and follow through on their promises.
I know I spent a lot of barely-postpubescent time with the hidden stash in my house. I then discovered Internet porn and started watching porn that was more and more and more extreme until it got pretty out of hand.
That said, I honestly don’t think that affected my life that much. I just kind of overdid a common puberty ritual. But I think I’d rather give my kids their porn, because hopefully it’d take the illicit fun out of discovering daring, disgusting pornography. Not that there’s anything wrong with having an unusual taste in porn–but I wish that when I was a little younger I had had an appreciation of the fact that some of the choices you make at that age stay with you, in a little corner of your brain, and you can get over your developed tastes but you can’t wash away the memories. I had a friend in high school who never overdid porn or drinking because his dad gave him or offered to give him either whenever he wanted, and it took the luster off of overdoing things to the point where they were dangerous to the mind or body. Plus, I think a large majority of postpubescent males go through porn addiction and I’d rather my hypothetical sons get hooked on Playboy porn than Kazaa porn. Not to mention how cool and independent they’ll be, from having gotten porn from their parents.
And, that said, I’m seeing a lot of good arguments for doing it another way. I wish more opinion threads were like this.
This was exactly how it was for me, too. My Dad was considerably more nudge-nudge wink wink about the whole thing (He was a teenage boy too, once!), but I never left my Playboys and Penthouses in the open where my mum could find them, as that would be A) Inappropriate and B) My younger brother would steal them.
Totally, 100% agree with you, Sierra Indigo! I started reading Playboy at 16, and always found the articles to be well-written and intelligent (indeed, my Dad and I had many involved discussions on topics which had been covered in articles by Playboy), and the pictorials were… elegant, for want of a better word.
As others have said, Teenagers these days have it easy. Type “Hot Naked Girls” into a Search Engine and you can, to take a line from Dilbert, “Hear the sound of eyeballs getting really big” from the next suburb.
The women in Playboy pictorials were real people and presented as such- not skanky sex dolls with tattoos and cucumbers in places where cucumbers do not naturally congregate.
Sure, the format is getting a bit tired now, especially with all the “Lad Mags” that are out there, but I’d honestly rather any hypothetical kids we may have (Male or Female) read Playboy over Loaded, or Ralph, or Cosmo, or Cleo… you get the idea. And at least with Playboy, you’re being honest with yourself: “I’m reading this because I want to see hot, attractive women not wearing any clothes”, whereas most Lad Mags have “Hot, attractive women wearing a bikini”. Is there really that much difference between the two, when you think about it?
Hi there.
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I would have no trouble with my children if my hypothecial children wanted to read playboy.
I don’t consider it to be porn at all, especially when compared to something lke Hustler or Swank.
I wouldn’t have any problem with said child leaving a playboy out either. The cartoons are funny at times, and often there are some informative articles.
If my child were female, I wouldn’t have a problem with her looking at Playgirl either.
Heavier porn on the other hand, would be something to be kept put up, and not mentioned. Not because I wouldn’t approve, but so it would add that little extra thrill when they find it.
I remember being that age well, and if my children (when and if I have any), turn out anything like I did, saying no porn would just make it that much more enticing.
Quite honestly, I’d rather a teenager of mine (not child, an adolescent, mind you) look at something like Playboy or Penthouse rather than go on the internet looking for porn and fuck up the computer with viruses and spyware. (Don’t they say that porn sites are hotspots for viruses?)
Hypothetical children, in the future…
…I wouldn’t give it to them, and I’d be a bit icked out (come on, imaging discovering a stash of magazines under your parent’s bed) but they wouldn’t be in trouble. If it started to take the place of healthy sexual curiosity I’d start to worry, but otherwise, nah.
As a teenage girl, I remember discovering…not nudie mags, but the erotic parts of my moms literary novels. I got my thrills from " lady Chatterly’s lover" " and de Sade’s “Justine”, and even from the quoted porn in feminist’ pamflets.
I’d probably just give my hypothetical kid a box with a lock for his room and tell him that whatever he chooses to hide there, it will be private.
As an afterthought…I probably would leave my own sex-ed books lying around. They aren’t pornographic, but they’re full of useful technical information on the dangers, joys and techniques of sex.
I don’t have kids yet, but I’ve thought about this very issue quite a bit. I have no problem with porn, as a general principle, and it would be hypocritical to judge someone else’s interest in it. However, the following is a good point:
Which is why I would make Playboy available (as noted, it’s certainly a better place to start than some of the alternatives), and be careful to put it into context, to wit:
“Okay, I don’t know if you’ve seen these on your own yet. If you have, great. If you haven’t, great. Either way, here’s the deal. This is basically a fantasy book. The women in it are attractive and you’ll probably like looking at it a lot. But don’t forget that it’s a fantasy. You can’t apply what you learn here to the real world. Take this for what it is, and enjoy it, but remember that women in the real world are completely different. If you take this too seriously, it’s going to screw up your ability to relate to women as human beings. Also, remember that some people are really weird about this stuff, so you’re going to want to be careful about who you talk to about this; don’t go bringing it up in casual conversation until you know the other person pretty well. …Okay, well, if you don’t have any questions, then happy wanking. Keep your door closed, and try not to spooge on the carpet or the animals.”
How are the Playboy models any more real than “skanky sex dolls with tattoos”? I’ll take skanky sex dolls over the airbrushed artificiality of the Playboy models.
Absolutely. Buy Playboy with your own money, keep it tucked away in your bedroom? Fine. But a subscription that come to the family mailbox every month? Not cool. I don’t want to know that my kid is reading Playboy, any more than I want to know that my brother or my dad is. That’s their business, just like my sex life is my business.
Well, for a start, if you bought a Playboy Playmate home to meet your parents, I don’t think they’re likely to object too much… (I know my Dad wouldn’t have! 
)
I’m only 18, so in practice this question won’t affect me for some time. I have to say that I wouldn’t confiscate the magazines if I found them, but I certainly wouldn’t push my son/daughter toward them. And he/she wouldn’t have a subscription, either. I’d have to make the kid work a little bit. I remember the first naughty mag that I found (in a friend’s garage)–an issue of Naughty Neighbors. I was in heaven, of course. That magazine was my prized possession.
Boy gets girl naked for the first time. Girl find’s boy’s “Special Purpose”. Boy says “Gosh, you aren’t as pretty as those girls in Playboy.”
Nope. Just don’t see it happening. I know many men who have looked at a lot of porn from a young age, and we all love our women for what they are, not how they compare to an airbrushed model.
In addition, all the standards for beauty that you mention (other than shaved crotch) are set well within the realm of standard media exposure. In fact, pornography showing obvious bad boob jobs makes giant bazongas look less desirable to some.
However, I would agree that it could be unhealthy for young girls to see these airbrushed photos as THEY don’t have any idea what young boys like and I agree could be warped by what they think expectations are. So I’ll let my daughters see the skank porn so they know what real sex real like!
(Note that the above relates only to vanilla sex. No BDSM, no abuse, etc. Just the loving act of paid actor with paid actress sex.)
Would I be thrilled if my kids* were reading Playboy? Would I confiscate it? Would I buy it for them?
Nope to all of the above, but I’d prefer it to them reading most men’s magazine like FHM or Maxim, (which all seem to have articles about how to persuade your girlfriend to have anal sex, even when she doesn’t want to) and seem to be about manipulating women in order to get sex without any strings attached.
If they can legally buy the magazine, as far as I’m concerned, they can keep it- as long as it’s keep somewhere private and not displayed on my coffee table.
Since I already own the Vagina Monologues, Kama Sutra, Fear of Flying, The Female Eunuch, Our Bodies Ourselves and several Ob/gyn textbooks I’d hope that my kids would take advantage of other sources if they wanted information.
The thing I’m not really happy about is teenage boys who are allowed to have pin-ups on their bedroom walls (not centrefolds, but topless or as good as). It made me uncomfortable as a teenage girl visiting male friends, and it would sure as hell make me uncomfortable as a mother putting away laundry in my son’s room. Same would go for teenage daughters and topless male models.
IMO tacky pictures which treat the subject as a piece of meat just aren’t appropriate for tennage kid’s walls. If they want nudes on the walls, they’ll have to find something with a little artistic merit. Which means I’d be happier (not much happier, but happier) with a Robert Mapplethorpe or Helmut Newton print than pages ripped out of a magazine showing this moth’s latest hotty in their underwear in some hackneyed pose.
My house, my walls, I get to veto the artwork displayed there.
- I do not, as yet, have kids. This is hypothetical.
When I was pubescent (I was born in 1949) Dad had a Playboy subscription. I went through them when he was done. I didn’t exactly have his permission, but he probably knew. I was happy to see the naked pictures, of course, but the most valuable part was articles about women’s rights, court fights over reproductive rights, and the plain facts about sex. I came out of puberty with a healthy respect for women, their rights, and their needs.
I don’t have children, but if I did I wouldn’t hesitate to let them see Playboy. There are many sources of twisted attitudes toward sex, and I’d rather have them see the truth in Playboy.
My kids (and nephew) will have to househunt for my porn stash, sex toys and old girlfriends’ pictures, in the tradition of my forefathers and four uncles.
“Allow.” Sheeesh. Forbidden porn is half the fun.