Wasn’t Play Boy rather progressive at all times? What’s the broken clock?
I really hate peoples’ misconstruing of attraction with objectification. The presence of nudity doesn’t make something bad, exploitative, or wrong. The presence of someone attractive does not mean that is the entire point.
Good lord no, playboy was always super misogynistic. Hugh Hefner was MASSIVELY problematic lol.
I won’t defend Hefner, but the articles genuinely were (and are) as far to the left as you’ll see in any widely circulated publication. Being associated with porn gave them cover to write whatever they wanted.
Penn Jillette was a writer for playboy, and Margret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl
Like tons of famous autrhors.
The hilarious part is that as the number and availability of nude photos has increased geometrically, buying old vintage Playboys for the articles is legitimately a thing now.
Dude, Maragret Atwood wrote for Playboy. Hefner was a misogynist. The magazine’s porn was sexist. The articles and interviews were so incredible that it was an honor for a lot of writers to be featured in Playboy.
For sure but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be progressive especially for the time. Know nothing about him tbh but many historical progressive figures are pretty problematic
There is definitely something to be said of context. Any learned feminist should know that. First and second wave feminism would be (and are) downright toxic by today’s standards, but back then, that veneer of vicious independence was absolutely necessary when pitted against that very ingrained patriarchy of the time.
Not to say the patriarchy is solved by any means, just that fewer and fewer positions of power are gendered by expectation.
It was a mix. Hefner was an absolute pig, and Steinem’s famous expose must be acknowledged here. But also it was the main magazine of counterculture. They would publish feminists. They would publish anyone interesting.
Wendy Carlos actually had an iconic interview with them talking about her transition and it was in part because their articles were willing to treat her like a person and take her seriously. Their porn on the other hand, once again, super fucking misogynistic.
Attitudes about gays and transgenders actually got worse coming from the 1960s into the 1980s. The sexual revolution actually created a generation far more open and accepting, and the culture that lead to things like the Satanic panic, war on drugs, and resurgence of patriotism and religiosity in the United States actually made things worse for gay and trans.
Indeed, and in a broader view, humanity has literally always had trans people as long as it has had a concept of gender. So “in the 80s” is emphasizing the cultural lie that acceptance is a recent phenomenon, when actually bigotry about it is the recent phenomenon. The 80s were certainly not an amazing time for LGBTQ folk, but Playboy at least would have been sex-positive and accepting.
So this isn’t a “stopped clock is right twice a day” situation, because sex-positive spaces and media would have been more reliable clocks than the culture at large, when it came to this subject.
I think it’s also important to understand the real nuances there. For trans people it got worse into the 80s, like a lot worse. For cis gay people it got different. In the 60s being openly gay would probably get you fired and arrested and it was considered a mental illness. And the sexual revolution was somewhat open minded, but not particularly, better but by no means good. By the 80s it was a culture war issue. The people who’d discounted you as mentally ill were now crying for your death by aids as a sinner spreading your sin. Where before they could ignore you now they were acknowledging you.
For trans people it was just unequivocally worse. In the 60s you were a medical curiosity and possibly a cure to homosexuality. Your forebears had been so aggressively stamped out that the cultural hate had been somewhat forgotten. But by the 80s everyone had found a reason to hate you. The right considered you no different from gay people except sneakier, and second wave feminism had decided that you were antithetical to feminism and deserved to be shunned. All while if you weren’t pretty and straight you couldn’t even get access to hormones and if you couldn’t completely bury your past your job options mostly involved sex work.
There were 2 types of baby boomer. The culturally freeing, drug taking, sexual revolution, playboy buying type.
And the type who hated those free people and thought they were morally wrong. If they were invited they wouldn’t have turned up to any of that stuff anyway.
I’d love to see a study on if the free living cohort died early or not. Because they aren’t in the majority of that generation now. Voting wise they swung the US towards the Republicans, the “greatest” generation and the “silent” generation leaned democrat.
Lots of what was seen as progressive could be framed as no-one should face an oppressive culture. Or it could be framed as I shouldn’t face an oppressive culture.
It will take a hundred years before the bizarre social coincidence of such a large generation gets understood. Once they, and maybe their children, aren’t around to write the history books an objective viewing might not show them in a positive light overall.
Coasted on the success of the generation before, taken from the generation after. Held back social progress as soon as they had wealth.
I’ve seen some talk of how many of the free living type basically burned themselves out and found god and capitalism. There was definitely a conservative ex hippie ultra Christian movement in the 70s. And it makes sense to me, I’ve seen those people as a millennial in my own generation. Some people go wild and decide they need balance others go wild and decide that fun is bad.
There was a study somewhere in the reddit days that would say: every generation gets to be mostly leftist when young and transition to rightist as they age; but the last generation (millennials? Z?) also tends to follow the trend but the trend is weaker than it ever was. Remain to be seen where they learn when they get r to middle age.
Culturally I can see it.
Economically I can’t.
The silent generation and greatest generation didn’t track that way in the UK.
The similar studies I’ve seen show the boomers lurching to the right and older generations being basically consistent post war.
This also tracks with the “post war consensus” between parties in the UK and essentially identical Keynesian economic policy until Thatcher and Regan in the US.
Being part of the post war rebuild and remembering the new deal that generation remained essentially Keynesian.
Boomers went full on Ayn Rand and hand of the market trickle-down economics. Gen X get to hide in the noise, millennials are consistently against trickle-down economics having come of age in cut backs and austerity. Even favouring full on socialists. Gen Z basically track with millennials economically.
The culture war might make it seem like we all track right over time and the millennials are different to zennials. If anything Gen Z being clearly more outspoken on environmental issues is making some millennials I know more liberal rather than tracking to the right.
While some millennials don’t like being told the homophobic jokes they grew up with in sitcoms are wrong. Most seem to accept that and move with the times still.
Led to a big dip in the arts as well.
Look at Tony Best Musical winners/nominees from the 90s. The only truly memorable ones (and probably the only ones still touring) are Rent (surprise, AIDS!) and Miss Saigon. Then a couple of Disney shows (Lion King and Beauty and the Beast) and that’s about it.
Starts picking up in 2001 again with Full Monty and The Producers…2002, Mama Mia…2003, Hairpray…2004, Wicked…2005, Spamalot…2006, Jersey Boys and The Wedding Singer…and so on. Nearly every season has had an amazing blockbuster show that has (or will have) staying power. The late 80s and 90s were a total rut for that.
I’d even say it started falling off earlier, circa 1979. What did we get after Sweeney Todd? The entire decade, best shows were Cats, Phantom, Joseph, Into the Woods and Les Mis. That’s about it. And a lot of people aren’t Cats-people.
The joke itself does a kind of bait & switch, it makes you think it’s going to be a trans joke, but then the last line sort of subverts expectations. The trans portion is necessary for the setup, as the punchline doesn’t make much sense without it, but it’s more a gender inequality joke.
So, for anyone that’s curious, testicles are weird pain wise. They have a lot of pressure sensitive nerves on the surface of the testicles themselves. But if you, for example, were to hypothetically push a needle like object into the center of a testicle. You would feel the pressure of the needle pushing on the testicle, but once it pops through there is very little sensation at all.
Edit: Even though this is true this is NOT medical advice. Do not do this as it could have potentially serious consequences. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but here we are.
I’ll just file that under “things I never wanted to know.”
The closest I can relate is having a vasectomy but even then the pain is in the recovery.
Well, given that they (at least here) do jab you with a needle during a vasectomy in order to apply local anesthetic yeah it’s pretty close. Didn’t hurt all that much though and the pain was pretty quick.
The worst pain of the vasectomy is getting sacked right on the clips afterwards.
A lot of organs are the same, the nerves that detect pain are on the surface of the organ and they are mostly detect changes in external and internal pressure, but there isn’t a lot of nocioceptive nerve action inside the structure.
