To the Editor:
I guess it's time to make a new batch of "I was Misquoted in the D" buttons for general distribution. In this case, however, I think I need an "I was Misparaphrased in the D" button.
I never decried and do not now decry Playboy's mission to liberate men from marriage and the breadwinner ethic. If men think of themselves as "enslaved" by marriage and the breadwinner ethic, as Hugh Hefner long ago asserted they are in "The Playboy Philosophy" (Bob Norman [aka Burt Zollo and Hugh Hefner] PLAYBOY, December, 1953), then it might be a good idea to ask how publishing and using pictures of nude women enables that liberation. Both marriage and the breadwinner ethic (on these concepts, see Babara Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men, 1983) are largely men's inventions that have long served what are thought to be principally men's needs (see, for example Milton's Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 1643 and Paradise Lost 1674, books 4 & 8). If men desire liberation from these oppressive ideologies, then they ought to consider more effective methods than those encouraged by Playboy's autoerotic equipment. In short, women are not really the problem here, so why focus (or soft-focus) on them?
