Empowering?

Sure, she's hot, but she doesn't really get it.

In surfing Feministing today I noticed a post about bikini model Joanna Krupa posing for Playboy magazine. The article the post was written about is on the Fox News website which wasn't surprising to me at all for various reasons, but that's a different story altogether. The article was based on Krupa's anti-feminist comments in response to the photo shoot. She said

“I think [feminists] suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision. How many of those self-important, so-called ‘feminists’ have been on the set when a celebrity shot a Playboy spread? There you go. What is feminist about discriminating a photo shoot just because it involves female (partial) nudity that happens to give men pleasure? Pathetic.”

She goes on to argue that posing nude is an empowering experience that "self righteous feminists" can't appreciate because of their "tunnel vision." Well, I argue that this is not necessarily true. I personally believe that, sure, posing for Playboy probably is an empowering experience, but as Feministing points out, that experience is only allowed to a very few women with very particular body types and overall looks. Now as we know, I am certainly pro-pornography as far as the feminist movement, but mainstream pornography and Playboy don't really allow for an honest depiction of women. They both tend to feature surgically enhanced models with enough makeup to make them unrecognizable. This just encourages pornographic material made by men simply for male satisfaction. And it's not to say that I believe men shouldn't be allowed pleasure. If women deserve it, so do men. My issue stems from the fact that Playboy only caters to male pleasure. The photo shoot process doesn't even allow for feminine sexual liberation. Sure, the model gets to expose herself, but she is directed by men. And if the process is liberating, it certainly has no level of sexual gratification for the model.

Playboy and mainstream pornography are going to be what they are because that's what men want, but seriously, it's time we give women what they want when it comes to both getting naked in front of the camera and viewing the final results. So Joanna, I'm glad you had fun, but just for your information, my "tunnel vision" goes a little deeper than you understand.