Why Playboy Bunnies Still Exist

Ladies, there's a new book on the shelves, "The Bunny Book: How to Walk, Talk, Tease, and Please Like a Playboy Bunny." It's written by three ravishing rabbits — centerfolds all — and it's just what you need to catch a man in 2007.

Or is it?

"It's cheeseball," a lovely young woman I showed the book to said. She flipped through the chapters on everything from nail care to "nookie," smirking at the line drawings of busty babes in high heels and halter tops.

Her friend, equally cute and talented, agreed. It's not for today's woman. "I don't feel this applies."

Modern men, in their opinion, are not hot for the hokey Playboy honey: The girl next door with a heart of gold, breast of Butterball and list of dislikes ranging from "rude men" to "men who are rude." Typically those dislikes do not include "Men who buy into an unrealistic, media-perpetuated, cartoonish ideal of female sexuality."

That, of course, is because Playboy bunnies embrace the cartoonish ideal. They've got nothing against using their bodacious bods, real or enhanced, to get a guy.

Liberated ladies — at least the ones I talked to — do.

And sensitive, liberated men?

They're torn.

Or, in the words of one man I spoke to: "Self-flagellating." He knows he should appreciate all the beautiful, brilliant women around him. "But bunnies can still cook," he said, miserable at his own failure to evolve into an enlightened male. "And," he whispered hoarsely, "they know how to can."

Which just goes to show how powerful the bunny ideal is. By the time a 29-year-old hipster is fantasizing about a woman who can put up tomatoes for the winter, he has, technically, lost his mind. Any and everything that conjures "perfect woman" has become jumbled in his brain and filed under, "Bunny, Playboy."

So maybe the bunnies do know what men, even the nice ones, really want.

What's the secret?

"People underestimate the power of stuffing a bra," one of the authors, Serria Tawan (a.k.a. Miss November 2002), said in a phone interview. "Stuffing bras is the norm out here" — L.A. — and all you need is some tissue. "I love making boobs look good and I don't see any point in not making them stand out."

Once they are standing out just as much as they possibly can, her book goes on to suggest brushing them against the arm of any man the reader hopes to hook. Do this casually, "so it feels to him like a happy accident."

Happy is not what contemplating this technique made the young women I spoke to.

"Never!" said they, when asked if they'd ever tried it — or would. Who can blame them? It's a manipulative move that appeals to a man's basest instincts.

On the other hand, when I asked one of the young men who sits near me (but not near enough to brush against) if this approach might work on him, he said only, "Men aren't hard to figure out."

In other words?

He wouldn't elaborate.

Maybe that's because he's engaged — proof that, whatever their differences, the sexes do eventually get together. And, frankly, I expect all the people I spoke to today to get engaged sooner or later, too.

This will happen not because modern men will suddenly stop fantasizing about bunnies, or modern women will suddenly start dressing like them. It will happen simply because the perfect male is just as nonexistent as the perfect female.

In the end, most of us would prefer someone in the flesh, however flawed that flesh may be.

And by the way, all flesh is flawed, even the bunnies'. They admit it in the book. That's why there's Kleenex.

Lenore Skenazy is a contributing editor at the New York Sun. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lenore@lenoretown.com), and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.