Reflections on Playboy

June 28, 2009

Billy Mays, 1958-2009

“Life’s a pitch, then you buy.”—Billy Mays, quoted by Pat Jordan in the July-August 2009 Playboy.

The superstition about celebrities dying in threes may need revision. In less than a week, we’ve lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays. Perhaps it’s fitting to his legacy that Mays died unexpectedly in his sleep at only 50. By example, he has effectively made a pitch for life itself, for the value of every day of our lives. Procrastinators like me had better take notice.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 1:13 PM

June 26, 2009

Sharing the stage with the Ooh La La Girls

Not only did I catch a performance by some of Humboldt County’s sexiest dancers, but I got to be part of the show. With only 139 seats, Eureka’s North Coast Repertory Theatre is small and cozy, which made it easy for performers of the cabaret-style variety show last week to pull audience members out of their seats to participate. The first time they brought me to the stage that night, I joined a few of my fellow audience conscripts in an ensemble of cheap musical instruments. I banged a gong. The second time I took the stage was unforgettable (if I say so myself).

“We need a man,” said Melissa Smith, the singer of the Ooh La La Girls. It must have been destiny. I happened to be seated within her field of vision, and I knew that, as the author of Reflections on Playboy, I had to volunteer. For a couple of awkward minutes, I sat in a chair alone on the stage, my hands tied behind my back with a velcro strap. Then, “Vivian Vassar” and “Trix LaBelle” came out to perform the show’s last dance around me. I must have looked dorky with the big grin on my face—especially when Vivian kissed me on the cheek. Even so, my narcissistic tendencies helped me feel at home on the stage.

The Ooh La La Girls don’t do nudity (the place for that in Humboldt County is the Tip Top Club), but they tease. Sometimes, their bras and bikini tops fall off and are immediately replaced by hand-held props such as towels and fans. Unfortunately, no member of the troupe goes by the stage name “Butterfingers.”

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:32 AM

June 25, 2009

Farrah Fawcett, 1947-2009

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 2:02 PM

June 19, 2009

If Fathers’ Day makes you sick, I’ve got some reading material for you

If the guy who fucks your mother doesn’t exactly put you in a Hallmark Card frame of mind, let’s commiserate in protest of this unjustified holiday. Take wicked inspiration from the filial impiety of my blog:

The Teenage Liberation Repayment Plan™
Thanks for, um, the Y chromosome, Dad
I deeply resent my schooling—and you should resent yours

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 5:46 PM

June 2, 2009

Oh, the siren song of politically motivated murder

Photo credit: June 2008 Playmate and feminist social critic Juliette Fretté at Examiner.com.

“Right-to-lifers” never satisfactorily explain their reluctance to charge women who have abortions with first-degree murder, even though that’s the necessary conclusion to their premise. This leads me to support the pro-choice side of the debate. (More controversially, I support full reproductive choice for men, too.) But despite my political disagreement with the killer of abortion provider George Tiller, I can’t judge him too harshly for having a political reason to wish to kill someone. There but for the grace of God go I.

Even while I accept my mother’s hospitality for a few days out of every month, I fantasize about beating her to death with a baseball bat. An obsequious coward, she aided and abetted the authoritarian headfucking of my father at home and the numerous petty dictators at school. When I was eight, Stockholm Syndrome led me to misidentify myself as a good little schoolboy. At puberty, this distorted self-image made me a worthless chickenshit. Now, in my late thirties, I constantly fear for my ability to take care of myself as a grownup. Every day, I’m tortured by a sense of personal inadequacy. It seems to be a matter of psychic survival to find someone else to blame for what the hell happened to me.

Naturally, I keep looking for a less drastic option than murder. If I run out of money before I can make therapy work, I might just have to blackmail Mom into filing a restraining order against me. Maybe I can regain my self-respect if I make my hatred of her a matter of public record. Since teenagers are the new niggers, I might just have to become the new Rosa Parks.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 2:05 PM

May 29, 2009

Reflections on Helen Gurley Brown

Helen Gurley Brown wrote Sex and the Single Girl in 1962, which enabled her to rise to the editorship-in-chief of Cosmopolitan three years later. She transformed it into Playboy’s twin sister, a guidebook for fun-loving single women. Appropriately enough, the August 1972 centerfold (NSFW) in Playboy showed Linda Summers gazing at the Burt Reynolds centerfold in the April 1972 Cosmo. But Brown had already influenced Playboy’s contents in April 1963, when she became the first female subject of the Playboy Interview.

Brown’s attitude towards the opposite sex is aesthetic, sybaritic, opportunistic, and somewhat mercenary. Yet, as a man, I never feel threatened, belittled, or insulted by anything she says or writes about men. Her unerring candor and her integrity in supporting everyone’s right to pleasure earn my trust and affection.

In her role as the female Hugh Hefner, Brown vindicates evolutionary psychology, which shouldn’t be as controversial as it is among those who accept the epistemological premises of evolution in general. The key is to notice the differences as well as the similarities in the two hedonisms. Whereas Hefner effectively says, “I got laid and so can you,” Brown says, “I married well and so can you.” She fondly remembers the sexual adventures of her single years, but her claim to bragging rights is her happy 50-year marriage to film producer David Brown, her prize catch. It only figures that, as a general tendency, the child-bearing sex will have the stronger inclination to hunt for a good provider.

At The New Yorker, Judith Thurman agrees with Brown biographer Jennifer Scanlon that she deserves acknowledgement as a true feminist. My appreciation of Brown leads me to conclude that “gold digger” is generally an unfair label for a woman in search of a materially generous mate. In such a woman I recognize a kindred spirit, another soul in pursuit of honest pleasure. I’m in no position to judge.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 1:26 PM

May 23, 2009

I wish I could say I’ve been too busy masturbating to blog

I wish I could truthfully say that, but I can’t. I feel guilty about going 11 days without blogging, and a constant masturbation habit would be a less embarrassing reason for it than the actual reason. The act of self-love is more dignified than the activity robbing me of control of my time: obsessive raging over past humiliations out of post-traumatic stress.

At 37, I can’t find the wit or the willpower to stop fuming about what happened 20 to 25 years ago, when my prick father, my cunt mother, and the assholes of the public school system showed me what a worthless coward I could be in taking their abuse. The distraction of endless, helpless rumination on this makes me appear lazy. I have a nagging suspicion that Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie was talking about me when he titled one of his blog posts “Because It’s Been a While Since Any of My Lazy Colleagues Have Blogged And an Even Longer Time Since We Had Any Cheesecake Up at Hit & Run, Here’s Something About Miss Kalifornia’s Gay Marriage Stance....” (I have been known to respond to cheesecake at that blog.) The outspoken Gillespie was uncharacteristically coy when I emailed him about this:

My curiosity has been piqued by your mention of lazy colleagues who don’t post blogs. Katherine Mangu-Ward even mentioned this statement from you in her next H&R post after yours. Is there any gossip you would be willing to share with me about laziness among Reason contributors—or elsewhere? I just had to ask.
Kind regards,
Brian Sorgatz

Just a joke!
**************
Nick Gillespie

Luckily for me, an insult from Gillespie is almost as validating as an insult from Don Rickles. Still, I’m not happy with my reputation as a flake. As proud as I was to announce my return to sex surrogate therapy, I may be willing to run the risk of looking flaky again by switching to eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), a controversial but promising method of overcoming post-traumatic stress, under the recommendation of the talk therapist who facilitates my sex surrogate therapy. If I can get good results from it before my money runs out, I won’t be totally fucked.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 1:52 PM

~~Burning~~ Tearing up my ~~draft card~~ jury summons

According to the letter I received from the jury commissioner’s office of Humboldt County, California, I am to report for civic duty on the morning of June 3. Fuck that shit. I’ll be driving my rented car to Los Angeles for the annual benefit party for the Marijuana Policy Project at the Playboy Mansion. I successfully blew off jury duty in Sacramento County; using somewhat different tactics, I’ll do the same on the redwood coast.

As far as any government official is concerned, I never saw that jury summons. It must have gotten lost on the way to my mailbox. Anyone who saw me tear it up and put it in a wastebasket at the Borders bookstore in Eureka was hallucinating. It never happened.

Please understand that I’m not as irresponsible as I might seem at first in shirking jury duty. My support for jury nullification, by which jurors have the prerogative of judging not only courtroom testimony but also the law itself, would make me useless in the eyes of prosecutors and judges. For instance, my political convictions would force me to vote “not guilty” for drug dealers and prostitutes (where only consenting adults are involved). I’ll never be allowed to sit on a jury where I can make a difference. If I pretend I never saw the summons, and Humboldt County pretends it never sent it, time and money will be saved.

I thank Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason for inspiring me with the story of Erik Slye of Montana, who, for the record, would rather count the wrinkles on his dog’s balls than sit on a jury. That’s the spirit.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 1:50 PM

May 12, 2009

As of this month, I’m back in sex surrogate therapy

Almost a year ago, I announced my intention to finish the sex surrogate therapy I started in 2005. It’s finally happening again. Twice a month each, I’m visiting a sex surrogate and also a talk therapist who monitors the relationship as a third party. Reunion with those two friends has been heartwarming but sobering about the challenges I face in learning how not to feel like hell every day. Like the proverbial idiot who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, I find it difficult to coordinate my intellect and emotions with the opportunity for human warmth and pleasure during my two-hour sessions with the surrogate. The problem is hard to describe but very real, and it probably cripples my every attempt at love, work, or play. Most assuredly, my sex therapy is not just about sex.

Please wish me luck with the therapy.

A related subsequent post:
I wish I could say I’ve been too busy masturbating to blog

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 10:13 AM

May 10, 2009

PMOY spoiler on the May issue’s “Next Month” page

I detest spoilers, which is my only reason for not having mentioned the 2009 Playmate of the Year already. Aesthetics may be frivolous by its own admission, yet I can’t help taking pride in adherence to an aesthetic principle such as “no spoilers.” Now, the organization has officially spoken. In a ceremony in Las Vegas early this month, Ida Ljungqvist, Miss March 2008, has been awarded the title. If you’ve seen the “Next Month” page in the back of the May 2009 issue, you’ve probably guessed it by now:

Playmate of the Year — To give you a taste and fuel your guesses about our favorite Playmate from 2008, we have provided a picture on the upper right of this page.

Said picture doesn’t show the face, but the gorgeous brown hair and brown skin obviously belong to Ljungqvist.

“PMOY hint: not a blonde,” quips a caption just below the photo. I may be paranoid—or pronoid—but I have to wonder if that’s a subliminal message from the organization to my unofficial blog. My pick for this year’s contest was fair-haired Juliette Fretté of June 2008 (congratulations to Ljungqvist nonetheless). This has not been my first experience of paranoia or pronoia in a subtle message from big-time media, either. Late last year, in a CNN story that mentioned Playmates appearing at a convention somewhere, the anchor ad-libbed, “Reflect on that.” The similarity to my blog’s title can’t be a coincidence, can it? Are high-profile newspeople reading my blog and refusing to give it any publicity? If so, it’s both frustrating and flattering.

This paragraph will interest Playboy nerds and bore everyone else with its pedantic distinctions in terminology. Ljungqvist is the 50th Playmate of the Year and, with her Swedish father and Tanzanian mother, the first African-European to win the title. However, African-American Reneé Tenison became the first black PMOY in 1990. The first black Playmate of the Month is March 1965’s Jennifer Jackson, but black non-Playmate models had already appeared at least as far back as April 1963, which included a multiracial “Girls of Africa” pictorial. Aren’t factoids fun?

A related earlier post:
The January and March 1965 issues are racial milestones

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 4:21 PM