There’s nothing an eight-year-old girl loves more than a set of gel pens. They are as desirable to the tweenie generation as charm bracelets, the latest High School Musical offering and, of course, bunnies. What little girl doesn’t love a bunny? Sweet, cuddly, compliant . . .

That’s why Playboy loves them, too, and chose them as its signature brand when Hugh Hefner launched his famous magazine back in 1953. In the fantasy marketed by Playboy, young women are also sweet, cuddly and compliant . . . and they go like rabbits. We should be concerned that this logo appears on gel pens.

So good luck to Elaine Smith and her fellow MSPs on Holyrood’s Equal Opportunities Committee, who this month invoked the wrath of Christine Hefner, 54, who runs her father’s empire while he cavorts at his mansion in silk pyjamas that barely concealing his knobbly bits.

Hefner protested because 20 members of the committee condemned the way sexualised merchandise is targeted at children. She claims Playboy-branded goods are aimed at style-conscious 18-35-year-olds. Really? As one MSP asked: how many 25-year-olds do you know who use a pencil case? Or a single duvet cover with glitter hearts in baby pink?

This kind of material is multiplying as energetically as those bunnies. The British campaign backed by the MSPs seeks to have it removed from high street stores, particularly the back-to-school stationery shelves.

Playboy is trying to blame the retailers for displaying it wrongly. But look at website LoveBrands.com and it’s clear which category of consumers is grabbing those fluffy ears. The pink Playboy purses and sateen cushions are on the same page as Hello Kitty, Bratz and, unbelievably, Disney Princess. But perhaps that is not so incredible: the bunny logo aspires to the ubiquity of those famous mouse ears. Hefner’s mansion is described as an adult Disneyland and a replica version will open to the public in China next year: the world’s first shag-pile theme park.

Playboy knows that the money to be made off the top shelf is dwindling because of competition from the web. The company made a $1.56m (£847,500) loss in the final quarter of last year and the magazine is rapidly losing advertising revenue. It has made a deliberate decision to reposition itself as a lifestyle brand, reaching out to new groups of customers. These include women, who watch its reality television shows, and even students — 250 of whom are “ambassadors” for the brand on American campuses.

One might add children — though Christine Hefner has vigorously denied that. Teachers see it differently. One, writing in the Times Education Supplement recently, said she worked in supply around a number of different primary schools and the Playboy logo was everywhere. She said it was hard to explain what was wrong with the logo without exposing children “to the very thing you are trying to protect them from”. What does a primary 4 teacher do when a little girl innocently using a Playboy eraser is teased by more knowing classmates? This particular teacher was asked why a pencil case was “rude”.

This is a pornographic company. It owns television channels — Spice Extreme, The Adult Channel and Climax — that are more hard-core than its magazine. There is a practical concern about children searching for the brand online and being led to inappropriate content — such as Playboy’s own internet porn sites.

The company will argue its pornography is always between adults, which is true, but the internet has created a huge market for over-the-edge material and has enticed many more men to look at images of child abuse. Paedophiles justify their practices by convincing each other that children and young teenagers are sexual beings who enjoy their attentions. What better confirmation than a 12-year-old in a Playboy T-shirt?

This is an extreme example of the potential danger. But the insidious messages of the mainstream material are also damaging. Playboy repeatedly talks about the brand representing “fun”, with all men aspiring to emulate Hefner’s life in the mansion surrounded by pneumatic child-women who vie for his attention. With their little girl voices and insecurities, they are somehow infantilised. What are they doing there? Exactly how does one distinguish them from prostitutes, and how much “fun” are they having with old Hef? Whatever their status, these sad young women believe silicon and sex with an octogenarian mean they have arrived. It doesn’t help that Hefner is feted as some kind of international treasure.

In her book Prude, the Harvard Law Review’s managing editor Carol Platt Liebau argues that popular culture damages girls’ sense of worth by telling them “sexy is the ultimate accolade, trumping intelligence, character and all other accomplishments”. She was talking about the Pussycat Dolls and Paris Hilton — Playboy is part of a wider problem that not everyone has the wit to see.

Some parents are themselves so seduced by brands, so culturally un-sophisticated, that they cannot guide their children’s choices. It is these parents whose daughters are most vulnerable. It is surely significant that the range of Playboy jewellery promoted by Kelly Osbourne is sold by a company called White Trash.

People who buy trinkets that somehow celebrate their own social marginalisation are not perhaps best at protecting their children from exploitation. That’s where the work of legislators and the wider, more responsible public comes in. It’s time to bin the bunny.

joan.mcalpine@sunday-times.co.uk

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