Would you buy your tween son a "Playboy"?

I'm giving a lot of thought to the idea of "objectification" and honestly I'm not sure where I stand on the issue, in terms of magazines like Playboy.

joefromchicago mentioned "Esquire" magazine and I've been a subscriber to that for more years than I can count. Yes, they have photos of beautiful, scantily clad women but they also have a really great attitude about women, in my opinion. Are they guilty of objectifying women because of their photos?

I like the idea of older/ more natural. I don't know how hard that is to find.

Part of my issue with current porn is how it can create this crazy body feedback loop. Boys see crazy bodies (hairless, fake-boobed, etc.) from an early age and get fixated on those. Then they see a real girl body and it doesn't match. Then the real girls say "eek, boys won't like me unless I have the crazy body." Etc.

I like Thomas' idea of providing an array -- just plain old educational books (this one is good: "It's Perfectly Normal") plus some nekkid lady sort of stuff if the kid really wants it.

That leads me to another tricky part though. I know sozlet will occasionally insist she wants something that she doesn't actually want. There have been a few times when I've remained steadfast and then later she said "thanks" (!). It's been tough for me to figure out which category a given request is in, though, I'm sure I've made wrong calls there (both in saying "yes" -- I'm starting to regret Instagram -- and in saying "no").

In this situation, I might start small, rather than a whole Playboy magazine -- some of those old-fashioned cards with a nekkid lady wearing a skirt that can be removed -- something like that. Gauge the reaction and move from there.

We have discussed Playboy btw -- E.G. has a shot glass with the Playboy logo on it and just a bit ago she said "why do you have that anyway?" She knew what Playboy was in a general way, and recognized the logo. We talked about a lot of the things covered here -- that I used to actually read Playboy for the articles (my dad would get it) but it wasn't as good of reading anymore. What "playboy" actually means (rich, dressing gown, good whiskey, good cigar, fancy ladies). The whole crazy-body thing, now vs. then. Etc. It was a pretty good conversation.

Anyway, I agree with Thomas that the trust that the kid displays is worth rewarding. Probably only the mom in question can decide how to best reward it, based on her knowledge of her kid.

I'd like to say two things about this 'objectifying' business.

First, even if I did believe that Playboy's photography objectified women, and that objectifying women was wrong, I'd still buy my tweenager that Playboy magazine. Questions of what pictures reflect, and how we should treat each other, cannot be fruitfully discussed in the abstract. You need a show-and-tell, not just a "tell", so that both sides are clear on what their conversation is about. A Playboy issue provides a good "show" part for a "show and tell" for social norms about sex; an anatomy book does not.

Second though, I don't agree that objectifying people is bad. That's just psychobabble. It has nothing to do with the real world, where we casually objectify pizza delivery people every time we order takeout. When we call their business with our order, they might as well be vending machines for all we care about them. In the same way, we objectify our employers as payers of our bills. Our employers, in turn, objectify us as producers of marketable value. If we find better jobs, or if they find more productive machinery, we swap each other out in a heartbeat. Sure, some employers and some employees also care about each other as human beings. But that's not an expectation, let alone a moral requirement. It's a bonus, an exception proving the rule of mutual objectification in our work lives. And the list goes on and on.

Let's face it: we objectify each other all the time, and nobody thinks it's a big deal. It only becomes a big deal when the alleged objectification involves naked people. Objectifying humans isn't bad, it's standard human behavior. And opposition to porn, I suspect, is not really about objectifying women; mostly it's an intellectual face lift for prudery.

I agree.

Some of you might remember that I had a little incident of Mo and his friends Googling up some porn. I really don't think the internet is the best place for kids to go to learn about sex/bodies.

I've been thinking a bit about art books -- I think I'd rather catch Mo with a Playboy than with a book of Robert Maplethorp's photos.....

Yes, same here! Girls too.

Me neither!

This kid was, I think, 12 years old. The people giving advice were parents of toddlers for the most part.

I'd love to claim credit for this, but the idea really comes from ehBeth.

Ah, you're right. I was thinking of ehBeth's comment and especially DrewDad:

I think that crazy body feedback loop is available anywhere and everywhere. Fashion magazines are the perfect example. Most boys seem pretty content with real live, flawed body girls. It kind of all boils down like the whole TV/movie/video game debate -- do they know the difference between fantasy and reality. I think most do.

The tricky part for me, when I ask myself what I would do, is that if Mo were to ask me to buy him condoms I would do it absolutely. Of course there would be the big blahblahblah about sex and relationships but there would be no question that I would buy them. Comparing that "absolutely" with any hesitation I might have about buying him a skin-mag has me confused.

You can't usually tell whether a model in fashion magazines has pubic hair, though. Plus fashion types don't tend to have breast implants (depending somewhat on the sort of fashion of course).

The crazy-body thing is definitely everywhere -- I just think that there is a certain imprinting that goes on with boys and porn. Generally, people are going to be happier with whatever they can get than with only images, so there are definitely compromises. As in, there aren't many men who hold out for the ideal and reject the good-enough who is right there -- though they're not nonexistent, either. (I've listened to at least three boys/ men of this type complain -- they weren't attracted to people in their league and people out of their league weren't interested in them.)

Out of curiosity, how do you feel about watching NFL football with Sozlet? Lots of crazy male bodies there (seven-footers, three-hundred-pounders, yet ten-percent-body-fatters) that real-world guys can't measure up with.

There, I fixed it for you.

I think my latest post addresses that. But to expand a bit, I'm old enough that I can't believe it's so standard in the younger generation to get their pubic area waxed regularly. Completely waxed. These women complain about it and say they wish they didn't have to but also say that men from their generation are grossed out by pubic hair.

Heh. Yeah. Chronologically at least, two of 'em were men. But yeah.

it's the same thing for men

lots of man-scaping going on - waxing up/down/front/back

I know! I feel bad for them too. Unless they enjoy it, in that case whatever floats their boat.

And look how you turned out. Case closed.

So what's wrong with some misinformation? It's not like they're going to grow into adulthood believing some of the really crazy stuff that kids share.

To this day I can remember some little girl confidently telling us that you got a baby by eating the man seeds and they grew in your stomach. I remember thinking "are you crazy?" I wasn't 100% sure how it happened, but I knew that wasn't it.

If the stories boys share about girls boobies aren't accurate, they'll sort it out.

If it's about how a woman gets pregnant, you need to be there to explain the true fact.

Rare as this is, I 100% agree with hawkeye on this one. You would pretty much have to be a moron not to be able to find naughty pictures to look at on the interweb. Even with the best parental blocks, I sure if a boy googled "big tits" or even the word "bikini" he'd get plenty to eyeball.

It's not like someone has to be provided a link and would have to toil away to locate one.

My concern would be a child finding pictures/videos of acts that could confuse/frighten them. Like acts of violence, humiliation, etc.

I don't think anyone has brought this issue up but what about a tween daughter and a request for a Playgirl magazine? Or if the daughter wants to go and see Magic Mike to see what that movies about? I'm certain there's going to be double standards flooding this thread when this idea is introduced.

I'm sure the kid could find naughty pictures if he chose to do so.

That isn't the point.

The point is maintaining the trust relationship with your kid. Even when it's awkward.

You deal with it when they have questions about Playboy, because you also want to be in a place to deal with it when they have questions about booze, or marijuana, or ecstasy, or pipe bombs, or their friend's dad asking 'em to go into the back bedroom. Because you want them to call you first if they're drunk at a party and don't have a safe way home.