Playboy and the Passé

By: American Decency Staff

 

What pops into your head when you hear the word “Playboy?”

Yeah, me too. Well, the magazine just announced that starting next March, they won't have that anymore.

The magazine that opened “Pandora's box” (Hugh Hefner's words) on our culture's acceptance, and really integration, of pornography in everyday life will no longer feature naked women.

Did the infamous editor and original Playboy, Hugh Hefner, have a “come-to-Jesus” moment? Did he finally realize the devastation that his publication has done to the nation's moral fiber?

Alas, no, though hope is never lost for Hefner's depraved soul.

Playboy executives have reached the bittersweet realization that, “That battle has been fought and won. You're now just one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture.”

Pat yourselves on the back, Playboy, you've made nudity passé!

In an interview with the Gospel Coalition, Author and Psychology professor William Struthers expounded on the publication's legacy, “Nearly six decades ago it began cultivating an appetite for sexual images that has grown hungrier and now is ravenous across our culture. Interestingly, the culture now no longer has a taste for what Playboy has to offer.”

Do you doubt the cultural influence of porn? Take a look at the infographic on the right.

No wonder Playboy can't keep up! They had better be working on some very interesting articles!

So, sixty-three years ago Hugh Hefner began bringing pornography in out of the cold –  from the shame swathed peepshows and sketchy theaters to the living rooms of nearly 8 million households (in its hay day).

Once the “centerfold” was established as the trophy of the modern gentleman, or the small “p” playboy, she moved on to selling beer and then on to selling everything from Abercrombie clothes to Carl's Jr. burgers.

Now she takes up a healthy (or unhealthy) swath of the internet and a tragic amount of internet users', i.e. almost everyone's, time.

As the sexual revolution unfolded, those who wished to protect the dignity of womanhood have been labeled “prudes,” while those who have cheered the cultural strip show have been seen as “empowering” women.

Playboy's announcement, however, justifies the “prude's” position. Playboy distancing itself from its legacy of attractive naked women is evidence that the sexual revolution has disempowered women. Sex no longer sells.

What is interesting, is that Playboy is not the first, though it is the most iconic, company to turn on that most famous maxim of marketing.

Abercrombie and Fitch recently backed off their infamously sexy advertising campaign. Budweiser commercials now feature an adorable golden retriever. GoDaddy, once the bad boy of the Super Bowl ad lineup, put their sexy spokeswoman in a manly body suit and surrounded her with bodybuilders in last year's commercial.

Any power that women found in being able to sell a product, or even turn a man's head, is waning.

Ladies, Playboy popularized porn, and porn has made you passé.

Playboy’s radical decision would seem like good news, on one level, but as Albert Mohler has pointed out, “A theology that rejects the “biblical God” and any notion of divine judgment or the afterlife is integral to the Playboy Philosophy, and the overthrow of Christianity as a belief system precedes the rejection of Christian sexual morality. And all this came as Hugh Hefner made millions exploiting women and mainstreaming pornography…

Hefner’s moral philosophy and its underlying theology are now mainstream in America, and the current Playboy CEO can claim “that battle has been fought and won.”

What you should hear in that claim of victory is the fall of an entire civilization and the moral consensus that made that civilization possible. Any morally sane person must recognize that as horrifyingly bad news, indeed.”

As the culture around us makes bland the excitement of sexuality, let us continue to hold its value as one of God’s great gifts, and let us pray that our culture catches on.

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