The Playboy Microscandal [Updated]

I've posted a defense of sorts regarding the Playboy.com microscandal over Guy Cimbalo's "hate fuck" piece that was subsequently removed by the site.

"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."

Read the rest at Double X.

Update: Here is a thoughtful email response I got to my post.

You are not the sharpest pencil in the box are you? First amendment rights extend to private citizens, obviously. What took place was an exercise IN THE !ST Amendment, not a limitation of it, you stupid, silly bitch. An ignorant asshole wrote an offensive piece which should never have been published in the 1st place. It was published and place out there for people to read. A variety of people, EXERCISING THEIR 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS EXPRESSED THEIR VALID OPINIONS ON THE TRASH THAT HAD BEEN POSTED. The publisher, perhaps realizing what damage was being done to their brand, and perhaps in a bit of ex post facto exercise of good judgment, made the decision to remove what was, a pice of shit from their website. This is in no way an abridgement of anybody's 1st amendment's rights. The fact that you don't understand this, or are to fucking stupid to realize this, explains why you spend your time in the Valley writing about the pron industry; that is about the levl of your intellect...sub three digits. Now don't waste our time with furhter idiotic comments as we really can't keep oursleves from laughing all day long at such idiots like yourseld who pretned to be journalists be are really simply voyeurs with a camera. BTW, stupid cunts like you really are boring and nobody wants to hate fuck you, thats for sure.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, [redacted], whose email address is, I shit you not, [redacted].

Update 2: Ed Morrissey weighs in on Hot Air regarding my "clueless" support of "a vile piece of effluvium." I think I saw that on sale in the cheese aisle one time. Next to the Roquefort, I believe.

Update 3: More from The Week.

Double X Comes All Over Your Face

So, a long time ago now, like, last fall, a lovely person who is named Xeni Jardin sent a lovely person who is Hanna Rosin in my direction. Miss Hanna was in the process of co-creating a site that wouldn't launch until the following spring -- egads! who could wait? -- that would be a spinoff of Slate, and for the ladies.

Because life is sometimes awesome, Hanna liked me, and they decided to take me into their den of intellectual iniquity. Since I'd been trying to get on Slate since, like, 1996, or whenever it launched, this was spiffy. I've been blogging on Slate since late last year, on the XX Factor, but today saw the launch of Double X.

The site is very nice, and it's for the chicks but also the dudes, and I'll be posting there, like, every day, and I'm really happy. It feels ... fancy.

For my first post, I wrote about how we are awesome and everyone else is lame, except I dressed that sentiment up in a political hat and told it it had to talk polysyllabically, or else.

"Apparently, if you launch a website for women in 2009, the most important question is whether or not it's feminist. At least, that's what you'd think, judging by today's launch of the women-oriented website you're reading. Only, the funny thing is, I thought feminism was dead. I mean, didn't we kill it already?"

Read the rest here.

Special thank you's to Hanna and Xeni, without whom I would not exist, but would appear as a hologram of my former self.

Eventually, my Big Fat Story About Porn Valley will run on Double X. So, wait for it. A little XXX for XX.