What's the difference between a Hooters and a Playboy Club? (And porn, and prostitution?) [View All]

One is considered a family restaurant, and the other is considered a nightclub for adults.

But when you get right down to the branding, the logos, the image, the commercial identity, both use the same "hook" -- women's bodies, as entertainment and as a brand.

Some want to claim that both are really about the menus -- "great wings!" -- and that the commercial use of women's bodies has absolutely *nothing* to do with it. It's just about food. You can't get food anything like what's served at Hooter's and Playboy Clubs ANYwhere else -- it's rare cuisine!

Some have pointed out that you can see the same body parts at the beach, the pool, the gym, etc. (in arguing that Hooters is a fine family place). That's right, you can! That shows that it isn't about "seeing body parts" alone. After all, you don't see much more at a Playboy Club than you do at a Hooter's. So it isn't about what's worn, it's about the context.

How are the contexts different? In my view, they aren't. If anything, I think Hooters is a more obnoxious chain for its "mainstream, family, healthy and wholesome" guise. I don't think it could have existed a few decades ago, which goes to show the effectiveness of the backlash against the women's movement; and I hope it goes the way of Little Black Sambo's restaurants in my lifetime, but I'm not encouraged.

To pre-empt the usual arguments: Do both chains have a right to exist? Of course. Should the government shut them down? Of course not. Am I a "jealous prude hostile to sexuality etc. etc.?" Far from it. What I wish is that the culture would become enlightened enough to make places like Hooters first, and Playboy Clubs second, irrelevant and reviled, as happened to Sambo's.

With Sambo's, the confederate flag, and the civil rights movement in general, there have been many claims (continuing even now) that opponents were just "over-reacting," that it's not actually "offensive" if that isn't the intent, that people who take offense have personal problems, etc. Similarly with women's issues -- it's "poutrage," it's being uptight, and if *I* am not personally offended by it, nobody else should be -- so "lighten up."

Well, just as white people don't know what the black experience is, and need to listen in order to learn, so men don't know what women's experience is, and need to listen to learn. (NB: There are many enlightened men, and many unenlightened women.)

Some want to make the debate about criticism of the women who work at these places, but they aren't the point, and I don't criticize them. That is how this relates to porn and prostitution. Individual women have the choice to do what they want within the culture as it is -- I would never deny them that. But consciousness about the culture, as it is, is important to the equation, and a big step in evolving beyond it.

Porn, like Hooter's and Playboy Clubs, commercializes women's bodies, BUT it is largely (not entirely) hidden -- the cultural message is that it's private ("adult").

Prostitution, in my view, is completely different from these enterprises. In prostitution, individual adult women could have the potential to be their own enterprises, to control their choices independently --in private contracts between consenting adults -- with no mass exploitation or commercial messaging. Yet THAT is illegal.

So back to my question: What is the difference between a Hooters and a Playboy Club?