Playboy made me do it

that's what parents are for. they have to teach their children the difference between fantasy and reality. tell me schraf, when you were 9 did you think every movie you saw was a documentary of real life? yes. no. those are PICTURES on the pages. depictions. not the real women.

---

אָרַח

uh huh. sure i am. blame the culture your parents not teaching you fantasy from reality. it takes a village to raise an idiot, so to speak. no, we ARE talking about education. your entire argument is basiclaly one of ignorance. you're blaming a single magazine for society's problems, and for the ways that people misunderstand it because they are ignorant of certain obvious facts.

---

אָרַח

wanna talk about fantasies for a second? holmes mentioned james bond. and with good reason. see, james bond, aside from being a spy, is what they call "a playboy." he's the person that playboy is marketted to. if you've ever read playboy, you'd notice it favors expensive toys, and high class -- and attractive women.the fact of the matter is that not everybody is james bond. most of people who buy an issue of playboy will never be able to afford the toys written about in its pages. playboy is pure grade a masturbatory fantasy for men. we want to be james bond. we want the super cool toys, and the nice suits, and the money and class. we want the bond girls.but at the end of the day, most of us know that that will never happen. it's just a fantasy. it's entirely unrealistic. and so is playboy. ever seen "the people v. larry flynt"? his whole reason for starting hustler was because playboy was so unrealistic. if you wanna attack a skin-rag, go mess with hustler. but the rest of us know how fake playboy is. you're just going for the easy target with the big name. common sense. and if that fails, good parenting. no. of course not. you're not talking about actual people. that's great. wider options, sure. who do they marry, though? do they marry some fat slob who works at a car plant in indiana? or do they marry the attractive rock stars and actors from california? they credit the photographers. but if you want, i'll go borrow a friend's playboy and see if they credit photoshop/airbrush artists too. i bet they do. yes. just like when you go to the movies, you want to believe in the reality of it. but when you walk out of the theatre, you know it was just a movie. the reality of it is the fantasy -- but it's still a fantasy.

---

אָרַח

as someone who likes walking in the rain, has a great sense of humor, and is really and genuinely sincere -- and gets NO ASS whatsoever, i can vouch for that fact that that shit is completely made up. if that were real, i'd get dates with playmates.added by edit: see, if it were reality, it would probably say "wealthy men, expensive cars, and italian villas." shit, i'd sleep with the guy that had those things.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 08-02-2005 06:20 PM

---

אָרַח

yes. it's a STATUS SYMBOL. why shouldn't people wanna be rich and famous? i mean, that is the status playboy is symbolizing, isn't it? it's the american dream: wealth, fame, cool toys, and a mansion full of attractive and scantily-clad women.it's a status thing. and what you don't seem to realize is that most people know they will never be in the top 1%. it's kind of a tautology -- not everyone can be at the top. if they were, it'd be the middle. and the funny thing, as i've pointed out numerous times, playboy is NOT that certain way. and society is not telling people that they have to look a certain way to be accepted and loved by others. hollywood, maybe. but most people know hollywood is full of shit.why don't you? i've also found this not to be true. we like looking at attractive women, yes. but we base our relationships on more important things. and our standards for sex are suprisingly low. because men have never had standards of beauty, or worn makeup. no no, men never had to have a certain image in aristocratic courts. they never wore powdered wigs and white face, and never had to cover their syphillitic boils with "beauty marks" lest they show any sign of imperfection. no, male beauty was never used as a status symbol, or something to be aspired to.

---

אָרַח

no, they probably didn't all have poor parents. but they probably also weren't blaming their image problems on playboy, either.of course, that's also what we call a loaded question. it's not even "would you" but "if you were going to, which one..." of course they all had answer that would make them look better. duh. even the question of "if money were no object, WOULD you get plastic surgery" is a bit of leading question itself.it doesn't indicate poor self image. it's a poor sample group, and a poor testing method. heck, psychologists have been producing false memories for years using similar questions combined with hypnosis.

---

אָרַח

you're missing the first part of the phrase: status. it's a status symbol. why is that the important part? because everyone wants to up their social status. that's the nature of status. reading playboy is the fantasy of being higher status than you are. most men who "read" playboy don't think for a second that they'd have a chance in hell with a playmate. yes, there is. shall we talk about beauty and fashion industries now? they're the ones falt-out telling people that they're not superficially good enough, and that the way to be loved is to be pretty, and only their products will make you pretty. playboy is not telling women they're not good enough. it's making men think THEY ARE. playboy is on one end of what's considered "beautiful" by our culture. but it does not represent the ideal, as i have shown. their models are consistently rounder than the ideal -- even if their standard adjusts slightly with the ideal. not by playboy they aren't. listen. this is like blaming olympic wrestling for kids shooting each other. it's pretty far removed from an actual case. if you wanted to argue that pro-wrestling encourages teenagers to belt each other with folding chairs in their backyards, maybe we'd be with you.playboy is not hollywood. hollywood is no the fashion/beauty industry. playboy is not marketted to little girls, let alone women. it just doesn't connect up that easily, especially when playboy is NOT supporting the ideal you think is damaging. this whole thing is one big strawman. some acting students genuinely wanna be good actors. some want money and fame. what's your point? those are both goals independent of the bullshit factor. god knows the bullshit i've done to get paid. got some stats on that one?we're also seeing more and more overweight boys. my younger brother is at least one and a half times the weight i was when i was his age. but then again, i played outside when i was young. ooo, ooo, teacher teache i know! playboy!

---

אָרַח

yes. i can. because i've taken an intro psych class, and i paid attention. it's a leading question, and influences the sample group with observer bias. i'm sorry, but it does. most 5 year olds wouldn't be familiar with what plastic surgery IS. well, duh. for one, they wouldn't be getting breast implants. shit, you know something? i'd have an answer for that question, and not a smartass one either. there's stuff about my body that i would hypothetically change.would i actually go through with it if i could? no. i don't like surgery. i bet most of your sample group if asked to think about realistically wouldn't ACTUALLY get plastic surgery. actually, you'd be suprised. the common answer is "a bigger dick."

---

אָרַח

i wanna point out the essential irony here.schraf started it:

quote:

---

Schrafinator wrote in Message 25:

​

Compared to many models, the poty is a little more curvy, but she still has little in the way of hips. And that airbrushed pic of her with the hula skirt is creepy. She looks deformed.

---

holmes, i've very very close to posting some hardcord amateur/teen porn in here, just to prove the pointa that a) the market is very wide and b) that there is much more damaging porno in terms of ideals presented.

---

אָרַח

a. those are pectoral implants
b. it probably wouldn't cross the mind of your average college-age male, let alone the attractive ones.

---

אָרַח

i happened to catch the tail-end of this program, and i was intent on posting about it. one of the girls was talking to hef, all nervous, and was saying how she was really committed to it, and would do anything hef asked of her because she was so dedicated. she said specifically "i won't eat for a week if that's what you want."to which hef replied, "i think you're beautiful just the way you are."i think this illustrates my point perfectly, and i'm sure if you were watching you saw it. this girl obviously had some screwed up self-image problems, i'm sure. being a freakin playmate and thinking you need to lose weight?but her problems weren't coming hugh hefner.is the culture a strong influence? yes.
is it the only influence? no.does the culture tell women they're not good enough unless they meet some arbitrary physical ideal? maybe.
are women stupid if they buy into that sort of thing? yes.do magazines make people think they're not skinny enough? yes.
is playboy one of them? no. schraf, you were the one who posted a picture of kate winslet, called her homely and unattractive according to the societal standards, and neglected to even realize that she's appeared naked in playboy TWICE. i'm sorry, but you're just wrong. and you seem to be the one not paying attention.there is little weight to your argument regarding playboy, as they evidently do not demonstrate the standard you think they do. now, if we want to talk about fashion and beauty magazines, you might have a very good case. yes, and i think people who regularly watch soap operas are dumb too. and i think people who buy into professional wrestling and think it's legit are dumb too. and as i said, i would even agree. i just don't see playboy as a major contributing factor to that, especially with the proportionally low population of women readers, and ideals presented not being the same as the rest of society's ideals.you've utterly failed to use any kind of logic in this whole debate. it's kind of whiny, actually. you don't read playboy. you just picked it because it's an easy target, the first and most popular magazine to feature female naughty bits. you haven't recognized that it seems to go against the ideals you think are harmful, and that it's far, far less damaging than other aspect of the media that are actually aimed at women and feature much more unhealthy ideals.i'm going to keep repeating these points until you get it.(skinnier models + women readers + beauty products + advice for REALITY) > (chubbier models + men readers + titties + fantasies)

---

אָרַח

missed this the first time through. go back and look at the pretty pictures in my first few posts here. thin is pretty popular throughout history. fat is not.but what i suspect your thinking of is heroin chic. even though it went out of style 15 years ago, wasn't even that popular when it was in, and only lasted a few years.

---

אָרַח