Just what we don't need...digital women as pinups

The Associated Press recently reported that Playboy will be featuring (female) video game characters as pinups:

Playboy is taking a chance on silicon instead of silicone. The October issue of the men's magazine features several video game characters posing in the nude -- images created by the game companies through detailed computer illustration.

"Hopefully, the purists won't get too bent out of shape. This is just the next version of the pinup," said Playboy senior editor Scott Alexander, who developed the project.
The computerized models are part of the magazine's video game preview, titled "Gaming Grows Up." The five-page section starts with a topless image of the half-vampire, half-human title character from "BloodRayne," a leather-clad woman who fights with 3-foot blades attached to her arms...Digital women could become a regular feature if readers approve.

Now, we at The Thinking Woman are firm supporters of the freedom of the press. But this goes too far.

We can argue that digital pinups already exist. It's widely known that Playboy has been using air brushing for years to bring perfection to their pinups. But air brushing, digital enhancement and other techniques are commonly used in many publications to make models and celebrities alike look "perfect." So why not take it one step further, and eliminate the real person? Just create the impossibly ideal woman -- don't forget the weaponry! -- and fantasize about her, instead.

Of course, Playboy for years has been publishing erotic drawings and paintings. But here's the difference: A picture stays a picture, and remains a piece of paper. A digital person can be animated to move, talk, and live in such a realistic world that they can become as real a character as any created by an actor on film.

Let's be realistic. A large portion of Playboy's readership is under age 18. Do we really want our sons thinking this is an achievable norm? It puts even more pressure on our daughters, in a society already unhealthily fixated on appearence, to try to achieve an impossible-for-most body image.

At a time in life when boys and girls should be developing relationship skills, they do not need to have the additional pressure of competing with a fantasy woman.