The XX Factor: What women really think.

Marge Simpson As Playboy Covergirl? Surely We Can Do Better.

Poor Ariel. She’s got the lusty red hair, but it’s tough to make the cover of Playboy without hot legs. (They’re required for more than just running, dancing, it seems.) She, and many equally deserving characters, were beat to the honor of being the first animated Playboy cover girl by none other than Marge Simpson, who poses coyly on the front of the November issue ... (Read more in DoubleX.)

When The Joke's On Women

Yesterday, Playboy.com posted a provocative story: "So Right It's Wrong." The piece was written by Guy Cimbalo, and its premise was to target those conservative women that he would like to, as he put it, "hate fuck." But if you click on that Playboy.com link, you'll find the piece is no longer there. And that's because the blogosphere went crazy after Playboy published it, going so far as to call for a boycott, and Playboy pulled it.

If you want to read the piece in full, conservative blogger Caleb Howe has reproduced it... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

Bogus Recession Trend Watch: "Curvy" Is In!

There's a probably-BS trend story on the ABC News Web site about how Kate Moss' recent weight gain is potentially heralding a trend in the modeling industry of "healthier looking models." Though Moss is undeniably a trendsetter, I find it hard to believe that her newly higher BMI is going to affect the entire industry. Moss denied that she was pregnant in the recent spring fashion issue of New York Magazine, and yet tabloids are still insisting that Kate is up the stick, because these magazines still cling to the idea that a woman couldn't possibly gain a few pounds by choice unless she is incubating a human.

It reminds me of another dubious trend story that made the Internet rounds last fall. Econometricians went through the Playboy archives and claimed that during times of economic crisis, men like their women taller and heavier because of the Playmates chosen. At least every other month, women's magazines insist that the "super skinny" trend is out and that women with "curves" are back in, and yet models and actresses have shrunk considerably in the past 15 years and don't show any sign of thickening. (See the entire female cast of Friends, circa 1994 for solid evidence.) As Willa pointed out yesterday in her apt analysis of the enduring popularity of crap TV, trend writers will be trying to pin America's preferences in basically every area on the new recession. The rise of the "curvy" model is no exception. It's always been my hunch—and this is not an original thesis—that the very very skinny trend came in just as women were really making strides in the workplace, and the obsession with weight is just a way to continue to keep them down. Sure you can be a CEO, but can you do it on 1,200 calories a day?

The Demise of Playboy

For five years, I worked for Playboy Enterprises. I worked for the cable TV end of the business, but Playboy is like an octopus, its tentacles flailing everywhere, so we were all privy to the inner-workings of what was already a financially struggling company. On the inside, everybody knew the trouble was Hef. While he was proudly taking Viagra to support his love life, he had less to work with when it came to making savvy business decisions for one of the world's most recognized brands. Yesterday, his daughter Christie announced she would be stepping down from her position as Playboy's CEO, a job she's held for the last 20 years. Subscriptions are down, the stock is falling, and the outlook is grim. At this point, it's hard to know who or what's responsible for sending Playboy down the tubes: the rise of adult content on the Internet that rendered Playboy a soft-core throwback to bygone days; Hef's staunch refusal to let the Playboy aesthetic change from his original vision of it in the 50's; or self-described feminist Christie's inability to capitalize on a titillating brand that couldn't compete in today's market, amidst the Pink Tacos and the Hooters. Regardless, it looks like porn has won the sexual revolution that Playboy helped spawn.