IN THE year since Playboy was launched here, it has become the largest selling glossy magazine in the State. Forty per cent of its sales in these islands are in the Irish Republic. Which suggests what? That Playboy magazine is particularly strong in its editorial coverage of Ireland, or that its intellectual brilliance appeals to the average Irish reader? Or is it something else?
As for theory one, a Playboy interview with Gerry Adams a couple of years ago was so badly researched that our Gerry must be kicking himself that he didn't say that the British gassed innocent Catholics in death camps in Occupied Connemara, that the RAF nightly napalmed Irish ghettos in Ipswich and that the Royal Navy torpedoed Irish merchantmen bound for the New World bearing refugees from the Irish potato famine. The interviewer even declared that the interview was the most hazardous assignment he had ever undertaken. By God, Sir. There's courage. A rare plucked un, and no mistake. So, rule out theory one.
Liberals' Agenda
Playboy is silly to a degree, but generally its heart is in the right place - for example, it deplores capital punishment, though its agenda is based on the cerebrally thin, standard sports car, aftershave flavoured, Rolex wearing aspirations of Young American White Males. And the real heart of that YAWM aspiration is sex.
Boom. There goes the anti handling device. Sex. For when we don't feel guilt about sex, we've always got somebody to tell us we should be feeling guilt.
Our former sexual superintendents wore dog collars and wimples, but now their power is exploded; our new morality prefects are all decked out in the authoritarian attire of liberal feminism, and there are few more intolerant and illiberal creatures than right minded Irish liberals, who hate the free expression of views they disapprove of. Yet bizarrely, their agenda is the reason why Playboy is selling so well in Ireland. Because the morality prefects have outlawed the opposition, as indeed, they outlawed Playboy until a certain journalist began a campaign to get the thing unbanned; for it was so very, very harmless.
Its success since then shows that there is a huge market in Ireland for photographs of naked women. Is this unusual? No, it is not. Men like to see "pictures of naked women, either because they look food - they would look better without the revolting airbrushing and pubic hair topiary which Playboy goes in for - or for straightforward sexual arousal. And this is where our morality prefects get restless and reach for the Censorship Laws so that they can unleash their banning instincts.
Normal Pleasures
Excuse me, but what is so wrong about sexual arousal? Is it not recognised as a perfectly normal pleasure just about everywhere in the western world, and not necessarily in the company of anybody else? American studies indicate that 70 per cent of women and 90 per cent of men admit they do not necessarily wait for a companion to enjoy sexual pleasure. Is this wrong? If so why? And if something makes that sexual pleasure more possible, is that wrong? The women who pose for sex magazines are adults - adults, I daresay, who belong to the 70 per cent category, but adults unquestionably. They know they have fine young bodies, and they know that men - and some women - will find their bodies sexually arousing. So where is the fault in that?
But our morality prefects stamp their feet and cry, What about the sexual exploitation involved? What about the degradation? What about the reduction of the women concerned to sex objects? What if children see them? What about sex crimes? First question. Sorry, what exploitation? These women know what they are doing, and freely do it, but they don't do it for free. They get paid. That's the deal.
Second question. What degradation? Why is it degrading to be photographed nude? Why is it degrading to be a sexual fantasy? And why should not women or men - choose to be photographed in ways other people might dislike? Liberal feminists might deplore this. Ah well. What a shame.
Next question. What, precisely, is wrong about being a sex object? Is that not an intensely human thing to be? Only humans elevate other humans to iconic states, and some icons, like Madonna, who began her career by posing for extremely intimate nude photographs, revel in that state. That's okay. Other humans become sports icons. I wish to know precisely nothing about the home lives or emotions of the Irish rugby players. I just want to watch them play for Ireland, thank you.
Third question. Laws for dulls cannot be framed with children in mind. Adults drive cars and drink whiskey and fly aeroplanes. Of course children should not see sex magazines. Nor run power stations.
Rape Question
Finally, rape. Like lots of men, rapists indulge in pornography, but that doesn't make them rapists. Rape makes them rapists. Non violent men are not converted into violent men by photographs of naked women.
Behind all this, there is the truth that many of our morality prefects think it is quite wicked in some unspecific way that men - and some women - find women's bodies sexually arousing. My advice is: go and see a psychiatrist. You have problems. Just don't write your problems into the laws of the land.
Created Monopoly
These morality prefects have created a monopoly for Playboy. Its rivals are banned by the absurd and nannyistic censorship laws. You don't have to like these magazines; You probably won't. Irrelevant. They are made for adults by adults. Who is to say what free and consenting adults may or may not do? Nobody has to buy or sell these magazines. It's all connected with a grown up concept called freedom.
The effect of our one sided censorship laws has meant that Playboy Enterprises probably cleared a couple of million pounds in profit in Ireland in the past year. The century draws on. It is time to let Irish grown ups be grown up. Happy Birthday, Playboy. Now it's, time to end your monopoly.