Samantha Berg wrote about the free pass Playboy got in 2004.

I attended Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Club Tour when it stopped by McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom because as a feminist writer I knew I wanted to do some sort of story around the event. What I encountered there was nothing unexpected; almost wholly white and young male attendees taking many pictures of the far outnumbered “bunnies” and female attendees.

Coverage of the event by Portland’s alternormal media was similarly predictable with lots of nudge nudge wink wink praise of the fifty year history selling subordinate female sexuality to male consumers and talk about how tasteful Playboy’s porn is compared to other types. Neither conservative nor liberal media had a bad word to say about Playboy Magazine and its influence on the not-so-tasteful porny saturation of American culture in 2004.

Smoking jacket. Brandy. Jazz in the background. Move along, nothing to see here.

For decades Playboy Magazine has published child pornography and incest materials which could cause “copy-cat” crimes, wherein consumers criminally act out sadosexual and child abuse scenarios. This is not my declaration, but the ruling of an Amsterdam court in 1994 which defended these statements made on a Dutch television station. When the station reported on a study by the U.S Department of Justice and said Playboy was facilitating child sexual abuse and incest en masse, Playboy Inc. sued for libel and defamation. Presented with the evidence of photographs, illustrations, cartoons, letters, and stories depicting positive portrayals of sex between adults and children as well as incest, the court ruled against Playboy in a case widely reported in the Netherlands but conspicuously unreported in the United States.

National pride.

The September 1988 issue of Playboy Magazine featured the article “The Child-Pornography Myth” by American lawyer Lawrence Stanley in which the harms of child sexual exploitation are downplayed as baseless hysteria. Playboy editors neglected to inform readers the article originally appeared in Paidika,The Journal of Paedophilia, and that Stanley specialized in defending people accused of child pornography. He was also affiliated with Uncommon Desires, a pedophile newsletter calling itself “the voice of a politically conscious girl-love underground.”

One year after his article appeared in Playboy, Stanley was accused of conspiring with photographer Don Marcus to import child pornography into Canada. Marcus is still a wanted fugitive and Stanley was acquitted on his lawyer’s claim that he did not know the suitcase he picked up from Marcus contained child pornography. Two years after his Playboy Magazine article Stanley was charged with “sexual aggression” against a girl in Quebec but Canadian officials never sought extradition.

Ah don’t worry about it, little girls love acting in porn movies.

There are numerous examples to draw from when making the argument that Playboy Magazine has often spread false information to advance its “sexual liberation” agenda. My intent is to open up the question among liberals as to why there is an almost complete lack of media criticism aimed at one of the most widely circulated magazines in the world despite evidence of misinformation and biased “expert” writers.

The complete record on Playboy Magazine’s unethical journalistic standards and role in facilitating child sexual assaults remains to be written as the will to investigate Playboy Magazine and other widely circulated porn publications remains curiously absent from the largest progressive media watchdog groups. Surely it is not at cross purposes with the First Amendment to honestly review and critique the content of pornographic magazines, and such self-imposed censorship by liberals does a disservice to the basic tenets of free speech.

There are also many rape cartoons.