Playboy isn't giving up nudes for any valiant reason (and isn't even trying to claim to)...

I know, as a feminist, I'm supposed to be SUPER FREAKIN' EXCITED about Playboy's announcement that they will no longer line the pages of their magazines with nude images of women. I know I should be celebrating this “victory for womanhood,” viewing this as a major porn giant conceding to the reality that women aren't products or property to be exploited for profit. But, I can't. I can't celebrate that a major pornography giant has come crumbling down under the pressure of seeing women for who they are, and I can't celebrate Hugh Hefner's long-awaited admission that women are actually people. Because none of that actually happened.

I have long held a determined resentment toward Playboy magazine. Maybe I'm old-timey in my more traditional view on sexual ethics, but I loathe pornography. I really do. I hate, especially, multi billion dollar industries which profit off of the sale of women's body parts masquerading as consumer goods for the entertainment of men.

So imagine my disgust when I read that Playboy's reasoning for abandoning its long-time sale of porn-lined pages, according to their chief executive, was simply: “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

“Passé.” Going out of style. Boring. Normal. Expected. Playboy isn't giving up nudes for any valiant reason (and isn't even trying to claim to); they're jumping the porn ship because society is so drunk on porn it isn't even fazed by it anymore. Pornography is passé. Naked women aren't edgy. Naked women are everywhere, their forms easily accessible and therefore, no longer prime for turning a profit.

Not only are women merely parts for sale, we're no longer profitable enough for Playboy to think we're worth selling. The porn giant wasn't forced to admit that women are more than what they've said we are for over half a century; rather, they've been forced out of the business of porn because women's bodies are more accessible for viewing pleasure, with zero commitment and zero sense of responsibility and zero hangups and strings attached, elsewhere, for cheaper, and without all that “really great articles” shit to stifle through. What Playboy once offered for sale down the street is now not only free but mere clicks away.

What Playboy helped set into motion, it's now reaping the consequences of – and I can't even enjoy watching them burn for it. I really wish I could. I wish we could think of this as women finally being viewed as people and not products. I wish it weren't the case that women are just another thing getting popular and therefore going cheap. But, unfortunately, in a world where women aren't viewed as people, we can expect to not be regarded as people. Maybe someday that will change, but not today, and definitely not as a result of anything Playboy does.

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Post by Tori Long

Why True Sex Positivity Is Key

"Feminism" has come to mean we have to accept and glorify anything that anyone wants to do as long as they slap that label on it. 

It's a major issue for me when Beyoncé slithering on a pole is considered a feminist act, and even more so when a man manipulating a woman into allowing abuse is considered a personal choice and empowering. I don't know when it became wrong to say "um, that might not be good for that woman personally or really women in general," but I think that's where feminism has lost its way. 


We no longer have any standards for women based on human dignity. That's why you can have porn stars claiming to be "feminists" when truly most are not sex positive at all but actively encouraging a culture that sees women as meat to get their rocks off to. Then we're up in arms when dudes catcall women on the streets. Seriously???? 


Why is it okay to privately use women but then such a shock when they do it publicly? You want to smash rape culture? Start by smashing porn. Start by calling out a practice that is training men and many women how to use others, in 2D form, because it will not stay contained to their computer screens. There's nothing sex positive about disconnecting sex from human dignity. That's actually anti-sex-positive and leads to nothing more than masturbation where you're using another person rather than your hand. 


I love sex, GOOD SEX, so much that I'm going to call out shit that I think hinders it. To me, that's being truly sex positive.


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Post by Destiny

Hurt People Hurt People… and let people hurt them.

Vaccinations, Car Seats and Porn: How We're Failing to Keep Our Children Safe

     Parents today are so wonderfully cautious when it comes to the safety and well-being of their precious children. We make certain that Junior is in the proper car seat until the day he leaves for college. We buy hand sanitizer and Lysol in bulk quantities and don’t allow a contaminating germ within his presence. We spend extra money on bleach-free organic cotton disposable diapers and BPA-free bottles and sippy cups. We cover him in SPF 1,000 every day from May through September. We willingly allow the doctors to shoot him up in the name of vaccinations (or we adamantly oppose it!). We check on him throughout the night to be sure he hasn’t rolled on to his stomach and hold a mirror in front of his nose to make sure he’s still breathing. When he becomes mobile, we install outlet covers, cabinet locks, baby gates, and protect sharp corners with thick pads and cushions. We pay close attention to labels and don’t allow him to ingest high fructose corn syrup or milk treated with any artificial hormones. We would never give him vitamins that contain harmful red dyes! We don’t let Junior ride anything that moves without wearing a snug helmet. We get to know parents before we allow him to spend time with their children. We spend years worrying about his safety and health and whether we’ve made the right choices. In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I have joked with my friends that if I could wrap my children in bubble wrap, I would do it in a heartbeat.

     So why, pray tell, when Junior turns 11 or 12 or 13, would we gift him with an accidental gateway to pornography?

     In the name of being able to reach Junior “in case of an emergency” as well as the fact that “everyone else has one,” and besides, “I don’t want Junior to think I’m a mean mom,” we hand him this magical little portal to a world that is more harmful than anything we’ve spent so much effort to avoid.

     In a study by ABC News called“Generation XXX: Teens Addicted to Porn,” it is shown that SEVEN OUT OF TEN teens are accidentally exposed to porn online. Think your teen is safe? If any of his or her friends has a smartphone, you’re wrong. Through apps that you and I use daily—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—as well as YouTube, your children risk exposure. I once pulled up YouTube to show my children that really sweet video of the baby who started crying when her mother sang (y’all remember that cuteness?), and when I found it I noticed on the top of the list of YouTube’s suggestions was a video by the EXACT same name but the thumbnail was a nude woman’s rear-end. All four of my children were crowded around me and looking over my shoulders. I felt ill. Several friends have told me that their children first saw porn in the locker room at school, thanks to a buddy who was sharing his smartphone. Exposure to sexually explicit content online can occur very easily through a misdirected Google search using an innocent word such as“toy,” a misspelled word or URL, a misleading website or email, or a link or photo sent by a peer or through spam (Wolak et al, 2007).

     Here are some statistics from the Center for Parents/Youth Understanding:

· 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to Internet pornography before the age of 18

· The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11

· 70% of boys have spent more than 30 consecutive minutes looking at online pornography on at least one occasion. 35% of boys have done this on more than ten occasions.

· 23% of girls have spent more than 30 consecutive minutes looking at online pornography on at least one occasion. 14% have done this on more than one occasion.

· 30,000 Internet users are accessing pornography every second.

· There are 4.2 million pornographic websites. That equals 12% of all Internet sites.

· The 12-17 year-old age group is the largest consumer of Internet pornography

· Only 3% of boys and 17% of girls have never seen Internet pornography

·One poll indicates that 50% of evangelical Christian men and 20% of evangelical Christian women are addicted to pornography

     And if you think this is all harmless, well, you’re just not paying attention. Use of pornography has been proven to lead to a cycle of preoccupation, compulsion, acting out, isolation, self-absorption, shame and depression: disorders all widely achievable now with the touch of a button on that beautiful, shiny, little smartphone. The very same smartphone you gave Junior, with the best of intentions, in order to protect him from this big bad world. Little did you know you were putting the big bad world in the palm of his hand, just a click away.

     What we must understand is that porn does to the mind what drugs do to the body. As Dr. Jeffrey Satinover of Princeton University said, “It is as though we have devised a form of heroin... usable in the privacy of one’s own home and injected directly to the brain through the eyes.”

     When you view porn, your body responds by rewarding you with a release of dopamine. Why are you being rewarded if it is such a bad thing you ask? Well, we are biologically engineered to procreate in order to keep our species alive. Our bodies do not realize we’re not with another human when this stimulation occurs; therefore it still rewards us with these chemicals, inducing a euphoric feeling. We were made to enjoy sex. Sex is a wonderful thing. However, when we get addicted to a sex substitute, a neural-pathway in the brain is created that craves more and more of that type of stimulation. The type that is always changing, always new, always exciting and more erotic than the day before. This counterfeit sexual experience becomes our new norm and intercourse with another human being becomes bland and not enough to induce such euphoria.

     It’s kind of like eating McDonalds every day for every meal. It will sustain you for a while; however it is not necessarily good for you. And after six months on a diet of high fat, high sugar, high salt foods engineered only to stimulate your body’s pleasure receptors, it might be hard to find satisfaction in the good, healthy foods which will truly nourish your body.

     There’s no doubt we love our children and want what’s best for them, so we must protect them from this new virtual drug, a proverbial pink slime for our minds, just like we would protect them from any other harmful substance. Because while we can fix broken bones, purge toxins out of their system, and kiss boo-boos away, the mind is not so easy to heal. These images will stay with them long after they’ve been viewed, like a trace amount of a drug always pumping through their veins, trying to lure them back in for one more cheap high.

     If we keep their bodies intact, but allow their minds to decay, then we have failed as parents and never truly protected them at all.

     The compromise? In an ever changing world where pay phones are becoming more and more scarce, cell phones are not always a bad idea. However, we must fight the urge to go bigger and better just because our plans allow it, or our provider is willing to cut us a deal. Buy the cheap flip phone. Monitor it closely. You can still give your child the level of independence they're ready to handle without setting them up for failure. Prepare them, while still protecting them. They will thank you one day.

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(B.Grif eating boogery snails in France)

Post By Brice Griffin