In a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio a third grader receives a Playboy Magazine offer in the mail! Should you ever doubt the predatory nature of pornographers, here is case in point.
The young boy is actually my son. Thankfully, my wife retrieved the mail with the enclosed offer! Usually my son gets the mail for her, but not on this day. She was so outraged that she has called and emailed whoever will listen, including Playboy Magazine.
The advertisement was provocative enough that my wife did not want even me to see it. I sat and imagined what his response would have been when he saw a half-naked woman on a piece of mail addressed to him. There are 2 responses that he would have a choice from, in my mind.
The first and ideal response would have been for him to show his mother and to have her quickly whisk the offer away. Then she would praise him for showing her and using good judgment. She’d have to explain to him the sinfulness in such magazines and how awful it was for them to send out such offers.
I image he would have looked like this had he opened the mail
The second response would have been for him to hide the offer and not tell anyone. The offer would be hidden in a secret spot and he would bring it out to ponder and look at the ad. What a dilemma it would cause for him! The photo is appealing to him, but he does not fully understand why. It also makes him feel dirty for looking at it and feeling the need to hide it.
At his age I know what I would have done – the second response. It was what I did when I found my Dad’s magazines.
I am very thankful that my wife intercepted the mail today. It seriously is getting me thinking on when and how I have to share with him about ‘the birds and the bees’. I need to start pouring into him and modeling for him the proper way to treat women – more intentionally. I need to give him respect for women so that later on when he does get exposed to pornography, he will know for certain it is wrong and will respond to it as in the first scenario above.
Parents, we have a responsibility to protect our kids and mold them into God fearing, people loving adults. Please reflect on what you would do, or would have done in this situation.
I welcome all your comments below!
I just did and internet search on “playboy offers to young boys” and this article came up. Just so you know, you are not alone. My 11 year old son just received a similar postcard in the mail. I did pick up the mail before anyone else saw it! Good thing. How in the world does playboy get the mailing addresses of minors? I am pissed.
@Wendy73
Neither my wife or I was able to get any information from playboy on where their lists come from. Our best hunch was that playboy bought the mailing list from another magazine – popular mechanics and solicited all those subscribers. We are not re-subscribing to Popular Mechanics!