I was just about to head to bed. Something funny occurred to me while I was … ahem … sitting on the throne in the bathroom. I went into the bathroom with a Playboy magazine and the user’s manual for a t.c. electronics M-One effects processor, not knowing which one I was going to look at. Does it make me sick somehow that the entire time I was in the bathroom, I was looking at the manual and not the Playboy?
I probably shouldn’t even mention the magazine. Victoria obsesses a little bit about it. Most women do. The old “am I not enough for him?” syndrome. But the thing is, I’ve been reading Playboy since I was fourteen years old. And yes, I said “reading”. I won’t pretend I don’t look at the pictures, but it’s been a long time since one of the air-brushed beauties in Playboy has done anything for me. Looking at them is like looking at a postcard that twenty people have sent you already. Oh, look. More tits. Oh, and she has an ass, too. How unique.
I don’t know why women are determined to reduce men to slathering neanderthals who lose consciousness at the sight of a pair of breasts. Playboy has been publishing variations of the same three or four women for the last twenty years. I’m so bored with what I see in Playboy that I don’t know the names of the Playmates-of-The-Year anymore. I mean, when some lass is given the honor of Playmate-of-The-Year, I never remember her. It’s not like I can say “Oh, that’s Miss April”. I have no idea. I glance through the pictures, and read the the articles. Yes, I read the damned articles. The girls are just window-dressing.
I just think it’s silly that Playboy has such a hold on the female psyche. Especially for someone my age. Here’s a tip for all the young men who get erections when flipping through Playboy. Enjoy it while you can. Twenty years from now when you’ve been with a lot of women and enjoyed the fruits of that particular garden, somehow looking at a picture of breasts just doesn’t do much for you anymore. Especially not when all the pictures you see are almost universally the same size and shape. There’s not much variation to the girls in Playboy except for their hair color. That’s the good thing about getting older. Through the years you learn that the real women, the ones who take your breath away and curl your toes, are not the standard bimbo models with the perfect perky tits and girlish asses. The women you will remember will take up residence in your heart and mind because of their quirks and imperfections. It’s been my experience that the air-brushed postcard types make for achingly dull conversation. You might as well have a postcard of them for all the intellectual stimulation you’ll get from talking to them.
You want to know what turns my crank? I let a brand new Playboy sit on the counter while I flipped through the user’s manual of a kick-ass effects processor. Now that’s sexy. Not something that I can look at but not touch, but something that lives and breathes, and responds to my touch. Sure, I’m struggling to make a metaphor out of that effects processor. But I hope you see my point. Let’s just say that as one gets older, if one truly grows the tastes become more refined. What was erotic when you were twenty is banal at forty. When you’re twenty you can’t believe you’re touching a breast and are excited just to be near a naked woman. When you’re forty you’re looking for butter and goblin jumper cables (and she is, too). Sex and sexuality is a completely different experience once you’ve been around the block a few times.
In the end, I really don’t know why I wrote this. I suppose it’s because I think it’s funny that I still find myself defending the Playboy magazines that come in every month. Not so much that I don’t think women have a right to feel threatened by the pop-tarts that grace the issues, but because Playboy is almost a Boy Scout manual compared to some of the stuff that’s out there on the Internet. Women should be happy if their men read Playboy instead of subscribing to web sites with titles like “Dogs Doing Girls” or “Girls Doing Machines”.
My girlfriend is the one who does it for me. That’s why I’m with her. I don’t need a magazine to tickle my fancy. She does that quite well herself, thank you. And while I understand why she might look askance at “a men’s magazine”, I’d hope she would remember that I’ve followed a long, twisted road to get to where I am now, and I’ve done things with and to other people that I’ll not only never talk about, but will take to my grave. And yet I’ve wound up here with her. I’m in love and I’m happy. And while it may be true that at my age I’m not running around the house naked with an raging erection, carrying ping-pong paddles and a bowl of melted chocolate, it’s equally true that even after all the twisted shit I’ve done in my life, I love her and I’m totally happy with the life we have together. What I get from her I’ll never be able to get from a few airbrushed pictures in a magazine.
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I enjoyed reading your take on reading Playboy. So if your girlfriend decides to subscribe to a magazine such as Playgirl, would you have any problem with it? Hope not, women are visual creatures, too. The female gaze is much neglected in film and media!
Well, as I said in the post, “I just think it’s silly that Playboy has such a hold on the female psyche.” If Playgirl published great articles, no, I wouldn’t care if my wife read it. I’d read it, too. That’s a “gotcha” question that women love to posit. The reality is that I don’t subscribe to Playboy anymore. Their articles got boring and the interviews only seemed to be with athletes and B-grade actors I’d never heard of. So despite the plethora of naked female flesh, I unsubscribed from the magazine once that really seemed to be all there was to it. That should tell you all you need to know about where I was coming from where Playboy was concerned. When it comes to naked female flesh, Playboy is rather tame compared to the Internet. So, basically, that was never the sole appeal to me. I always considered the naked women to be a garnish on an otherwise excellent magazine. Once everything else suffered, that garnish wasn’t enough to keep my business. 🙂
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