PLATFORM : A Centerfold Can Be a Tribute or an Insult

Sexuality for women tends to be more about personal bonding. Sexuality divorced from that is not pleasing. Men, too, seem to be more aware that dehumanized sex is not as satisfying as a total relationship. But Playboy’s centerfold is fine. It’s holding onto your own anachronism and it is not pornographic, though many of my sisters would disagree. A recent graduate of Smith, my college, posed for a pictorial and defended herself by saying that she could celebrate her sexuality if she wanted to. I agree. I don’t think there is anything wrong with celebrating women’s bodies, but if that’s all you’re interested in, you’re missing an awful lot.

I definitely I don’t think feminism needs to be equated with puritanism and the denial of sexuality. At the same time, I don’t approve of anything that reduces women to sex objects, and I really disapprove of anything that degrades women or depicts them as the object of violence.

Just as we were making progress in the culture and that progress was being reflected in the media, there was a backlash--you can see it on TV and in advertising. They are barometers of where the culture as a whole is going.

The message (of “Pretty Woman”) was that, in effect, the way for a woman to get ahead is to find a rich man who will buy her pretty clothes. We were succeeding in doing away with the Cinderella story, that all a woman needed to be complete was a Prince Charming.

Another big thing is portraying women only when they are in jeopardy. (“Silence of the Lambs”) was about the evisceration, the skinning alive of women. That is what I find offensive. Not the Playboy centerfold.