The Playboy story.
On St. Patrick’s Day, 1972, my then-husband, Tim and I were standing in the Frolic Bar celebrating with a bunch of people when a friend of ours, Nancy Muir, came up to me and said, "Keasha, I saw your letter in Playboy! That was so cool!" And I thought, "What?? What letter?" I had completely forgotten that I written them a letter in December about an interview they ran with Germaine Greer, a leading British feminist, who was notoriously outspoken. Tim turned to me and said, "Wasn't there something kind of negative about me in that letter?" I thought, "Uh-oh. What did I say in that letter?"
We both took off in separate directions to find a drug store and buy the magazine.
What the letter said was this:
“Because of her foul mouth, my husband immediate classified Germaine Greer as another he-woman and refused to read your excellent interview. Hopefully, his negative reaction was not typical, but I have the feeling it may have been. Miss Greer’s philosophy was pragmatic and her ideals were certainly feasible, but because of her unabridged vocabulary, I probably won’t be the only one trying to convince a stubborn male that she’s not out to castrate him. And I’ve got a long way to go, baby.”
(Note: for those too young to remember, that last line was a play on “You’ve come a long way, baby…” which originated with a cigarette campaign (!) and caught on during the feminist movement of the ‘70s.)
The reason I always refer to this incident as “the beginning of the end of my marriage” (see “How I got into Writing”) was that it was kind of an awakening for me about the differences between Tim and me. It took another seven years, but eventually, we did get divorced.
The other thing that letter did for me was reinforce the idea in my head that maybe I could write. (If Playboy published my letter, I must be good!) So it definitely played an important role in my becoming a writer. And, obviously, other parts of my life as well.
On St. Patrick’s Day, 1972, my then-husband, Tim and I were standing in the Frolic Bar celebrating with a bunch of people when a friend of ours, Nancy Muir, came up to me and said, "Keasha, I saw your letter in Playboy! That was so cool!" And I thought, "What?? What letter?" I had completely forgotten that I written them a letter in December about an interview they ran with Germaine Greer, a leading British feminist, who was notoriously outspoken. Tim turned to me and said, "Wasn't there something kind of negative about me in that letter?" I thought, "Uh-oh. What did I say in that letter?"
We both took off in separate directions to find a drug store and buy the magazine.
What the letter said was this:
“Because of her foul mouth, my husband immediate classified Germaine Greer as another he-woman and refused to read your excellent interview. Hopefully, his negative reaction was not typical, but I have the feeling it may have been. Miss Greer’s philosophy was pragmatic and her ideals were certainly feasible, but because of her unabridged vocabulary, I probably won’t be the only one trying to convince a stubborn male that she’s not out to castrate him. And I’ve got a long way to go, baby.”
(Note: for those too young to remember, that last line was a play on “You’ve come a long way, baby…” which originated with a cigarette campaign (!) and caught on during the feminist movement of the ‘70s.)
The reason I always refer to this incident as “the beginning of the end of my marriage” (see “How I got into Writing”) was that it was kind of an awakening for me about the differences between Tim and me. It took another seven years, but eventually, we did get divorced.
The other thing that letter did for me was reinforce the idea in my head that maybe I could write. (If Playboy published my letter, I must be good!) So it definitely played an important role in my becoming a writer. And, obviously, other parts of my life as well.
posted by Keash at 3:33 AM
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