and she both read and defended the good writing (as did I) - but was also unoffended by the soft porn/art - and thought it was OK if her children saw it as well!
Her: "So, what .. now we're going to start draping the statue of David in bedsheets? Paint over all the Rubins? Nothing 'healthy' about an aversion to nature and real life! The Puritans need to grown up .. n' mind their own damned business!"
And - I have always been a little chaffed by the smug eyerolls that accompanied defense of Playboy's 'writing'
"Did you ever really even TRY to read any of their stuff .. ?" "Or did you just make up your mind, about what you 'knew' - without making any effort, or gaining actual knowledge/evidence?"
Having said that --- Will acknowledge in a heartbeat that Playboy/Hefner (and 'playboy persona', slash 'lifestyle') had plenty to answer for in terms of objectifying - cheapening - and just all around sluggish and scummy outlook regarding women. (while at the same time probably being 'ahead' on a number of other things?). But then - so did the movies, the clubs, the schools, the workplace, the churches, the government .... It was the 50s-60s. We didn't know that Marilyn was walking-talking pin-up? And that every garage in America had a calendar .. ? Was it OK? No. But then neither was Shakespeare, the Bible - segregation, Comstock law, miscegenation - and a whole lot of other crappy attitudes, and 'moral code', that 'society' foisted on us. We ALL had a lot of growing up to do. And that include Playboy - and I daresay, my mother, myself, and a whole bunch of other people.
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