Playboy's got a new site that catalogs 53 of its old issues, running all the way back to the early '60s.I recommend you visit, if only to run Kansas City through the search engine. It's a great way to see how the national erotic arts community has viewed our town over the decades. It's not always good, but it is interesting.
Some of the best stuff shows up in the letters sections. In 1963, then-City Councilor Keith Wilson Jr. wrote in to express support for the magazine in a civil-liberties suit centering on a story about Jayne Mansfield. This prompts the letters department to respond, "Everything is apparently more up to date in Kansas City than the title of that famous song suggests. We envy Kansas City its enlightened city councilor." This saddens me, because I can't imagine any of today's local politicians writing Playboy to make a public, reasoned statement about obscenity laws in relation to adult entertainment.
But we weren't always so cool. My favorite so far is a 1988 Forum article titled "Kansas City Con: A high-powered antiporn blitz makes a farce of the truth." The story shreds the National Coalition Against Pornography, which had recently opened a local KC office. Headed by former KC Chief of Police and former FBI Director Clarence Kelly, the movement began an aggressive campaign called Stand Together Opposing Pornography. The STOP campaign leaned on the usual bullshit that we have to deal with every 10 years or so, sending out mailers to support sexual purity laws lest every women and child be gang-raped in the streets, ignoring that even the Reagan-era Meese Commission on Pornography failed to find any evidence that nudie books caused violence
The story laments that the churches most willing to protect women and children by banning adult bookstores "had neglected such positive actions as supporting sex education in the public schools, reproductive freedom for women, shelters for battered women, women's ordination and using inclusive language in church." It's a shame we haven't made much progress in 20 years.
Browse around for yourself. If you know any of the people writing to Playboy in the 1960s, or getting quoted in feature articles, drop me a line. I'd love to know what you guys think of today's antiporn crusaders.
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