sexy sexy but maybe not
Playmates in Pornland: Why Even Hungary Loves Playboy
The history of the animal kingdom is in large part the history of extinction. Different species of flora and fauna arrive on the scene, find a niche, flourish, fall into decline and then die out. It happened to the dinosaurs, the dodo, and will likely happen someday to humankind as well. Which makes it so delightful that one long-threatened species is apparently thriving in Hungary, an environment one would assume to be wholly inhospitable. So we just shot a dozen of the darling little critters, and would like to invite you to have a look.
The bunny hunt in question came courtesy of Hungarian Playboy's 2004 Playmate of the Year contest, which took place Friday night at the majestic Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal on Erzsébet körút. Organized in conjunction with a welter of co-sponsors, the event winnowed a field of eleven aspiring POTYs to a winner and two runner-ups. The show, which was hosted by singer Péter Novák and tart-mouthed sex kitten Sylvi Bódi, and featured several interesting floorshows, will be broadcast on TV2 this Friday at 11:00. We would have published it yesterday, but here at Pestiside we consider Monday a serious news day. Plus, we had a lot of pictures to go through, and wanted to take our sweet time.
Before announcing the winners, a few more words about evolution.
What on God's Earth - or Darwin's Earth - does a country as steeped in sex and porn as Hungary need with a magazine filled with gauzy images of girls not showing everything? According to editor-in-chief Péter Radnai, the answer is simple. Compared to all that hard-core, Playboy is sheer elegance, and elegance is a turn-on. "It's closer to real erotic life; it's more sensual."
One friend of ours we bumped into at the festivities, who described himself as a "heavy user of pornography," put it a different way: "It's like when you go to McDonald's and you order two happy meals, three cheeseburgers, two super-sized fries, and a diet coke. Playboy is the diet coke."
How refreshing.
Radnai, who worked in TV for 14 years before taking the reigns at Playboy this June, also points to the sterling reputation the magazine has in Hungary. Again, we don't doubt it, especially when you think of everything else on offer, and ponder the fact that the "real erotic life" of many Hungarians probably is straight out of Hef's mansion.
After all, in what other country would you go to a POTY awards show and find a cross-section of polite society, including the politician who was until recently the government minister in charge of pretending to enforce the country's laws against sex-discrimination? (That's right, and not only was Euro-MP Katalin Lévai in the audience, but she came in a gold lamé pantsuit with a plunging neckline. We'll second that motion.)
Perhaps because of this, the jury had what Radnai called a "very tough" time doing its job. In the end, however, the awards were granted: first place to lithe brunette Zsuzsa Ripli, representing a victory for the country's brunette majority; second place to the top-heavy and deliciously-named Mónika Bútor - her family name means "furniture" - and third place to the alluring Réka Hegedűs.
So from all of us here at Pestiside, our congratulations to Zsuzsa, Mónika, Réka and the whole gang at Playboy, and a big sigh of relief that this most wonderful form of wildlife has not perished from our little patch of the Earth.
Photos by Bianca Otero for Pestiside.hu
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