>
> It seems to me that it's clear that Hustler is more
> sexist than the New York Times.
Yes, it is!
and:
>
> WDK wrote:
> >
> > The photo says it all, my heart swells with
> > patriotism; _this_ is why we're better than
> > the jehadis.
>
> In my opinion, a nation's rank doesn't rise or fall
> according to how much or how little clothes women wear.
Patriotism is invidious. I was just kidding!
Actually I do get a sort of Florida-coastal-patriotic feeling whenever I look at ladies in bikinis. See we've got these beaches down here, where people naturally wear as little as the local bluenoses let them get away with; for women in Florida this is, traditionally, the bikini. (1) You see people, when they walk out on the beach, a lot of time at first they're smiling or frowning, but after a little while between that "shush shush" sound and the salt spray smell and the steady solar bake, their faces relax and stop trying to _say_ stuff. They bathe in the light, not trying to achieve a thing, just taking in sensation in their skin and muscles: "O that magic feeling / nowhere to go." Now there's a positive emotion, connected to the geographical location where I happen to reside (that's what "patriotism" means, right?), which bikini pix evoke for me. Though I suppose the beaches in other coastal states and in Yucatan are very nice also.
I really do like that one Hustler cover lots. What a fine piece of photo composition! Anyway, there's this tag line for the magazine printed under the title: "for the rest of the world". Chip stated that Hustler is a "male supremacist" magazine. I question that; old-school Playboy was definitely "male supremacist," maybe Hustler isn't precisely. But _sexist_? is it ever! Really, Brian, y'all shouldn't defend this awful publication without checking it out a bit yourself. I should disclaim first that I haven't read a copy of Hustler for a couple of decades, so it's possible it's become a journalistic vessel of sweetness and light since then, and what I'm gonna say is an outdated, unjust slur. Sexism-wise Hustler _is_ (at least was) one bizarre, nasty piece of work.
"Men's magazines" try to present an ideal image of themselves and their readers. Back in the fifties and sixties, Playboy advertised Playboy advertising inside Playboy. (2.) Those ads spoke of the Man Who Reads Playboy. Now there's always been something itchy about looking at the centerfold. You're sitting there admiring Jacqueline Prescott's flawless posing, kinda breathless (3.), you're supposed to fantasize she's leaning against the bookcase in _your_ apartment staring into _your_ eyes, but at the same time it's annoyingly evident that you are not in the fragrant presence of Miss September nor any other woman, but you and this magazine are cold alone in your apartment instead, which incidentally is done up in white-painted drywall rather than oiled walnut paneling.
This is where the Man Who Reads Playboy came in. The ostensible target of the ad-for-an-ad is told that the Man is better-educated than average, wealthier too, and best yet he's crazy about spending lots of that large income on Playboy-lifestyle consumer goods such as jazzy stereos, imported liquor and sports cars, so _this space for rent,_ vendors of such-like goods! And also the ad-for-an-ad informs the ordinary Playboy reader (contrary to appearances, Friday night, alone, staring at a girlie mag) that _he_ is this very sort of elite single Man, or at least that he probably will be in a year or two when, maybe, with a bottle of fine wine and a bebop jazz LP on the turntable he too can hypnotize a beautiful Playmate of his own onto his king-size bed.
Most entertainment things beguile you into imagining you're somebody somewhere doing something you're really not. Getting back to Hustler's tag line, I read "the rest of the world" as a determined rejection of the fantasy of reader as suave, elite lady-seducer. Hustler presents radically different fantasy character roles. For females, (4.) I count only three (that's two more than fifties-Playboy, though):
a.) sluts who are so-o-o horny they're pretty much mindless panting
fucktoys (alas, these delicious sluts are essentially impossible
for readers to get hold of in real life) b.) ugly sex-hating harridans (e.g. that one who lobbied the local
zoning board against the new strip club, "Andrea Dworkin,"
assorted snobby women who have variously disrespected the
real-world reader, his frigid & hostile wife, etc.) c.) on the margins, cynical strippers, porno models, prostitutes,
i.e. "hustlers."
For males, another three:
d.) swine with hard-ons (5.) on full automatic (these dudes, however,
seem only to exist in conjunction with the rare and elusive
type a.) female fucktoys) e.) contemptible dickless losers in two flavors, corrupt or stupid f.) on the margins, cynical pornographers, pimps, strip club operators,
i.e. "hustlers."
In this Hustler-world, sex-biz pros aside, _all_ men, _all_ women are shit. There isn't even any appealing snap-on sexual self-image for the male magazine purchaser! You the reader may not play swine-with-hard-on yourself without prior access to the only-legendary zombie fucktoy girls, and even if you'd got possession of one of those things, face it, _your_ dick ain't near big enough. The fantasy emotion for a Hustler reader is resentment and resigned cynicism. "Yeah sure," mutters the fantasy self, "I may go to your skanky strip club and stuff dollar bills down some skanky stripper's panties, but I know for all her bumping and grinding she isn't really turned on, and even if we go in the VIP room and she gets me off in there I still wouldn't care about her." (as compared with the Playboy reader's "Ah yes, I shall seduce Miss Prescott with my suavity and savoir-faire and she'll fall in love and into bed with me, but I'll coolly resist falling in love with her, which would interfere with my seduction of Misses October, November and December.")
On the other hand, some of the material in Hustler is laugh-out-loud funny, especially those puerile, unbelievably obscene cartoons by Duane Tinsley. While you're laughing this stuff is marginally less offensive.
And of course no board of censors anywhere can get away with proscribing your favorite magazine without banning Hustler first, and Larry Flynt has batteries of first-amendment lawyers on call 24-7. There's the plus side, such as it is.
None of this changes my belief, contra Chip, that Amy Goodman and Mickey Z are wholly justified publishing pro-left economic propaganda in Hustler. As I said before, propagandizing Hustler readers does not preclude propagandizing more decorous audiences elsewhere. I do not presume that "Hustler buyers are _mainly_ working-class men who vote Republican" but I am entirely sure that a decent percentage of them are, and every vote counts. Suckery is the common foe and must be fought on _every_ front.
1.) cf. http://www.uncharted.org/frownland/pix/bettie.jpg
2.) That was as much fun to type as Rocky & Bullwinkle's "anti-anti-missile missile missile."
3.) cf. http://www.uncharted.org/frownland/pix/jacquelyn_prescott_centerfold.jpg You could probably get away with putting that photo on a billboard most places these days; there's stuff that racy in every month of American Vogue and racier in every American Cosmo or European Vogue.
4.) In supporting roles, I mean; neither Playboy nor Hustler is written for women readers.
5.) "hard-ons"? "hards-on"? gee English is _complicated_.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net
