Today—or, actually, by the eighties—one wonders whether sex, as it is experienced by human beings, is still the point. The current centerfolds, buck naked though they may be, communicate almost no suggestion of anything. In Playboy pinups, one is not looking for the note of the divine that one finds in the Venuses of ancient statuary, let alone for the pathos of Rembrandt’s nudes. Nor should one ask for naturalness—a real-looking girl. That is a sentimental preference, and one that many great nudes (Ingres’s, Degas’s) can refute. But what is so bewildering about the later Playboy centerfolds is their utter texturelessness: their lack of any question, any traction, any grain of sand from which the sexual imagination could make a pearl. Kenneth Clark, in his classic book The Nude (1956), repeatedly compares a period’s nudes to its architecture. The Playmates of the past few decades look to me like the “cereal box” buildings that went up on Sixth Avenue in the sixties, those cold, shiny structures, with no niches, no insets—no doors, it seemed. Likewise, the current Playmates seem to have no point of entry. And wasn’t entry the idea?

In a 2002 article in The New York Review of Books, Janet Malcolm remarked on Irving Penn’s tendency to crop the heads of his nudes: “There does not seem to be any way that a naked person in front of a camera can fail to betray his or her sense of the...inherent silliness or pathos of the situation. Whether the object of the exercise is art photography or pornography, the model does not know what to do with her face.” If Penn’s subjects were stymied, so were the Playmates, but of course their heads weren’t cropped, and Hefner wanted them to look straight into the camera. The poor girls either smiled (“We’re going to have a good time”) or snarled (“Come and get me, big boy”). Both seem equally fake.

Labels: ArtEnt, Cintv, NaBr, NSS, PM, TaoGlam

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:49 AM

 Kunstemæcker left this comment at May 2, 2006 7:09 AM  
You know what, I agree with you eventhough I've only flicked through a playboy when I was fourteen.

There's no sensuality in there, just plain (and very beautiful) naked bodies.

 Robert Paulson left this comment at May 2, 2006 9:18 AM  
The best example of a recent centerfold IMHO which had overcome artificiality to be sexy was Rebecca Ramos [Jan 2003] She had ultra fake [but good looking] breasts and a nose job, but like the actress Catherine bell who had the same things done, Rebecca was scorching hot. Miss May 2006 Alison Waite, is another matter. Alison is an example of the type of playmate Playboy still gets right, the girl next door type [Scarlett Keegan is a good recent example], until she takes off her top and you see some of the worst fake breasts to appear in Playboy. She should have skipped the implants because she had a total Corinna Harney vibe going on. Possible PMOY material, but not with those upside down teacups.

 Brian Sorgatz left this comment at May 2, 2006 12:03 PM  
Kunstemaecker,
Thank you for the comment. My computer’s dictionary lists “the condition of being pleasing or fulfilling to the senses” as one definition of sensuality. That sounds like Playboy.

 Brian Sorgatz left this comment at May 2, 2006 12:21 PM  
Robert,
Some camera angles are unflattering to her breasts, but I like Alison Waite anyway. She and Cassandra Lynn have memorable faces.

 Robert Paulson left this comment at May 3, 2006 9:29 AM  
Good point about Cassandra & Allison. They both have "real" faces. As far as the new generation of fake breasts go, sometimes the only way they look good is if they are bigger. Smaller ones like Allison's just dont look right while Cassandra's fake breasts look "real."

More and more, I have been prefering the models from the NSS instead of the playmates. Models like Mary Helen, Sara Alvarado, Jaime Hammer, Carla Pivonski, Alesia Shevchenko, Julie Stanford, Kristen Happerset, Natasha Podkuyko, & Sophia Arden all 1) remind me of my favortie era of models [early 80's] and 2) all have slightly larger hips than we are used to seeing from current Playmates. Hopefully, PM's who look like real women [Amber Campisi, Allison, Cassandra, Scarlett Keegan] will be more than a twice a year occurence for Playboy.

 Cass left this comment at May 8, 2006 11:20 PM  
I think maybe you need to look at another interpretation of Acacella's assertion that "the Playmates of the past few decades look to me like the “cereal box” buildings that went up on Sixth Avenue in the sixties, those cold, shiny structures, with no niches, no insets—no doors...the current Playmates seem to have no point of entry."

The routine airbrushing of female genetalia in contemporary print pornography is an issue that has been much discussed in forums ranging from the socio-feminist to the medical.

These women's "perfected" vaginas defy entry because they lack the animation of the "real" thing.

Sex is messy, sweaty, smelly and hairy; and the heat of sexual passion makes us forget all these things, concentrated only on the pleasure of the act. Sterility has no place in passionate sexuality.

 Brian Sorgatz left this comment at May 9, 2006 10:07 AM  
Cass,
In my opinion, it’s sanctimonious to insist on realism in erotic images. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the other Romantics infected many Western intellectuals with that bias.

 playmate left this comment at June 26, 2006 8:47 PM  

NEW BLOG -GREAT PHOTOS-CLICK HERE


NEW SITE:ALL PLAYMATES 1953-206,TEENS AND MUCH MORE

 Brian Sorgatz left this comment at June 26, 2006 9:14 PM  
Readers,
You visit playmate’s sites at your own risk.

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