Okay, now I KNOW the world is ending. Playboy and I actually agree on whether or not a man should catcall a woman.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Other than this particular infographic, I haven’t interacted with anything Playboy has put out since my good friends helped me kick a pornography addiction when I was a senior in highschool (class of 2005), so I have no way of knowing (nor have any desire to investigate) whether this infographic is indicative of a change in Playboy’s culture or simply an anomaly — the exception that proves the rule of their culture.
That in mind…
Here’s the scoop:
In an infographic entitled Should You Catcall Her? that’s making the rounds of the internet, Playboy is… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they’re actually giving some dignity back to the women they’ve habitually objectified all of these years. Now granted, they still have their objectifying silhouettes in the infographic, but the content actually affirms what I’ve said for years:
There are only TWO kinds of people I catcall and only in TWO specific instances:
- My bride. In private. Because she has given me permission to do so.
- My best friends who are all straight men. In public. Because it’s an inside joke that makes them laugh every time and gets strangers to raise eyebrows and start good conversations about catcalling. It’s a sort of meta-catcall. These best friends are people like Mark Neuenschwander, Colby Williams, and Dr. T.A. Giltner.
That’s it.
Those are the only two instances in which a catcall gives anyone in my life any form of dignity.
In their weird, culturally savvy-yet-almost-offensive flowchart, Playboy basically says the same thing about whether you should catcall her:
Yup. End times have officially arrived.
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