Are the Playboy stationery and online social network purely innocent, or do they represent cynical manipulation of young girls, asks Fionola Meredith
With its perky ears and jaunty bow-tie, it's easy to see why the famous Playboy bunny appeals to young girls. And it becomes even more desirable when the logo adorns a pink and white chequered pencil, complete with a tempting little pendant dangling on a silver chain, or a trio of rubbers nestling like sweets in their own pink tin. As parents rush to the shops to grab all the last-minute school necessities, it's these Playboy items that their daughters are clamouring for, abandoning Winnie the Pooh and Disney in favour of the expressionless rabbit.
And although Playboy stationery is a familiar sight on the shelves now, it's still vaguely shocking to witness a pig-tailed seven-year-old proudly clutching her newly purchased pencil-case, emblazoned with the logo of an American softcore porn magazine.
What's going on here? Is our culture now so thoroughly saturated with the imagery and symbolism of porn that we have become blithely indifferent to its presence? Or are we practising a form of convenient consumer blindness, insisting on taking the cute rabbit logo at face value, dissociated from its tawdry origins? Either way, Anthony, a father from Waterford, has had enough. When he walked into his local toyshop to buy school supplies for his daughters, aged six and eight, he was dismayed to see the Playboy products on sale. And he wasn't impressed by the sales assistant's response to his concern: "It's only a bunny, lighten up!" was the initial reply, followed by "the children don't know what it means".
Anthony believes toy shops should abandon this disingenuous approach and start being upfront about the nature of the goods they are selling. He says: "I'm not in favour of censorship, but I think shops should tell the whole story and say that they think it is acceptable to support the adult entertainment industry supply chain and manipulate children in this way. Yes, it's only a bunny, but the associations children make in their early years are crucial, and the introduction to the brand at this age with parental approval can serve only the porn industry's bottom line in the long run. The bunny pencil wears out, but what happens to the pendant? It is placed on a chain and goes around a little girl's neck - Playboy now has a customer for life."
HUGH HEFNER, THE sprightly, pyjama-wearing, octogenarian founder of Playboy, chose the rabbit as the magazine's mascot because, he said, "it has a sexual meaning . . . it's a fresh animal, shy, vivacious, jumping - sexy". But while the magazine itself has been losing money and readers for years, Playboy Enterprises Inc - a vast empire of casinos, nightclubs, clothes and, yes, stationery - is benefiting from a global renaissance. Run by Hefner's daughter Christie since 1981, the latest venture from Playboy Enterprisesis the launch of Playboy U, a social networking site in the style of Facebook or MySpace, with the irresistible slogan: "Join our student body".
Playboy U claims to be an "exclusive, college-only, non-nude" site where you can "show your school pride, connect with other students and celebrate the social side of college". Enrolment is by invitation only, and executives hope that the site will help build brand loyalty among young consumers. "This is one brand that is relevant to 18 through 81-year-olds," enthused Scott Stephen, executive vice president of operations for Playboy's entertainment division. "We're looking at this as a way to introduce and escort someone through their adult life."
Sceptics in the US believe that while the site is private and non-nude at the moment, it's in essence a ploy to get college-age women naked for Playboy. One disgruntled American college student left this message on the site: "Just what women at my school need: more messages telling them that fitting one old man's idea of what is sexy is what we should strive for, and there's no better power we can achieve than making men horny . . . It used to be that guys would have a couple of Playboy magazines hidden in their mattresses, which was all fine and dandy, but now women are expected to love Playboy too, buy all the shirts and accessories, take pole-dancing classes, and alter everything from their lips to their labia so they can look like the Bunnies."
AILBHE SMYTH, DIRECTOR of the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre at UCD, asks: "What woman in her right mind would want to join a site like this? Women have always been devoured by Playboy." And she isn't at all convinced by Playboy's protestations that the site is merely concerned with innocuous user-generated content about relationships, student life, social responsibility and pop culture. "What Playboy says about it is irrelevant; people read the brand precisely as being about playing with highly sexualised images of women. I think it's time for the boys to get some new toys".
Fashion photographer Gavin Millar (22) isn't at all keen on the idea of Playboy U either - but for very different reasons. "This site looks awful: it must have been dreamed up by some middle-aged know-nothing. An invitation-only social networking site - what kind of contradiction is that? The thing is, Playboy is such a quality, iconic brand, people should be coming to them to appear in the magazine, not the other way around . . . It shouldn't even be a blip on Playboy's radar. Instead of pathetically involving themselves with this kind of thing, they should be sitting around in silk robes, drinking Chianti."
You don't need to be a semiologist to recognise that the ostensibly bland Playboy logo is loaded with all sorts of suggestive meanings. The brand's cross-gender, cross- generational reach means it's now just a frisky lapine hop from a pre-teen Playboy pencil case to post-teen Playboy social networking - and beyond.