The first I heard about a list produced by Playboy Magazine Online showcasing conservative women it was under the guise that these beautiful souls were individuals the magazine, “Loved to Hate.” I skimmed the list, thought, “Yeah, we do have quite a few beautiful women on our team” and added a rather crass comment to Twitter noting my surprise that Peggy Noonan made the same list as the vivacious Megyn Kelly. I probably should have read further.
The list wasn’t, in fact, women of the right the author wanted to fantasize about in that most beautiful but carnal of ways. Instead the author wanted to take it down a few thousand notches to an extreme area of “hate f***ing.” OK, the term alone is enough to make my stomach churn. Alone that would have been bad but not necessarily terrible to the point of real offense. I’ve never engaged in the act the technical term Hatef***ing” describes butI am aware it has a connotation to a specific kind of intercourse between two willing participants. Again, not great but the word alone doesn’t get to the root of the problem.
When I actually went to the cached Playboy page I saw the author wasn’t just going to the sophomoric with his fantasies but the vile and extreme. A point that would have been nice to know from POLITICO, which instead gave the impression it was of the “love to hate” variety. It was so extreme that eventually Playboy pulled the plug on the article, probably as soon as someone with common sense and decency at the company actually took a moment to read what the author wrote.
To be clear, I am not the kind of person who is offended by the nude female body or even the descent into crass humor. Lord knows I pick apart the physical appearance of some on the left including the bevy of sexually ambiguous female figures who flood the Party; the Janet Napolitano’s of the Democrat world.
If the article had simply been what I originally thought it was, beautiful conservative women the almost certainly wretched looking male author wanted to self gratify to while fantasizing that they would even look in his general direction, well fine. It isn’t the highest of commentary but this is America and we are used to that kind of thing. Janine Garafalo espouses racism while calling anyone who attended tea parties rednecks who hate the president because he is half black. She goes so far as to fixate on her own crude sexual reference for the tea parties that was even echoed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. In short, we have a lot more to worry about from much more prominent people than a bad writer at Playboy.
The author wasn’t just fantasizing sex. Instead he chose imply a theme of violent rape and dehumanization. Using only the woman’s physical appearance and their opposing political beliefs to further a theme of demoralization and humiliation. It was hate tossed to a group of women simply because they express their beliefs in public.
Today Playboy itself is a sad and dying magazine empire. Lost in the digital age there have been stories that it is for sale but cannot actually fetch the bloated price it is being circulated for. The reality is that the magazine is in a state of desperation and nothing close to its more stimulating routes.
Playboy has always claimed itself to be a magazine respectful of women’s liberation and while one can easily and boldly argue against that notion, having pieces like this published under its masthead give Playboy no room to even try and make that claim. The magazine is a corporation, a very public one and publishing hate that is not only lacking in real commentary but also poorly written and not funny, probably shouldn’t be in their business model.
It is a sad place for a company that once offered a little more. Playboy, like it or not, has historically been an overwhelming source for true commentary and intellectual exploration. Some of the most fascinating essays, book excerpts, short stories and interviews have been published in the magazine. Fahrenheit 451 was published there, so too were interviews with conservative figures like Ayn Rand and William F. Buckley, Jr.
In college I actually sought out on eBay the March 1969 edition of the magazine featuring what many consider the most thorough interview with media scholar Marshall McLuhan. I still have the issue in hand today which also features an article on space exploration from Arthur C. Clarke, an opinion piece espousing libertarianism by Karl Hess, and a discussion of the second amendment with U.S. Senator from Maryland Joseph Tydings.
Obviously many in 1969 purchased a copy to get a glimpse of the nude female figure. Still it remains a timepiece for scholarly work. The McLuhan interview is engaging and offers insights into his theories that exist almost nowhere else in such simple and practical a form. It was once a far cry from a devalued Web site printing trash for the sole sake of getting linked from sites like Fark or Reddit.
Every conservative woman whose name appeared between the vile thoughts of rape and humiliation is owed an apology by the company and a public commitment from its board that they will strive to do better in the future. Obviously the hate put forward is not the image the company wants, that is why they pulled it. In the age of the Internet though it will now last forever, cached and commented on throughout the Web. It will be used for the rest of the company’s life as another example that they are not what they claim to be when it comes to respect of the female mind.
I would like to imagine that the many “feminist” groups around the country would push the company to do better. I won’t hold my breath. It became obvious during the 2008 elections that these organizations have adopted a standard by which they judge whether a woman is worthy of their attention. Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin did not make it; what could these ten conservative dynamos hope to achieve with them?
The only thing I personally can offer is my own outrage. I don’t subscribe to the magazine or the site. If I did you can bet that subscription would be cancelled immediately in support of these outstanding women.
I can offer only my public outrage as a man and commitment to never hold these sentiments toward liberal women. Heaven knows as much as I may disagree with those on the left, never have I wanted to see any woman suffer physically for their beliefs. Never have I felt joy in the notion of dehumanizing in this way, the mothers, sisters, daughters, and nieces of families who hold them dear.
My personal commitment to the true liberation, not just of women, but all of Gods children would never want to see someone bound or tortured simply for their ideology. This kind of mentality exists elsewhere in the world in the vilest and most disgusting forms. I had hoped we were better than that.
These Smart and daring women should not be demeaned but celebrated. While they engage in our political process they are themselves engaging. They are worth the time to take in, to read, to listen to, to converse with. Their richness could never be devalued by any pathetic writer for a corporation that should know much better than this and I offer my defense knowing they hardly need it but deserve every ounce of support we on the right can give them.
So, reprinted here, are ten women I suggest you immediately seek out for the beauty and richness not of their bodies but their minds, their ideas and their vision of the world.
Michelle Malkin
Megyn Kelly
Mary Katharine Ham
Amanda Carpenter
Elizabeth Hasselbeck
Dana Perino
Laura Ingraham
Pamela Geller
Michele Bachmann
Peggy Noonan
