Christi LaneyMay 3, 2010HIS 582.01WFinal Review Essay

Carrie Pitzulo. “The Battle in Every Man’s Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 17, no. 2 (May 2008): pp. 259-289.

Joanne Meyerowitz. “Women, Cheesecake, and Borderline Material: Responses to Girlie Pictures in the Mid-Twentieth-Century U.S.” Journal of Women’s History 8, no. 3 (Fall 1996): pp. 9-35.

Whitney Strubb. “Perversion for Profit: Citizens for Decent Literature and the Arousal of an Antiporn Public in the 1960s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 15, no. 2 (May 2006): pp. 258-291.

As the women’s movement exploded during second-wave feminism, the variety of

interests and the range of issues tackled by feminists grew dramatically, expanding to include not

only arenas such as political equality and economic freedom, but also sexuality and women’s

rights in the bedroom. With more issues on their agenda, the problem of pornography rose to

prominence within the women’s movement during the middle of the 20th century and created a

rift among anti-censorship and anti-pornography feminists.

In each of their articles, Pitzulo, Meyerowitz, and Strubb explore these two disparate

reactions to pornography within the women’s movement and explain how each viewpoint came

to represent a significant portion of the movement, eventually tearing feminists apart from one

another on the issue. Each author portrays the struggle over pornography as a divisive issue

among second-wave feminists and highlights the variety of attitudes and interests represented

within the women’s movement.

Joanne Meyerowitz presents the clearest picture of the conflict between some feminists

and the rise of pornography in mainstream society in her article about the mass-marketing of the

female body. Giving equal credit to both sides of the spectrum, she argues that “as sexual images

of women multiplied in the popular culture, women participated actively in constructing

arguments to endorse as well as protest them.”1 While men constituted the majority of the

intended audience of the mass-marketed female body, women also entered the debate on varying

levels from outright opponents to ardent supporters and even consumers of the material in

question.

Meyerowitz’s article is unique in that she presents the conflict over not just hard-core

pornography, but also over the public presentation of the female body in general. She illustrates

that feminists not only argued over explicitly pornographic material, they also differed in their

attitudes toward the use of the female body in a commercial capacity. From respectable

“cheesecake material,” such as women in sexually-suggestive positions in advertisements, to

borderline material, which pushed the boundary between respectability and pornography, women

were divided from the start. For example, when the pin-up girl became a popular commodity for

foreign troops during World War II, many women saw the pictures as degrading and obscene

while others thought the women in the photos were beautiful and served a patriotic purpose for

boosting the morale of the troops. Similarly, the rise of magazines such as Playboy and Esquire

led to embittered debates between women who sensed that their gender was being objectified and

others who felt that “pictures of semi-clad women represented a progressive change from a

repressive past.”2

While women argued over the positives and negatives of the mass-marketed use of the

female body, Meyerowitz argues that they also participated in the consumption of those images

and contributed to the shaping of a sexual meanings in an increasingly “sexualized society.”3

Some women only saw the commercialization of sexuality in the advertisements in their Ladies 1 Joanne Meyerowitz. “Women, Cheesecake, and Borderline Material: Responses to Girlie Pictures in the Mid-Twentieth-Century U.S.” Journal of Women’s History, 8, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 9.2 Ibid, 16.3 Ibid, 15.

Home Journal while others viewed the more controversial side of mass-marketed sex in

magazines such as Esquire and Playboy. Either way, however, they used these experiences to

develop their own ideas of what is and is not acceptable, leading to a variety of interpretations of

cheesecake, borderline material, and pornography. This ideological split resulted in a lasting

disagreement over “whether cheesecake and borderline material (and the women who posed for

pictures) empowered or embarrassed them.”4

In her article on the public battle between the Playboy empire and radical feminists,

Carrie Pitzulo provides an illustration of the battle between anti-porn and anti-censorship

feminists depicted by Meyerowitz. Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, built his empire on a

magazine and a system of night clubs that depended heavily on the transformation of the role of

sexuality in American society during the 1950s and 1960s. Pitzulo argues that while Hefner and

his various business ventures supported feminism to a degree, the economic interests needed to

sustain his empire prevented Hefner from supporting all forms of feminism. “Ideologically, the

hedonism central to the Playboy lifestyle would not have been possible without women free to

live and love as they liked.”5 This put Hefner at odds with radical feminists, who often rejected

the heterosexuality and traditional femininity prominently displayed in the pages of Playboy

magazine.

As second-wave feminism gained steam in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Playboy

provided women and men with a legitimate forum for discussion and analysis of the women’s

movement. Pitzulo points to the magazine as an agenda-setting entity that “offered America

more than just pictures of naked women. The magazine hosted important discussions about

4 Joanne Meyerowitz. “Women, Cheesecake, and Borderline Material: Responses to Girlie Pictures in the Mid-Twentieth-Century U.S.” Journal of Women’s History, 8, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 26.5 Carrie Pitzulo. “The Battle in Every Man’s Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 17, no. 2 (May 2008): 260.

women’s liberation.”6 Issues such as abortion, reproductive rights, and the sexual double

standard served as hot topics in the pages of Playboy long before they reached the forefront of

mainstream discussions. In addition to letters columns, the magazine also included various

articles on the topic of women’s liberation, including articles by Cosmopolitan editor Helen

Gurley Brown and writer/activist Germaine Greer. These articles, coupled with the outright

declaration of support for feminism published in the magazine by Hefner, portrayed the Playboy

empire as strongly in support of women’s liberation, including women’s right to an abortion,

birth control, and freedom from sexual oppression.

Yet for many feminists, the attention paid to women’s liberation could not make up for

the obvious contradiction of the pictures portrayed within Playboy. Hefner found himself “a

consistent target of protests and picketers” as women battled not only each other, but also the sex

industry itself over the role of pornography in the women’s movement.7 Anti-pornography

feminists felt that the magazine sent a contradictory message by declaring its support for

feminism while continuing to perpetuate the objectification and degradation of women through

its photographs.

Keeping these opposing perspectives in view, Pitzulo illustrates how “Playboy balanced

precariously between legitimate support for liberal feminism and hysteria over the challenge

posed by more militant feminists.”8 While Hefner could safely support women’s liberation issues

such as abortion and birth control, the more radical issues of homosexuality and expanded

definitions of beauty threatened to topple his empire. In various columns, memos, and personal

correspondence, Hefner consistently promoted the expansion of women’s rights in the areas that

would most benefit his business ventures while rejecting the more radical forms of feminism. 6 Carrie Pitzulo. “The Battle in Every Man’s Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 17, no. 2 (May 2008): 260.7 Ibid, 264.8 Ibid, 263.

Through The Playboy Foundation, he put his money where his mouth was by donating thousands

of dollars to abortions rights groups and other similar women’s liberation organizations.

The money train stopped short, however, for members of what Hefner dubbed “the

superfeminist movement.”9 These radical feminists, such as the Redstockings and members of

Cell-16, represented a threat on the heterosexuality and traditionally feminine characteristics that

proliferated in the pages of Playboy. While Hefner supported expanded rights for women, “he

wanted women to look like women (according to the playmate standard), and he wanted men to

continue to have the traditional thrill of the sexual chase.”10 So long as radical feminism existed,

these foundations of the Playboy empire were at risk.

Despite the dichotomy of Hefner’s support for some forms of feminism and his rejection

of others, Playboy “nonetheless contributed to the cultural negotiation of newly emerging

femininities” and “served as a progressive channel of debate over women’s liberation.”11 While

many Americans were just waking up to the issue of The Pill and the problem with illegal

abortions, Hefner and his magazine were already educating the public on women’s liberation and

illustrating the various responses and competing visions it created.

On the flipside, members of the Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL) would most likely

have argued against Pitzulo’s portrayal of Playboy as a legitimate forum for women’s liberation.

In her article on the anti-pornography movement in the 1960s, Whitney Strub portrays CDL as

“the preeminent anti-obscenity group of the 1960s” and argues that the organization ”reshaped

the discourse of anti-porn activism.”12

9 Carrie Pitzulo. “The Battle in Every Man’s Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 17, no. 2 (May 2008): 270.10 Ibid, 263.11 Ibid, 288.12 Whitney Strubb. “Perversion for Profit: Citizens for Decent Literature and the Arousal of an Antiporn Public in the 1960s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 15, no. 2 (May 2006): 258, 259.

While the anti-pornography movement initially blossomed under the leadership of the

Catholic church, the American public’s distrust of Catholicism and the increasingly-militant

tactics utilized by the movement eventually led to the rejection of the Catholic anti-obscenity

efforts. Subsequently, the founder of CDL, Charles Keating, consciously chose to distance his

organization from the Catholic church and promoted CDL as “civic organization” interested in

promoting American values through the eradication of pornography.13

While CDL sided with anti-porn feminists in its stance against obscenity and the

commercialization of sexuality, the sex discrimination and gendered ideology within the

movement contradicted their public image. The guidelines for starting a local CDL chapter that

were distributed by the national headquarters stressed the importance of male leadership and

called for women members only to perform menial tasks, resulting in a “gendered leadership”

with a multitude of female members and a sweep of men at the highest levels.14 Indeed, Keating

not only encouraged sexism within the organizational structure of CDL, he also encouraged the

use of sexually-charged rhetoric in order to “create impassioned audiences whose responses

could then be channeled into enthusiastic adoption of the CDL agenda.”15 In effect, Keating

exploited the very material he purported to oppose by using sexual language and sexual imagery

to gather an audience and arousing support for his anti-pornography efforts.

While CDL members and anti-pornography feminists battled a common enemy, Strubb

illustrates the obvious discrepancies between the motives of Keating and the women’s liberation

movement. Within the movement, “men were seen as leadership material, while women served

as the faceless moral infantry units of CDL” and the obvious political and personal goals of

13 Ibid, 261.14 Ibid, 269.15 Ibid, 262.

Keating conflicted with the feminist agenda exhibited by the women’s movement.16 Despite

these differences, however, the formation of CDL and its battle against pornography supports

both Pitzulo and Meyerowitz in their portrayal of pornography as a highly divisive and

controversial topic within the women’s movement and American society as a whole.

The only thing lacking from each of these article is a clear ending to the saga. Perhaps no

clear victor has emerged from the battle over pornography because the battle is not yet over.

There is much research still to be done on the effects of the split in the women’s movement. How

may feminism have been affected by the ideological rift in the 1990s and 2000s? How does the

issue of pornography continue to divide feminists into the 21st century? These articles provide a

solid foundation for the analysis of these issues, but it will take further research and analysis to

uncover the depth and impact of the pornography split on the women’s movement in the years

following the beginning of the battle.

16 Whitney Strubb. “Perversion for Profit: Citizens for Decent Literature and the Arousal of an Antiporn Public in the 1960s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 15, no. 2 (May 2006): 269.