...The Friday Forum questions will appear on Monday with Sunday Brunch... I really wanted to address this now, while it's fresh in my mind.

Recently I've been watching a conversation somewhere about a former teen pop star who got undressed for the cameras at Playboy. No, we're not talking Tiffany, but instead squeaky clean All-American cheerleader Debbie Gibson. She probably doesn't need to ever work again in her life, but she decided to do this spread (no pun intended).

Let me start off by saying this: I've not seen the pictoral in question, and probably won't, but I *have* seen Playboy in the past...

There are a bunch of people (all over the 'net) who are a little bit disturbed by the fact that she posed for Playboy. I think it's the nudity aspect coming from someone who was so clean and wholesome. I think it's because they have to assign the negativity of the word "porn" to it. Playboy, after all, is porn.

In what universe? Ok, maybe it's porn under the standard defintion of pornography (from dictionary.com): 1. Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal. 2. The presentation or production of this material. With that definition, Playboy is porn, but it's definitely of the soft variety.

It's also of the classy variety. It's not Penthouse or Hustler (that magazine is just NA-STY). It doesn't have the smutty almost undressed qualities that you see in Stuff or FHM. There is soft lighting, there is good makeup, there is tasteful peek-a-boo lingerie in Playboy. Yes, there are erotic poses too, but for some reason it comes off very nicely and very *clean*.

What I don't get about all of this is why folks are in an uproar about Debbie Gibson posing. Why is it that people get themselves all worked up about a celebrity posing in the nude? Women do it every day for multiple magazines (and films) and no one raises an eyebrow until a celebrity that people hold to a certain standard does it. Why is that? Is it that they think the whole world is going down the pipes if someone breaks the mold that they've been placed in by the media and marketing surrounding them? And if you don't think that 95% of a celebrity's image isn't controlled by the marketing folks that they've hired, you're deluding yourself. There are exceptions to this rule of course, Michael Jackson comes to mind, but that's not the point of this.

Where's all the uproar about men posing in the nude? Why aren't we having some sort of active dicussion about the men who appear in Playgirl? Oh yes, that publication is still around - and even featuring OLDER men in the buff. Yet, no one really seems to care about that. It's all about the women in porn. And I guess there's a mindset out there that pictures of naked (or almost naked) women are sexier than pictures of naked (or almost naked) men and are more worth getting all worked up over.

I apologize for the ramble and that there's no conclusive point to this, other than to state a few things that are on my mind. I just don't get it - female celebrities are posing nude, and we're not seeing male celebrities do that (or we're not hearing about it) and everyone gets worked up over the women baring it all. But women do that every day - magazines, music videos, porn movies. If they do it voluntarily, is it truly exploitation of that particular woman? I don't think so, but I do get that it conveys the sex-ploitation of women in general is acceptable. It's not. Neither is the sex-ploitation of men, even though that's at a much smaller piece of the demographic than it is for women. *sigh*

End all, be all, it still goes to show that sex sells - after all, Playboy has got us talking about them once again... smart marketing team.