For those who have been reading the Lantern lately, you probably have noticed the ads by a well-established, infamous magazine heading our way.Yes, hold your applause, or your tongue: Playboy is coming. Now, don’t get all worked up. This is not a forum for bashing a magazine that has been touted as one of the leading factors oppressing the feminist movement.Please, why waste my time. I could find better ways, for example, reading letters complaining about my writing, to do that.Anyhow, I will make the statement that Playboy does not belittle women, portray them in a negative light or place them on pedestals as sex objects.No. Playboy, the magazine, does not do this at all.The magazine merely portrays women as women, with beautiful figures and pretty faces, who usually have something to offer besides a great bod.You can’t knock the girls who have posed for Playboy and actually done something with their lives. Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Lee Anderson, Vanessa Williams, Suzanne Somers, Farrah Fawcett, Marilyn Monroe, to name a few.To blame a magazine as a sore on the side of feminism would be like blaming cigarettes for lung cancer.Now, bear with me, my friends, this argument does have a point. You have to smoke the cigarettes to potentially get lung cancer; just having them around in stores, on the table, in your car won’t cause the cancer to leap into your lungs. The same holds true for Playboy. Just having the magazine lying there with pictures of naked women will not implant negative stereotypes of women into people’s minds.It takes the person viewing the pictures to make the decision for themselves what these women represent.So, why dog a magazine for merely doing what it does for entertainment? If you do, then shouldn’t you also say the evening news promotes mass suicide because it aired stories on those alien freaks in San Diego?Come on, people, you can do better than that.Playboy Playmates do what they do to get noticed, not because they are advocates for pre-pubescent teenage boys getting off in the back of math class.And these girls do get noticed. They get an “in” into the movie, television, fashion industries that is hard enough to get just being themselves.True, some would side with the argument that if taking all your clothes off would offer you an “in” into “the industry,” then it is really not worth degrading yourself in front of millions.And some of the Playmates could be seen as nothing but “boobs without brains.” I mean the number of times silicone has been injected into your body is not something to put on a resume.But, these women are making a hell of a lot more money than I ever will because of their opportunities granted after posing.Sometimes, as the old adage goes, “the ends justify the means.” Maybe Playboy should tout that as the slogan for their magazine.
Nicole Pankuch is a senior majoring in journalism from Stow, Ohio who has learned the secret to life, love and happiness.
