 collected inThe Great Hangover – Tales from the great recession. Another recent issue had a great article on Daniel Kahneman and his new book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.
OT, I agree with what was expressed above, in that it seems like an odd thing for Playboy to publish, but I don’t read the magazine and can’t judge how it fits, or if they have broader content like VF does. It gives the article a stigma, though, which is unfortunate.
On the oppression of women front–I think some churches are WAY more of a problem, and have had more direct impact on my work in science. Yet people are always saying that we need to reach out to churches more–speaking engagements with church groups, publishing in their venues.
But I wouldn’t stop anyone from doing that either.
Are scientists boycotting Nature/SciAm for the Jesse Bering essay? Just wondering. We all have to live in the real world, cut deals, make compromises–except for zealots and idealogues.
I have yet to see a clear cogent argument about the evilness of Playboy. It all seems to boil down to sublimized prudery, if you ask me.
A healthy male can look at T&A and not infer from it that every woman is a sexual object, just like a healthy male can watch 180 minutes of physical carnage, otherwise known as the NFL, and not infer from it that every male is a battering ram.
I don’t think it takes some special type of talent to figure out that the midwest airhead sagittarius who wishes for “world peace” and lists “singing in the shower” as a hobby is not the same as the geeky young woman doing advanced science next to you on the lab.
There is an implicit message that one cannot appreciate beauty in the (naked) human form without the ensuing sexual objectification of all humans.
 This argument is absurd on its face, but somehow when made about women it automatically gains currency. Perhaps this currency is out of sympathy to its claimed victims, which do endure many other real, non-imagined hardships in this patriarchal world we live in.
Dv, the issue is not that looking at Playboy causes men to view all women as sexual objects, but that it leads men to accept only a ridiculous, near-anorexic standard for female attractiveness. Playboy of course isn’t the only guilty party, but its airbrushed cheesecakes are pretty egregious examples of media that has this effect.
So, when a respectable writer contributes a respectable piece of writing to Playboy, it has the effect of making whatever else is in Playboy seem normal. Or so the thinking goes. IMHO, Playboy is pretty irrelevant in the age of internet porn, so who cares. 14 year old boys are already corrupted; a science article in Playboy isn’t going to corrupt them more.
I’ve seen several critics claim this, including here, such as “a magazine dedicated to the objectification of women’s bodies”.
Perhaps, but if so then why focus on Playboy, particularly when the magazine has been the target of medieval censorship from people who oppose the mere thought of a healthy attitude to sex?

If Zimmer had published in the equally nasty VF or Cosmopolitan it is unlikely there would be such controversy. You should seriously consider the possibility that you are unwittingly carrying the water for the religious right, valid as your concerns are.
1) maybe I *am* the “religious right”, did you consider that?
2) If I catch one of the gang being lauded for a bit in Cosmo you are damn right I’m going to object.
And who gets to tell the difference?  I am a proud midwest capricorn (on the cusp of sagittarius) who wishes for “world peace” and who sings in the shower as a hobby… I’m also a PhD in Molecular Medicine. How do I know if you are going to take me seriously or ask to see my tits?
You are unwittingly carrying water for convicted rapists. KNOCK IT OFF.
Dear Men of The World: you are exactly as misogynistic as you treat the lowliest women on your totem pole. You do not get to be judged solely by how you treat your mother, daughter, Mother Theresa, or even Marie Curie. You will be held accountable for how you treat them ALL (confidential to CPP- yes, even your postdocs).
I did no such thing. The women choose to objectify themselves by posing for playboy while the person next to you didn’t. It is people like you who argue that if one person posed nude, then all women including the original model will be treated like that. Personally I’ve met a couple of nude art models and I didn’t see them in any way as objects simply because I knew how their bits looked like. Say, do you think of your spouse as an object because you’ve seen him/her naked (I hope) in a sexual context?
I made no judgement on the appropriateness of posing or not posing for playboy, but for the record, I believe women are free to do whatever they want with their bodies, including pose naked for T&A magazines if that’s their thing.
I also take issue with the whole “objectification” of women adjective. The fact that a man might be a battering ram on a Sunday NFL game does not mean that he (much less all males) are forever objectified as hammering objects. Why does a woman taking off her clothes for a nude photo session means they are now forever to be treated like objects?
Lastly, you are building a strawman, including the supposed condoning of rape and attacking that. You seem to be unable to argue the subject on its merits.
What does this have to do with anything? Art models?? You think the argument is with nudity? How childish.
Yes, they “choose” to do this, just like I choose to have a Diet Pepsi and not a Diet Coke.
I appreciate the time Grumble took to answer. While he didn’t convince me, he engaged in a civilized discussion and there is some merit to the anorexic standard promoted by playboy. Others feel so strongly about this issue that do not seem to be able to engage in a conversation about it.
It is interesting that no argument was put forward to support the dubious claim that objectification of women comes from naked pictures for a T&A magazine instead of originating from dudes who were sexist to start with.
Is it so difficult to understand that cultural forces are complex and arise from interplay between different sources of input? Of course Playboy did not invent objectification. The question is whether it promotes and enhances objectification, which it clearly does. It also promotes an unattainable standard of appearance.
I’m with main stream feminism on the issue of dressing style, but DM does raise some interesting points.
First we need to distinguish what exactly we are talking about. I think there is a distinction between sexy dressing and sexually aggressive dressing style. A provocative/sexy dress says “see, I’m cute,” a sexually aggressive attire says “yeah baby” [insert Austin Powers accent].
Let’s focus on the latter here and see how it plays in other settings.
Let’s think of a policeman wearing a uniform. S/he is quite intentionally sending the message “in this situation think of me first and foremost as an officer of the law”. This is not the same as saying “I’m a police object, think of me as Robocop”.
So I agree with DM that a woman dressing sexually aggressively is sending the message “in this situation think of me primarily as a sexual being” what I fail to see is why this means one should think of her as “merely an instrument (object) towards one’s sexual pleasure” [wikipedia definition of sexual object].
Sex is not the same as sexism, and sexual desire is not the same as sexual objectification. I assume you all are attracted to your partners but this doesn’t mean you think of them merely as sex objects.
@DM- plunging necklines are handy for breastfeeding.
And no, you don’t ‘have’ to look. Really.
BUT I will readily grant that clothing is a form of communication and we’re a social species- so I agree “I do it for myself” is a bit nonsensical in many cases.
That said, consider what the research tells us (e.g. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111110142100.htm). Seeing more bare skin encourages us to perceive the person as more sensitive to harm and thus be more protective of them. Isn’t it possible that some people ( women, in most cases) are indeed trying to induce thoughts… thoughts of protectiveness or thoughts of relative lack of agency? And can you think of any reason at all women in our society might want to induce these thoughts as a form of self-protection?
Diverging view-One cannot objectify oneself, and I no more built a strawman than you did by comparing us to religious conservatives.
However, you’re perfectly right that, in my ideal anti-kyriarchical society, there’d be no problem with soft porn. For that matter, in THIS society, pornography that at least makes an effort (such as Jincy Lumpkin’s work) exists, and is available for the discerning consumer. Sadly, they cannot pay for science articles as well as Playboy can (