Reflections on Playboy: AskMen.com celebrates the women of <i>Playboy</i> France

ANNUIT
COEPTIS

Brian Sorgatz
(rhymes with “cats”)
Arcata, Humboldt County, California, United States

What sort of man blogs about Playboy? I flatter myself to think that Kendra Wilkinson might call this blog intellectual pimping.

View my complete profile.

To see what I look like, click here.

ISFP “Composer Artisan.” Culturally and economically libertarian for reasons having nothing to do with Ayn Rand. The rabbit in the avatar is not mine. I stole the image from the House Rabbit Society home page. Favorite activities: reading, writing, crosswords, Jeopardy!, moviegoing, television (and proud of it), piano, didgeridoo, foreign languages (currently Spanish), light hiking, spiritual practice, friendship, sex.

Hollywood, California, is my spiritual hometown. I actually grew up in three other communities in California, but it hardly seems to matter which three. How could my heart take root anywhere under the tyranny of American public schooling?

I don’t have to work for a living. After my father died in December 1997, my family and I won a legal settlement.

RSS.XML Feed

Do you like Snap Shots? If not, select “Disable” from the CIRCULAR GEAR ICON of any Snap Shots pop-up window. To re-enable, follow this link to their site.

The Playboy Forum (official).
The Playboy Blogger by DigiHef.
Playboy Critic’s Corner.
The Blog About Nothing: Sudheer of Hyderabad, India, is a big fan of Playboy and an even bigger fan of Seinfeld. In this blog, he composes humorous dialogues for the show’s characters.
Confessions of a Female Misogynist: A Feminist Critique of My Personal Hypocrisy.
Eros Philia Agape: TerraPraeta seeks “the true nature of people, society and the world.”
Ethan Lee Vita: Philosopher and Writer. Ethan is a fellow libertarian.
Finding Salihah: the journal of a Muslim woman in Minneapolis.
The Gnooze: The G is silent. Marta Costello does a Jon Stewart–Stephen Colbert type of thing on the news of the day—and she’s prettier than either of those guys to boot. Watch her mention Reflections on Playboy in gratitude for my positive review.
Hit & Run: the official blog of my other favorite magazine, Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets; winner of the 2005 Weblog Award for Best Group Blog; “the best libertarian blog” according to the October 2005 issue of Playboy.
Islam vs. Liberty? On Islam and on Liberty.
Jamie Malanowski: by day, managing editor of Playboy; by night, a talented, intelligent novelist.
Jetting Through Life: “Jet” is loads of fun and she lives in Ohio.
Playboy model Terri Lynn Farrow at MySpace: in my opinion, a worthy candidate for Playmate.
Queen of Spain Blog: “tabloid mommy blogging at its best” according to the author.
Real-World Spirituality by Shantra: along with her husband, this blogger is a real-world friend as well as an Internet friend.
Scoobie Davis Online: a self-described “filmmaker, surfer, and party crasher” in southern California. He’s also a Playboy fan, a left-leaning political gadfly, and a connoisseur of Jack T. Chick religious tracts.
The Search for Health in Decadence: poetry and philosophical writings of Will, who has engaged me in lengthy, good-natured debate through comments on my blog.
South Side Of The 5: Robert Paulson is another Playboy aficionado.
Up the Tao Staircase: self-deprecating wit and wisdom from a Taoist perspective.

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker. With stylistic flair, a Harvard cognitive scientist refutes myths about human nature underlying a multitude of political beliefs—including many of those that would either favor or oppose the sexual revolution.
Trash Culture: Popular Culture and the Great Tradition by Richard Keller Simon. Professor Simon makes an impressive case for the essential similarity of “high” and “low” culture. The chapter on Playboy is thoughtful and valuable.
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Virginia Postrel. There is nothing inherently shallow or frivolous about spending time and money on beauty in one’s environment, possessions, or body.
God in Popular Culture by Andrew M. Greeley. A liberal Catholic priest sees quasi-Christian messages of grace abounding in the allegedly soulless realm of commercial pop culture. For all I know, Greeley is not necessarily a Playboy fan. But his interpretation of Madonna’s song “Like a Virgin”—more plausible than the interpretation in Reservoir Dogs—has influenced my impression of Playboy. (In case anyone wonders, my religious heritage is German-Hungarian Lutheran on my father’s side and Anglo-Scots-Irish secularist on my mother’s.)
We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy—And the World’s Getting Worse by James Hillman and Michael Ventura. I reject the left-wing gloom that inspired the title—I think the world is generally getting better—but this book is a gold mine of exciting new ideas about whatever it is we call mental health.
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn. She trusts Jean-Jacques Rousseau more than she should, but she has the right idea about America’s tyrannical public schools.
The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love by Thomas Moore. With his remarkably nuanced and unprejudiced mind, Moore ponders human sexuality as an expression of soul.

January 26, 2008

AskMen.com celebrates the women of Playboy France

I proudly present this unsolicited email I received the other day:

Hi,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Johnny Testa, and I am writing to you on behalf of AskMen.com, a unit of FOX Interactive Media. As the world’s largest men’s web portal, AskMen.com is a free lifestyle content provider that attracts more than 5 million readers each month.

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know that AskMen.com recently published an article entitled ““Top 10: Playboy France Centerfolds”” that I think would be of particular interest to your readers.

Here’’s the linking URL:

http://www.askmen.com/fine_living/top_10_250/255_top_10.html

Please don’’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions as to how our two sites can work together in the future.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

Johnny Testa
AskMen.com

Thank you, Johnny. Regrettably, the AskMen article has no nudity. But it’s agreeably mind-boggling to think that the rich, elaborate history of the American edition of Playboy is paralleled by the histories of the numerous foreign editions. Trippy! Countless galaxies of fashion, fiction, and gorgeous ladies!

Pedantic nerd that I am, I can’t resist the urge to say that most, maybe all, of the women who made the AskMen top-ten list were never on the centerfold proper, even though they’re described as “centerfolds” in the article title. Having browsed the French edition of Playboy on newsstands, I notice that it imitates the U.S. edition by reserving the Playmate du mois title (i.e. the monthly centerfold) for budding non-celebrities. I hope I don’t annoy my new friends at AskMen, but I just don’t know how to turn off the nerd switch. Oh, well. Sorry about that.

(And since I’ve already made a nuisance of myself, I’ll go ahead and point out that the current Playboy Mobile campaign has the 2007 and 2008 Playmates of the Year mixed up. Sara Jean Underwood became the 2007 PMOY last year. What is she, chopped liver?)

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 7:01 PM

Anonymous left this comment at April 6, 2008 7:29 PM
Poop!

Brian Sorgatz left this comment at April 7, 2008 3:04 PM
She’s neither chopped liver nor poop.

« Home

<$BlogBacklinkTitle$>: <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>