Playboy 2006 SSL Review - February
Why I have a stack of decade old Playboys
So, several years ago, and honestly I don't remember the exact circumstances anymore, but my parents were getting rid of some of my dad's old Playboy magazines. At the time I was probably in the early stages of this blog, so I was all like, "Hey let me take a whole year's worth, and I'll review one year of Playboy. That should be fun!" Fast forward to now. I have not reviewed any of them, but I'm sick of having this stack of Playboys cluttering my nightstand drawer. I've moved with these bitches. They've lived with me for years. so I've put in the time, and I'm not just going to throw them away now without SSL Reviewing them - even if I hate them cluttering up my life (I LOVE to throw things away). So the only option is to actually do what I set out to do all those years ago - SSL Review them.
Strangely, although I remember getting all 12 months of 2006, I have found I'm missing some. I either have a bad memory, a bad moving technique, or a niece or nephew that found this stash. Either way, we are missing a few months, but so be it. That is why I'm starting with February.
SSL Review Basics
An SSL review - as many of you know is a critique ONLY of discussions or depictions of female masturbation and/or female orgasm. I critique the realism and also what the depiction/discussion adds to our culture conversations on the topics of female sexuality and orgasm. I usually do these SSL Reviews for either movies or TV, but magazines are fun from time to time. This SSL Review will be a bit more relaxed and simple than most. I'd like to have a little fun here (but I will still give it a vulva rating).
So, please enjoy the full SSL Review of the Playboy Magazine from February 2006. I will review each SSL Reviewable item starting from the front of the magazine to the back.
1 An advertisement that sells you some useless penis lotion (AKA Playboy insinuates dicks give women orgasms part 1)
So this is written as if some average woman with a boyfriend having "confidence issues" (i.e. limp/small/non-lasting dick) surprisingly got the most amazing orgasmic sex of her life, snooped around to find the secret was this product, wrote the company a glowing thank-you letter, and asked them to print it - which they clearly did. T.J from Phoenix, AZ says, "He achieves harder, stronger erections, and my orgasms go through the roof!"
Okay, so firstly, this lotion in no way makes dicks harder in any way more than a placebo effect, so this ad's just some BS mumbo jumbo anyway, but I just want to point out the cultural assumption it's playing on (the cultural assumption this whole blog and this movie are here to destroy); that big, hard, long-lasting, deep-pumping cocks are the makers of lady-gasms. They are not. Seriously. The outer parts of the clit are the makers of lady-gasm, and I hate to be blunt, but we don't need no dicks for that. So, the fact that this lady's dude puts some lotion on his dick that made it more able to fuck her vagina is...something, but it's not something that would actually make her orgasm.
*To be fair, the ad does mention the clit, saying the product, "is a lotion applied topically to either the clitoris or the penis." I appreciate the mention, but ol' T.J. from Phoenix's clit had nothing to do with the fab orgasms's she speaks of. The truth is, if she had been talking about her orgasms going through the roof as a result of lotion on her clit instead of on his penis, it'd still be an ad full of false promises for a shitty product, but at least it would have been attributing female orgasm to the correct anatomical part. However, the ad only speaks of her orgasms in relation to his use of the product - so it's a double shitty way of reinforcing the incorrect idea that dicks make women come.
2 Centerfolds On Sex! (AKA do the damn thing, Miss January)
So, this is a little 1 page segment that has past centerfolds discussing sex. The following was from Cara Wakelin - Playmate of the Month January 1999, and frankly, I like this lady.
"You can tell how good a guy's going to be by his personality. If he's attentive and observant, that's probably how he's going to be in bed. So when he goes down on me, instead of going right for the clit, he'll kiss and touch my thighs. When I wait, things are much better. The anticipation is so much fun..."
Okay technically she didn't actually discuss female orgasm - just the clit and going down, so it's not technically eligible for SSL Review, but to me, that's worth a mention. I like her general style here. Playboy asks her about sex, and she goes right to the dude's style of eating her out.
Yes to her sense that she'd like some teasing and arousal - around the clit, but not quite on the clit at first.
Yes to discussing that slowing things down and waiting in the arousal stage for a bit before the orgasm makes it all a bit better (at least that's what I took her statement to mean).
And, yes to speaking about the clit as if it's the main course (because it is). She could have gone the status quo route of talking about a dude arousing her before going right into intercourse, but she didn't (maybe, no hopefully, because she knows that just as the penis is the main course for men, the clit is the main course for women - not the vagina hole)
Bravo Miss January 1999.... respect to you and your clit-attention-getting self. You are a Playboy centerfold, and so I hope the following for you: I hope you are still out there continuing to catch some tongue. Keep at it, and maybe live our dreams for us from time to time. Pick up hot random dudes, have them go down on you and then say thanks but don't retaliate. Instead bask in your recent cunnilingus-induced orgasm by getting some ice cream by yourself, watching some good TV, having a nice walk or whatever it is that gives you pleasure. It's a little selfish, yes, but it's also awesome, and if you can't pull that off, none of us can.
3 Not that funny pretend poems (AKA Playboy insinuates dicks give women orgasms part 2)
This is a 2-page spread of mock poetry as if written by famous writers of the past. It's called "Love is a much rewritten thing," by Josh Robertson. It's classic Playboy humor - meaning mildly amusing.
One of them is titled "The Flight" by Sara Teasdale, and it ends like this:
"...But what if I heard my first love calling me again?
I'd hesitate, pondering. A moment would pass between us:
Dear lover, you're richer, but he has the bigger penis."
Okay, so I'd never heard Sara Teasdale's name, so I looked her up, and she was a poet in the early 1900's that died of suicide. It seems she may have married a guy for money, but divorced him and rekindled with her first love who had since gotten married and had kids. He died of suicide a couple years earlier. So, I guess the poem was a joke about her life, kind of?
Anyway, this doesn't actually specifically talk about female orgasm or masturbation, so it's also not technically eligible for SSL Review, but it does insinuate that a bigger penis is really important to women - which I would say is largely based on the cultural assumption that...you guessed it...big dicks are needed for female orgasm. Again, THEY ARE NOT, but jokes like these help keep that myth alive....and really, wouldn't it have been more shocking to say something like 'but he has the faster tongue.' I'm sure he could have found a way to rhyme with tongue.
4 Mildly amusing cartoon (AKA Playboy insinuates dicks give women orgasms part 3)
This is called Not So Different by Juan Alverez and Jorge Gomez. Like all Playboy cartoons, it sits somewhere between barely comprehensible and a slight chuckle, so this particular cartoon at mildy amusing fits in well.
Anyway, it's just a woman talking 'girl-talk' with another woman about dating 2 guys that are completely different. Why oh why date 2 guys so completely different, you ask? Because they both have big dicks of course!
I guess big dicks can ram that vag and at the same time also worm its way up to tease and grind that clit into orgasm, right? Oh they can't? They just do the same thing smaller ones do, but they're bigger and more likely to painfully jab the cervix from time to time? Oh.
Dear world,
We don't care. Big dicks are kinda fun and pretty to look at and they don't fall out of us as much during intercourse when we change position, but get a fucking clue and focus on our clits. It's a bit up from the place your big dick is ramming.
Love, females.
5 Nuns, am I right? (AKA Playboy insinuates dicks/dildos give women orgasms part 4).
This is a nun giving another nun a dildo. She calls it St. Peter. It's mild humor. I get it.
Let me just say, I'm pretty sure nuns know how to masturbate, and it's not by ramming something up the junk. The clit is not that hard to find, and all you need is a hand or maybe a pillow to rub against, and nuns have all those things. You know though, maybe some nuns wouldn't mind spicing it up and pushing up on a dildo while they play the clitar. I can see that. Or better yet, maybe it's a vibrating dildo and she can use it, badly shaped for the job as it is, on the clit. That makes sense too.
From Playboy Feb. 2006 pg.122
6 Do you actually know what women do with vibrators? (AKA Playboy insinuates dicks/something inside the lady-junk give women orgasms part 5).
So a woman goes into a gyno. He tells her there's a vibrator in there, and he'll get it out. She says, "Oh no! I don't want you to remove it! I just want you to change the batteries!"
Okay, I'm not saying women don't put vibrators up our hoo hoos and butts. We do, for sure, I mean some of us do. But it's like an accoutrement; like a tweak to the nipples while you're wanking. It just gives some spice...I mean it can be really good spice because enough vibrating anywhere down there can spread to other close parts. It's nice, but it's still not stimulation at our organ of sexual pleasure - the clit. It's like a dude with a vibrator taped to his taint - nice, but still not on the penis. (and to be clear: the new popular idea that stimulation inside the vagina can transfer to the inner clitoral legs which can cause orgasm is a fun idea, but there is no scientific evidence that this has ever actually happened....ever. The parts of the clit that can be reached from the outside is where it's at for orgasm)
Meaty Myths from Playboy Feb. 2006
Anyway, it's just humor, and I fully understand it's not that deep, but this kind of humor really does reinforce incorrect ideas about how women's bodies work when it comes to orgasms. And the truth is, humor might seem like just humor, but the underlying meanings in humor are meanings that stick with us deep in our bones.
The Vulva Rating
Seriously, though...reading this Playboy makes me feel like guys are obsessed with the idea that women are obsessed with penises. I mean yes, some of us like them plenty, but we lose interest real quick when the attachments to the penis ignore the clit - the one part of our body that we use to orgasm...and they often do ignore it, so in reality, we often aren't that interested #RealTalk
Anyway, the 5 instances where it was insinuated ladies orgasms are jones'n for some phallus ramming in the vag were both anatomically incorrect and problematic in that it ignores the clit, the only organ as important to female orgasm as the penis is to male orgasm. If it weren't for Cara Wakelin and her excellent discussion of how she likes her clit approached, this would be 1 vuvla rated magazine (it keeps one star because all those insinuations are indeed bad, but they are also quite the status quo). So thanks Cara, 2 vulvas it is.
(!)(!)