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Brian Sorgatz
(rhymes with “cats”)
Arcata, California, United States
What sort of man blogs about Playboy? I flatter myself to think that Kendra Wilkinson might call this blog intellectual pimping.
“Composer Artisan” ISFP. Socially and economically libertarian for reasons having nothing to do with Ayn Rand. Current fields of study: Playboy, A Course in Miracles, building a new life in Humboldt County.
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.
Labels: Cintv, Mus, NPH, OnVi, Rom
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 9:53 AM
To my dear Friend:I like to think that Franklin’s buddy found himself the colonial equivalent of Shirley Jones as the unforgettable silver fox in Grandma’s Boy (photo credit: MTV.com).
I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent Natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entering into it at Present appear to me not well founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that makes the compleat human being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her softness, Sensibility, and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in the State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of scissars. If you get a prudent, healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.
But if you will not take this Counsel and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox and demand my Reasons. They are these:
1. Because they have more Knowledge of the World, and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving, and more lastingly agreeable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a thousand Services small & great, and are the most tender and useful of Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a Thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no Hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because through more Experience they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclined to excuse an old Woman, who would kindly take Care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health & fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part. The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: so that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two Women to tell an old one from a young one. And as in the Dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of Corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior; every Knack being, by Practice, capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflection; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8th and lastly. They are so grateful!!!
Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely
Your Affectionate Friend,
Benjamin Franklin
Labels: Cintv, Lit, NPH, Rom, VW
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 8:43 AM
—Playboy, July 200816 Things You May Want to Know if You Win a Date with Cindy Margolis ....
by Josh Robertson
12. Even in nudity she remains family-friendly. “The first time I posed for Playboy I did a signing in Times Square,” she recalls. “Families came to it together—fathers, sons, moms. I hear from fathers, guys who’ve collected Playboy their whole life, who tell me, ‘This is the only time my son and I agree on anything.’ It’s heartwarming and weird. My nudity brought them together. It’s like the only thing they can talk about is my boobs.”
Labels: ArtPic, Celeb, Femi, MR, Rom, TaoGlam
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 8:43 PM
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 4:57 PM
Labels: Cintv, ForPo, He, Lib, NPH, OnVi, OthBlo, Ph, RI, Rom, RS, Sc
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:22 AM
Why does any middle-class person ever go camping?
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 7:19 AM
Labels: AgeMaj, Cintv, Educ, Fant, Mus, OnVi, Rom, TaoGlam
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 12:07 AM
Labels: Cintv, He, Mansi, NPH, OnVi, PM, Rom, RS, Sp
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 12:43 PM
Labels: AesthEth, ArtEnt, BlaSla, Cintv, MorPa, OthBlo, Rom, VW
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 10:11 AM
Labels: AgeMaj, BGC, Educ, Lib, MorPa, Rom, UCL
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 5:56 PM
Labels: Cintv, Femi, NaBr, NPH, PM, Rom
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 5:24 PM
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 9:34 AM
Labels: Femi, Lib, NPH, OthBlo, Rom
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:57 AM
Labels: ArtPic, Femi, Lib, MorPa, MR, OthBlo, Rom, UCL, VW
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 3:57 PM
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 5:45 PM
Composing a private email to some friends last weekend, I surprised myself with this sentence: I wouldn’t go camping with a steady girlfriend of a year!
The next day, it still rings true. If you can explain it—when every city in the United States and Canada is convenient day-trip distance from a hiking trail or picnic park—please leave a comment here. Blogger.com membership is optional.
Do by-the-hour motels deserve any more shame in 2007? The last big-name celebrity to die in one was Sam Cooke, and that was in 1964. Don’t worry about going there anymore, anybody.
Nature just isn’t that interesting—not even with sex thrown into the deal.
November 11, 2007
Think your kid’s puberty is funny? YouTube shows how much you are hated.
How do I know? Because this diabolical musical variation on Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds looks so much like the sadistic glee of the two dipshits who gave me life in teasing me in public on a difficult subject during a difficult time. Not coincidentally, it’s the sadistic glee I take in publishing this post, too. This is a scene of grand-scale science-fiction violence with imagery clearly intended to evoke the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Sensitive persons, you know the drill.
Naturally, Wikipedia can tell you everything you didn’t know you would enjoy knowing about “Yakety Sax” (not to be confused with the less interesting “Yakety Yak” by the Coasters).
For another inspired take on extraterrestrials extra-tyrannicals, read here.
Update, June 15, 2008, 5:37 p.m.: Probably the fourth time all the way through for me, the Spielberg version of the Wells novel is as good as I remember.
August 14, 2007
I want India to invade the Playboy Mansion
No major “Bollywood” production from India’s feature film industry will be freeze-framed in Playboy’s annual “Sex in Cinema” pictorial for some time yet. Only a few years ago have the gorgeous male and female leads in these elaborate song-and-dance melodramas been allowed to kiss on screen for the first time since the nation’s independence (60 years ago tomorrow). But I still think that the 2001 blockbuster Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India could be a hit at one of Hugh Hefner’s movie parties.
Bollywood style is sometimes said to parallel the musical extravaganzas of American cinema of the 1930s, part of the cultural environment of Hefner’s childhood. The music itself sounds vastly different, but anyone who can learn to enjoy the Beatles’ tribute to Indian music from Sgt. Pepper’s can love the crowd-pleasing tunes of the best of Bollywood. Lagaan takes place in a remote district of British-occupied India in 1893. Indian farmers are threatened with hunger because of drought and the lagaan (Hindi for land tax) they have to pay every year: a portion of their harvest to the British government. Naturally, Indian audiences love to hate the smug, vicious colonial racism of the tax-collecting villain, Captain Russell. Audiences from every country on earth will cheerfully boo and hiss along. The farmers notice that the game the Englishmen call cricket looks like a “boys’ game” native to India. Out of desperation, they goad Russell into betting the lagaan on the outcome of a cricket match between the Indians and the Englishmen. If the Indians lose, they pay triple. If they win, they pay nothing for three years.
This is not only an engaging sports movie but also a romance with remarkable sex appeal. Pay attention to the subtitles in the video clip below. Surely, the song’s Hindi lyrics describe part of the eternal game of human mating all over the world. Only a little grounding in Hinduism is needed: The occasion is the religious festival of the god Krishna’s birthday. In his reckless youth, Krishna is said to have had many pretty young cowherdesses, Gopis, as playmates. But the main goddess in his life is his consort, Radha. The rest will sound all too familiar.
2001 Playmate of the Year Brande Roderick is the leading lady in the recent Bollywood production Out of Control. But I can’t lie. Lagaan is a much better movie.
Extra-credit question: How much would you pay to see a Mel Brooks tribute to Bollywood?
August 10, 2007
Playboy floozies don’t value my minerals—or my metallic habits
I don’t know what that means, but it’s part of the unsolicited advice I received late last night in an email from fellow blogger Kyle Foley: think of pornography’s lies. the pornographer would have you believe that the come-hither smile of the naked model is real, that she truly values your mysteries and your minerals, that she will comfort you in times of agonizing club-defeat and will radiafy your health with devotion and sunshine care. in reality, since the pornographer and the stripper aim for silver, she employs her sparklo-smile solely your dollars to gain, your emotions nil, your dreams mute and will then move on to the next lust-sloth once your cash has been taken. another lie that the soft-core pornographer propagates is that the photograph of the naked femme stares only at you, that her bliss-treasures are only for you to enjoy, that she is your prize, your moon, your ocean and your lighthouse, that you have worked hard, purified yourself of metallic habits, have rendered yourself clean and fit for responsibility. is it healthy to engage any entertainment that builds its foundation on the lie? does it truly have your interests at heart? or is it much more likely that it wants only your capital, your finance and your silver?
You’re absolutely right, Kyle. We need a zero-tolerance policy towards illusion in entertainment. I’m suing a local movie theater because its “motion picture” was actually a rapid succession of still pictures. How did they get away with defrauding us for so long?
Seriously, Kyle, how dumb do you think I am as the sort of man who reads Playboy?
I’ll purify myself of metallic habits right after you clean up your precious bodily fluids, General Ripper.
October 4, 2006
Mark Foley is a hypocrite—and not one of the good ones
“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue,” said François de la Rochefoucauld. Conservative intellectuals frequently use this quotation to defend hypocrisy as a way for morally fallible human beings to pay lip service to the good even when they lack the strength to live it. For example, a congregation is none the less wise to accept the preacher’s advice against stealing when said preacher turns out to have a shoplifting habit. The defense applies to some instances of hypocrisy, but not all. Former Congressman Mark Foley’s instant-messaging scandal is one that, in my opinion, La Rochefoucauld’s argument cannot redeem.
The distinction between “good” and “bad” hypocrisy hinges on whether the act proscribed (and perpetrated) by the hypocrite is truly wrong or merely a target of moral panic. The closet homosexual who beats up known or suspected homosexuals is becoming an unambiguous example of the latter category in the United States. In my last post, I deplored our society’s general treatment of teenagers as children rather than adults. Foley’s online paramour has reached the age of consent in the District of Columbia and most states (but not my home state of California, which doesn’t deserve its reputation for social liberalism). The affair may be somewhat irresponsible because of the interpersonal tension it could generate in a work environment, but it shouldn’t be a crime. And yet it is a crime, thanks to the karmically challenged Foley. At Reason Online, Kerry Howley explains:If charges are leveled, they’ll likely be based on broad legislation inked by the man himself. It’s a safe bet that any law with a kid’s name in it will overreach, and the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act is no exception. The law, a hodgepodge of a response to MySpace panic, strikes at everything from hawking “date rape drugs” over the tubes to the use of “misleading domain names.” It penalizes the solicitation of all minors—everyone under 18—despite the fact that the age of consent is two years lower in most states. Merely channeling an invitation through the magic of fiberoptic cables is a federal crime.
Bill Clinton was similarly hoist with his own petard: the resurgent feminism that helped get him elected in 1992 also wrote the overreaching sexual-harassment law that later threatened his presidency. One need not be conservative or religious to hypermoralize.
September 26, 2006
Probably the only weepy chick flick that glamorizes Playboy
The Los Angeles Times reviewer was astonished that the script for the 1991 made-for-TV movie Posing: Inspired by Three Real Stories “is credited to two women, Cathleen Young and Ann Donahue, so go figure and go hoot.” It tells the separate stories of three women—a wife and mother in a small Bible Belt town, a successful stockbroker with lingering insecurity from her days as an overweight teen, and a repressed Yale student who secretly envies her twin sister’s freedom—who make the improbable but understandable choice to pose nude for Playboy. Unlike the Times reviewer, I find the writing credits and subtitle of this bittersweet, mostly realistic drama easy to believe. The VHS version, titled I Posed for Playboy, includes footage of a topless photo shoot of Miss October 1990, Brittany York, but don’t expect any Playboy-type erotica besides that. A sensitive male who hasn’t been whipped by politically correct bourgeois feminism, however, may find subtle eroticism in the courage and integrity the women show before, during, and especially after their photo sessions. “All three do face unforeseen negative consequences in the wake of their respective issues hitting the stands,” says the review, “but only in the form of flak from self-righteous hypocrites at work and home.” In context, the sarcastic “but only” reveals the same twisted logic as in the drug-war propaganda reminding us that marijuana is not “harmless” because it can get us arrested. Well, whose fault is that, assholes?
I don’t know much about the video business, but the videocassette seems to be priced only for sale to video rental firms. I wish it weren’t so, because this movie, besides Amadeus, is the one that I wish every one of my readers would see. By the way, the dark-haired photographer in it, David Mecey, was an actual Playboy photographer at the time of filming.
September 21, 2006
Bitch magazine tells of a preteen lesbian’s first Playboy
To say the least, feminist literature hasn’t always had a kind word for Playboy. But in issue 33 of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, currently on newsstands, publisher Debbie Rasmussen thanks it for her discovery of her lesbianism in a brief memoir on the bottom half of page 72. Left alone in the house one night at age 10, she rummages through her parents’ dresser and finds one issue of Playboy. The nude women get her “excited in a way I’d never felt before.” She then endeavors to talk her friends out of their clothes by staging make-believe Playboy photo sessions—which proves surprisingly easy.
“It feels odd now to credit Playboy—that icon of constructed, commercialized, cleaned-up sexuality—with one of my favorite discoveries: that I liked girls,” says Rasmussen. I could have told her that affectation and commerce don’t make sexuality any less human; they’re simply part of the dance. The better that feminism understands this, the more sexually liberating it can be.
July 27, 2006
Guest essay: Admiration and despair, or how I read Playboy
First, the story of how a woman named Jennifer came to write a guest post here on Brian’s blog: During the day I’ll often hang out at Reason’s Hit & Run and post snarky comments when things are slow at work. A few months ago they ran a truly hilarious subscription ad featuring a bikini model with a definite—how can I say this politely?—unmaintained look about her. One of Hit & Run’s other female commenters complained about having to look at the model every time she visited the site, and I responded as follows:If you have to see a bikini model every time you go on to this site, would you rather see one of those impossibly beautiful airbrushed babes that most people think of when they consider the words “bikini model,” or a flat-chested chick with a bad dye job and a head that’s too big for her body?
If you’re a regular reader you can probably figure out why Brian wanted to talk to me.
When I read the articles in my friend’s issues of Playboy, the impossibly gorgeous models within make me feel a little bad about the way I myself look. [The bikini model] does not. So I have no problem with her presence here.
You know, ever since I outgrew my adolescent ugly phase I’ve never once felt insecure about my appearance in comparison to other women. Other real women, anyway. But drop me in a room full of airbrushed Playboy models and I become “not much to look at, but she’s got a great personality, really.” When my significant other and I first moved in together, he subscribed to the magazine, which I read every month. And I really did read it for the articles. I had no desire to look at the pictorials. Why torment myself with thoughts like, “I wish my skin tone were that smooth,” or, “How does she keep her hair from frizzing like that?” True confession time: Sometimes I’ll get a zit. Or have a bad hair day. I sweat when it’s hot, and on regular occasions I even have to use the bathroom. I’m not convinced Playboy models do any of these things.
So is this an introduction to a rant about how Playboy is bad for women? Not at all. The magazine supports a lot of causes I admire, and donates money to many fine women’s organizations. But even if their favorite charity were the He-Man Woman Haters Club, I still wouldn’t mind the existence of their fantasy babes. Because they’re fantasies. That’s the key word. And allow me, a woman, to let you guys in on a little secret: women’s fantasies about men are a lot more unrealistic than men’s fantasies about women.
Go to a secondhand bookstore and pick up one of those thick bodice-ripper “romance” novels. And don’t be fooled: these books do for women what Playboy does for men. Buy a book with a cover featuring a shirtless Fabio clone and a title like Passionelle’s Passionate Passion in raised metallic script.
Now read the book. I’ll wait here while you do.
Finished? Let’s compare:
What a woman must do to live up to the Playboy fantasy: have an exquisitely perfect face and body.
What a man must do to live up to the bodice-ripper fantasy: have an exquisitely perfect face and body and be an independently wealthy alpha-male genius with uncanny insight into the female mind and a supernatural ability to give a woman spontaneous multiple orgasms whenever he stands within six inches of her. (By the way, he’s at least seven.)
Gentlemen, when you admire your next Playboy pictorial, I want to sincerely thank you, on behalf of womankind, for only expecting us to live up to the standards of Miss December. And bless your hearts, most times you’ll even overlook that.
A related earlier post:
$50 for your guest essay
March 9, 2006
Hooray! Roe v. Wade for men is finally here
I wish Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Michigan, all the luck—and all the publicity—in the world in his lawsuit against the double standard in reproductive choice.
Paternity suits oppress men in the same way that laws against abortion oppress women. An unscrupulous woman can use the family law courts to pick a man’s pocket in order to raise his offspring, even if the man did not freely choose to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood. If a woman can refuse to become a parent even after the fact of pregnancy, a man should be able to do the same. And don’t tell me a guy just needs to keep it in his pants if he doesn’t want to pay child support. That’s like saying that women should keep their legs together if they don’t want to have babies.
If you’re anti-choice for both men and women, then I can at least credit you with consistency. But for the second time in a day, I’ve had to publish a post about liberal-left hypocrisy in matters of personal choice.
I tip my hat to men’s activist Fredric Hayward, whose article in the April 1994 issue of Playboy made me aware of this injustice.
Update, March 10, 2006, 5:11 p.m.: It doesn’t happen often, but Reason has disappointed me so far with its take on the story. In a glib, anti-intellectual cop-out, Tim Cavanaugh shrugs his shoulders and says, “Life is unfair.” But paternity suits are a mere legal construct, as opposed to an inevitable source of unfairness like the uneven distribution of beauty, brains, and talent. In this instance, therefore, political discourse and political activity could legitimately claim to help make the world a little less unfair.
Update, January 16, 2007, 5:55 p.m.: the outcome of the Dubay case.
January 11, 2006
Hooray for wives who like Playboy
“Hoooray for Playboy!” shouts “Queen of Spain” at her blog. This stay-at-home mother rushes wholeheartedly to the defense of the magazine that her husband is so fond of. She makes powerful and funny arguments. More women should think like her. Brava!
This post was modified on January 12, 2006, at 10:10 p.m. I replaced the word exclaims with the word shouts.