by Cross Woodfield

So a cluster of my friends are obsessed with Kendra, a spin-off of The Girls Next Door series which featured all of the girls living in the Playboy mansion along with Hef, their leader.  Kendra is now an ex- girlfriend/former resident of the Playboy mansion starting a new life.

I really can’t decide what I think about all of this!  I loved The Girls Next Door.  I thought the girls came across as smart (most of the time), kind, easy-going, happy….They were kind of good role models for a student working wayyyy to hard on her philosophy papers holed up in a room eating muffins and using two-in-one because she didn’t give herself time to both shampoo and condition.

Hef’s girlfriends undoubtedly led much sunnier, fuller lives than I did, so who was I to criticize?  I was jealous of them!  They are pretty and fun…like real, live Barbies, I thought.  I felt a bit like Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine when she asks Miss California if she eats ice cream.

I know there is some criticism that they are told to act ditzy, that Playboy only chooses dumb girls to photograph and interview for their magazine and nominate for the mansion.  It is argued that Playboy is responsible for maintaining, even creating, the association with beauty and stupidity, making stupidity desirable to girls.

There’s also the issue of Hef having multiple girlfriends, not to mention that he pays them, which is kind of like prostitution and also more than a little bit like polygamy.  I don’t know if he sleeps with all of them or just the primary girlfriend.  He’s now hired two new girls to be his girlfriends, and they’re nineteen years old.  A little weird??

I guess what I’m wondering is what you guys think about Playboy.  Is it okay that women pose nude, that Hugh Hefner (age 83) has two nineteen-year old twin sister girlfriends, that girls are publicized for their sweet spots?  Should the sweet spot be something that is kept private and not popularized?

Or should she among us without sin be the first to condemn?

Thoughts??

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