America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation (8 page)

Playboy
advocated an ideal of sexually free and sophisticated bachelorhood that did not reflect the reality of most men’s

lives. But it did provide a fantasy that appealed to millions of male readers eager to imagine a respite from the burdens of breadwinning, parenting, and sexual monogamy.
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At the same time, Hefner considered himself a feminist, and promoted
Playboy—
the magazine as well as the lifestyle—as in the van- guard of the sexual revolution. A political liberal, he favored most policies promoted by mainstream feminists, and he was an early proponent of reproductive rights. In the magazine, he called for legalized abortion as early as 1965. The Playboy Foundation contributed thousands of dollars to support abor- tion rights, provided funds for child care centers for working mothers, supported the controversial research on human sexu- ality conducted by William Masters and Viginia Johnson, and donated to the American Civil Liberties Union for women’s rights.
Playboy
even had female readers. Helen Gurley Brown, author of the 1962 best seller
Sex and the Single Girl
, founded
Cosmopolitan
as a
Playboy
for women and praised Hefner for promoting the idea that “women really
are
. . . as interested in sex as men are, if not more so.”
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Hefner’s support of women’s rights, however, was limited. He scoffed at critics who claimed that
Playboy
’s centerfolds ob- jectified women. For all of Hefner’s claims to support gender equality, his magazine was hardly the place to find it. Women’s bodies were certainly portrayed in a positive light, but women’s activity outside the bedroom was viewed with considerable sus- picion. Between 1953 and 1963
Playboy
featured three major ar- ticles by the noted misogynist Philip Wylie, who coined the term “Momism” during World War II to describe women who allegedly smothered their sons with misdirected and sublimated

sexual energy, turning them into “sissies” and rendering them unfit for the masculine role of soldier. In 1962
Playboy
exam- ined this theme in a forum on the same topic, in which eight famous men offered their expertise on the matter.
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The panel of experts included eight white men and no women. Among them were noted writers, doctors, scholars, artists, and entertainers, nearly all of whom agreed that “wom- anization” was endangering America and eroding men’s right- ful place at the helm. Only Dr. Ernest Dichter saw women’s equality as inevitable, promoted not only by career opportuni- ties but also by contraception. He wrote, “Woman has become a partner in the biological sense, in the psychological sense, and also in the whole concept of family planning, professional activities. Womanization has taken place only to the extent that it has brought the modern woman up to par with the male—though there is still not 100 percent equality.” Dichter then asserted that as women gain more equality, “it’s going to be the male who will profit by it. He’s going to have a partner rather than a little doll that he has to take care of, which gives him a feeling of superiority, but in an illusory fashion.”
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In a rebuttal to Dichter,
Playboy
’s editors took Wylie’s side in the argument, as did the hipster comedian Mort Sahl, who chimed in, “The happiest chicks—the ones who are
really
ready for marriage, in a sense—are the ones who don’t try to run it and are junior partners. They have it all—by letting the guy do it all for them.” The Freudian psychoanalyst Dr. Theodor Reik got to the bottom of the issue: “What is aston- ishing to me is that women, more and more, are taking over the active roles in sex, which was not so before. The men fi-

nally will resent it. They should. It is, so to speak, in their mas- culine capacity.” In other words, with the exception of Dichter, who saw women’s emerging partnership with men as a positive development and who linked family planning to professional development, these male advocates of sexual freedom wanted to be sure that women’s sexuality would be liberated for men, but not for women themselves.
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In light of Hefner’s support for women’s reproductive rights, it is somewhat surprising that in its early years
Playboy
had little to say about contraception. From 1953 to 1959, in spite of the magazine’s focus on sexual pleasure and its center- fold photos, there was not one mention of birth control. In fact, there is no serious attention to the consequences of the sexual activity that the magazine so vigorously promoted. Gradually, the issues of fatherhood and unwed pregnancy crept into the pages of
Playboy
, but largely through humor. Three cartoons published in the early 1960s illustrate
Playboy
’s ideas about fatherhood. In one, a nurse tells a “hipster” man in a hospital waiting room, “You’re a daddy-o.” Another depicts a nurse holding a baby as the new father unbuttons the nurse’s uniform to reveal her ample breasts. The caption reads: “Just a moment, sir—you’re overly excited. . . . ” In a similar cartoon, a new father and his male buddy look through a nursery win- dow at a nurse holding twins who appear as the woman’s breasts. The new dad exclaims, “Not bad for a shot in the dark, eh, Frisby?!”
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The magazine’s editorial cartoons continued to trivialize and discourage fatherhood. One depicted a couple in a primitive tropical setting with thatched hut and palm trees, surrounded

by six children, as the wife reads a card: “Oh, my God! We’ve been invited to another fertility rite!” Another suggested the horrors of parenthood as a couple sipping tea looks up dream- ily at an image of a monstrous giant baby hovering over them, drooling and with bulging eyes, as if about to devour them.
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Unwed motherhood also provided fodder for the maga- zine’s ironic humor. Some cartoons depicted pregnant single women as brazen, such as the 1965 image of an expectant en- listed woman speaking to a military officer who has apparently just reminded her of the rules against sex with married military personnel: “Of
course
I know regulations, Larry—I’m not mar- ried.” Others suggest that single pregnancy continued to be shameful. In one cartoon, a young pregnant woman sits at the desk of a doctor, who says, “Now then, Miss Frimley, suppose you tell me a little more about this ‘friend of yours’ who is in a bit of trouble. . . . ”
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One of the more sympathetic and serious of this genre ap- peared in 1965, depicting a young couple strolling arm in arm down a tree-lined street with houses behind picket fences. They both carry schoolbooks and the young man wears an ath- letic letter sweater, suggesting they are in high school. Both look glum. The young man says, “ ‘Too young to stay out late! . . . Too young to smoke or drink. . . . Too young to go steady! . . .’ Gee, they’re sure going to be surprised when they find out you’re not too young to be pregnant!” Finally, in 1966,
Playboy
takes on the pill and single women directly in a car- toon depicting Old Mother Hubbard living in a shoe, sur- rounded by a mob of children. A young lady, presumably one of Hubbard’s offspring, strolls off on the arm of a young man

as her mother yells at her through the shoe window: “Did you remember to take your pill?”
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During the 1960s,
Playboy
became more political in its arti- cles, taking on such topics as the cold war, the hydrogen bomb, and the civil rights movement. At this time, the magazine be- came an advocate for the pill as well as a major site for panel discussions and debates about sex and contraception aired in its articles and letters to the editor. In 1964, Hefner’s regular editorial feature addressed the topic of “religion in a free soci- ety” and examined all the major religions’ attitudes toward sex- ual morality. Hefner was particularly critical of the Catholic Church for its opposition to birth control, but he expressed optimism that the pill and the population explosion might re- vise the Church’s position. His article sparked a flurry of letters to the editor. One writer clarified the Church’s position by ex- plaining the difference between various forms of birth control, articulating the circumstances in which the Church allows for contraception and even abortion (to save the woman’s life). In response,
Playboy
stated that non-Catholics are often “baffled” by the distinction between “the ‘naturalness’ of rhythm and the artificiality of oral contraception” but went on to say that the Church can make whatever distinctions it wishes, as long as it did not impose its will on others through laws limiting access to birth control.
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Playboy
also began a sustained criticism of the Catholic Church for its specific opposition to the pill. Writers advo- cated both contraception and legalized abortion as necessary for solving the problem of worldwide overpopulation. One let- ter to the editor criticized the arrest of a speaker at Boston

University who lectured on birth control and abortion. “Instead of being arrested, he deserves an award for public service.”
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Hefner himself promoted access to the pill for single women and urged that facilities such as university health ser- vices provide prescriptions. He criticized a Cleveland court for finding a woman guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for giving her underage daughter information on birth control. Hefner noted that the teen had already given birth to three illegitimate children and declared that the judge’s verdict reflected “the severe and inhumane belief that the girl should be made to pay for her sin with pregnancy.” He argued that giving the pill “to the girls who request them is in the best in- terests of the girls themselves, and that this, after all, should be the deciding factor.”
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But Hefner’s insistence that the “deciding factor” should be what is in “the best interests of the girls themselves” may have been a bit disingenuous. Soon,
Playboy
began insisting that women take the pill regardless of side effects or reservations, claiming that those who resisted the pill were neurotic, prud- ish, hostile to men, or unwilling to take responsibility for con- traception. (There was no similar insistence, however, that men should take responsibility for contraception.)
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In 1966 a woman wrote a letter to the editor complaining that
Playboy
considered the birth control pill “the panacea for the problem of unwanted pregnancies both inside and outside of marriage.” She pointed out the unknown risks of long-term use and the side effects that some women find “so bad that they cannot take the pills.”
Playboy
replied by suggesting that complaints of side effects were merely old wives’ tales: “It’s always a bit

galling when a scientific discovery threatens a long-cherished religious or moral notion.”
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Some letters to the editor appeared to be written by the edi- tors themselves, in order to provide an opportunity to respond. One allegedly female writer asked, “I am told that birth-control pills bring on many of the discomforts found in early pregnancy: sore and swollen breasts, excessive appetite and weight gain and sometimes even morning sickness. Does
Playboy
have anything to say about these disadvantages?” It is unlikely that an anony- mous woman from Long Beach, New Jersey, would write to
Playboy
, of all magazines, for advice about contraception. In their response, the editors quoted a psychiatrist who claimed, “Women will tolerate side effects . . . if they enjoy sexuality, do not perceive their husbands as being excessively sexually demanding and feel generally responsible for managing family planning.”
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With experts providing legitimacy fo r their
claims, the editors of
Playboy
embraced the pill as a key to sex- ual liberation and pleasure, especially for men. Other experts, however, claimed that men were not necessarily liberated when their sexual partners took the pill. Indeed, some authorities warned that men might experience negative side effects. Ac- cording to a psychoanalyst writing in
Redbook
, many men “see their virility in terms of what they can do
to
women. A man like that used to be able to give his wife babies—lots of them— whether she wanted them or not. But the pills take this last bit of masculinity away from him.”
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The noted psychotherapist Rollo May agreed: “Being able to get a woman pregnant is a much deeper proof of manhood

than anything else our culture has to offer.” Because women take the pill, “Men are withdrawing from sex. . . . Impotence is increasing. Men feel like drone bees.”
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Psychiatrist Andrew Ferber added to this dismal view of contemporary manhood: “The male libido depends on culture. In our culture, the ability of the man to procreate is perhaps irrevocably tied to sex drive.” Sounding one note of optimism in this otherwise grim view, a male physician opined that it may be too late for today’s middle-aged men, but younger men might be more receptive, because they are “tuned into the population problems and are minus some of their parents’ sex hangups.”
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Dr. Robert W. Kistner, the Harvard professor of obstetrics and gynecology quoted at the beginning of this chapter and a leading expert on the pill, wrote in
Ladies Home Journal
in 1969 that when the pill first became available, many expected hus- bands to rejoice because the pill would “liberate the act of love from the specter of pregnancy and release pent-up womanly passion. . . . These assumptions, unfortunately, may not be uni- versally true.” Kistner warned his female readers that some hus- bands may experience “frustration, worry, fear and occasionally impotence” when their wives take the pill and become more sexually eager. He explained that for some men, sexual arousal results from competition and conquest of a reluctant wife. Some of his female patients “complained that their husbands would become sexually aroused when they undressed before them, only to lose their desire if the wives assumed the dominant role in the sex act or became the least bit animalistic.”
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