Playboy bunny and fashion
June 7th, 2007 by 
catholicwriter
I came across a quote by Hugh Hefner the other day and was trying to find it on the Internet. While searching for it, I came across this rather interesting interview with him by On The Media. Here is an extract of it:
WOMAN (from video): The role that you have selected for women is degrading to women because you choose to see women as sex objects.
WOMAN (from video): You make them look like animals! Yes! Women aren’t bunnies. They’re not rabbits. They’re human beings! The day that you are willing to come out here with a cotton tail attached to your rear end–
HUGH HEFNER: We’ve been accused, obviously, of exploiting women, exploiting sex. I think Playboy exploits sex — you know I just think “exploit” is an unfortunate word. Playboy exploits sex like Sports Illustrated exploits sports! [LAUGHTER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now I noticed that you never responded to her specific challenge about the bunny tails. I mean it would, after all, be antithetical to the Playboy aesthetic to attach a little fuzzy ball of cotton to your own tush, wouldn’t it?
HUGH HEFNER: Yes, I think so. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHS]!
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But is that fair?
HUGH HEFNER: And– that feminist diatribe– didn’t make a lot of sense back then; it seems very foolish today. I think that in the intervening years women really have become truly human. That anti-sexual part of feminism is very antiquated, and quite frankly was anti-revolutionary even at the time. To be truly hu– human, women have to embrace their sexuality. And that’s all Playboy’s really all about. I think it’s one of the reasons why the magazine and the Playboy symbols and why the, the rabbit image are so popular now with young women, and you see Playboy fashions in all the leading women’s magazines. We have come a long ways, baby.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I think that’s true, but I do think that some of that Playboy style that you’re referring to - the bunny costumes - have a– certainly something to do with kitsch. And what’s more, back in the early days when you were creating that costume and that image, it wasn’t women expressing their own sexuality; it was women putting on the costume that you had designed for them!
HUGH HEFNER: Yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This was, this wasn’t them “embracing their own sexuality.” This was them embracing yours!
HUGH HEFNER: True. That’s right.
Source: http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_112 803_bunny.html
That last line by Brooke Gladstone and the confirmation by Hefner was what struck me most. Women have been, and are still being, taken for a ride if they thought or think that embracing their sexuality means to conform with the picture that the secular media paints.
I still can’t find my quote. Guess I have to spend $25 and get that book in which I saw it. But from what I remember, it was along the lines of why Hefner chose the rabbit to be the mascot for Playboy - for its “humorous sexual connotation” and due to the image being “frisky and playful”. Of course the rabbit is also hunting game for men.
Women or girls who wear the Playboy symbol on them and don’t know what that symbol means had better beware. It’s like painting a big bull’s eye on them for perverts to come after them, hunting them, and conquering them. They’ll be off with a “C’ya!” before you even have time to put on your clothes.
Incidentally, here’s another one for women: Have you ever wondered why the secular media paints thin to be in?
When you look at paintings of famous artists in the past, we see that they had a very different idea of what it meant for a woman to be beautiful. None of them were slender as they are today. What changed? How did our perception of beauty change?
In pre-modern ages, fat women were judged more attractive than slender women because food was scarcer. Also, women who were bigger in size were more attractive than thin women because they could bear more children and were more physically resilient to handle the effects of bearing many children.
What changed?
Over time, people began to associate large families with poverty. If you have fewer children, you have more money to spend on yourself, they realised. This was also around the time that the fashion industry began to pick up, and of course the drivers of the fashion industry realized this. So what did they do? They promoted the idea that thin was fashionable. Why? Because thinner people are less likely to bear many children, which meant that they had more money to spend. Spend on what? Fashion, of course, keeping up with the latest fashion trends.
Women, you have been exploited, and are still being exploited by men, in your search for independence and freedom from men. Freedom is found only in the truth. Where can you find the truth? Only one man can offer you that freedom. Jesus tells us, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32)
