# Is "Playgirl Magazine" really for women, or are gay men really the main audience? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 4, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507 "2004-05-04T19:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![swampbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampbear/32/467_2.png) [@swampbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampbear)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/21 "2004-05-05T14:01:22Z")
> [@plnnr](#): > > Titan or Colt > > Learn it, know it, love it. Personally I’m a Brush Creek Media man. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/22 "2004-05-05T14:20:24Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Do women rely on Playboy to see nekkid goils. Nope. My lesbian friends like _On Our Backs_. To hear tell, it features a wider variety of women than _Playboy_ so it has something for women who like butch or femme girls. _Playboy_ only has femmes. And yes, gay male porn is **much** hotter than straight. ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/23 "2004-05-05T14:34:06Z")
When we turned 18 a few years ago, my friend and I went out and bought an issue of “Playgirl.” We came to the conclusion that it was aimed mainly at gay men because of the nature of the ads. Nothing came right out and said that it was target towards gay men, but all of the ads for phone sex numbers and “dating services” implied it in their text. I don’t have that magazine anymore so of course I can’t back my claim up. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/24 "2004-05-05T14:34:54Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > **gobear** it may have been a while since you’ve perused a _Playgirl_ but they have full-on erections now and have for a while. Some of the models even have hair on their chests. Still no butthole-spreading through. Hmm, things have changed, and it has been sevral years since I looked at one. With the Internet, there’s no need to buy magazines. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/25 "2004-05-05T15:51:52Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Do women rely on Playboy to see nekkid goils. I don’t think I’ve ever even _heard_ of a lesbian or bisexual woman who bought _Playboy_ for her own erotic enjoyment. There must be some teenagers who don’t have access to any porn but what they can sneak from dad/brother’s collection, but for the most part lesbian/bi women are not interested in pornography produced for the straight male market even if it features “hot girl-on-girl action”. Well, they may be interested in protesting it, or just _laughing_ at it, but that’s not quite the same thing. There are some by-and-for-women-who-like-women porn mags and videos, and a somewhat larger selection of purely written material. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/26 "2004-05-05T17:29:51Z")
Related to **racinchikki** ’s post: This comes from several years ago, but I used to have a stack of Playgirls (and various and sundry gay male porn mags) inherited from a friend whose ex-boyfriend put together the phone sex ads on the back cover. The photographs of the models were, IIRC, interchangeable between Playgirl and the gay male mags like Men (which with Freshmen is like the equivalent of Playgirl/Playboy in their tameness), Inches, Honcho, or some others I can’t remember at the moment. But things could have changed since then. As far as Playgirl goes, IMO it’s just so much cheese. I liked some of the erotica, but the photographs really did next to nothing for me. My favorite part is still the amateur page, where people send in real-life photos of their husbands/boyfriends/etc; and if I’m not mistaken, that was how Ron Jeremy was “discovered.” ---
**Author:** ![Eyke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Eyke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyke)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/27 "2004-05-05T18:34:04Z")
> [@plnnr](#): > > Twink - a young, hairless, pretty boy (or “boi” in the vernacular). > > Ugh. \mmmm twinkies mmm\ 😛 Different strokes … (and yes…yes it is intentional 😃 ) Now that _that_ vision is over, HWMBO has a copy or two of Playgirl and I’ve seen a copy or two at friend’s houses. Bulk of HWMBO’s magazines are the Freshmen, Inches variety with Freshmen being the most (revisit the above paragraph). I haven’t seen any of the raunchy kind gobear mentions. Then, too, a friend of ours passed away and we received a box of magazines marked “private”. Maybe I need to spend some time getting to the 'bottom" of things in there. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/28 "2004-05-05T20:19:02Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I used to write for _Men’s Health_, and my editor (who’s no longer there) once told me, “Of course we know our main readership is gay men, but _we’re not allowed to admit that around the office_.” I’m gathering you’re not interested in writing for them again in the future … 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CADupin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@CADupin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CADupin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/29 "2013-07-13T21:22:53Z")
While they were not the intended audience, most subscribers to playgirl have always been gay men. At it’s highest point the number of female readers may have been as high as 40 percent, but this is disputed. Only the Online version is still extant and they claim 23 percent female registration, but this is believed to be exaggerated as many men may use women’s names to register. Some have pointed out that it doesn’t seem designed for men’s sensibilities, well it wasn’t, but that is beside the point. And effeminate gay men seem to find it just fine. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/30 "2013-07-13T21:34:18Z")
You’d better have a good story you naughty pigeon. It took you 9 years to come home to roost. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/31 "2013-07-13T21:36:23Z")
My (female) cousin lived in San Francisco when **Playgirl** was launched. She said that she only saw men buying copies. Back then (1973), of course, there was no World Wide Web, and no really tasteful gay pin-up magazines. Most gay porn was difficult to find. **Playgirl** was sold in far more outlets and you could pick up a copy off the shelf instead of going to a dirty bookstore. You could even pretend you were getting it for your girlfriend (since it certainly gave the impression it was for women). So the magazine had it both ways: It could be portraying women’s fantasy men, or gay men’s fantasy men. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/32 "2013-07-13T22:05:45Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > **gobear** it may have been a while since you’ve perused a _Playgirl_ but they have full-on erections now and have for a while. Was Levi Johnston in that state when he appeared in “Playgirl” a while back? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/33 "2013-07-13T22:08:55Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Do they have gay porn for women? Or do they rely on Playboy, et al, for their graphics. What kind of question is that? If people do it, someone’s photographed it. When I was in college, I worked in a restaurant with a straight man who shared a house with a very butch lesbian roommate, and one evening, he asked me if women ever got together to watch porn. I replied that while I had never done that, I’m sure there are women who do (and not as a joke) and sure enough, he had come home the previous evening to find this roommate and some of her friends watching a lesbian porno movie. He had no idea any such thing even existed, and no, I’m not talking about that girl-girl stuff a lot of guys really like. :dubious: One of my female friends said she and some of her other friends rented a porno movie one time, and watched it on fast forward as a joke. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/34 "2013-07-13T22:11:43Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > Does “who” rely on Playboy for their graphics? Women? I’m unclear what you’re asking. > > I’m not aware of any gay parn made specifically for women but it is popular with some women. Popular enough that “women oriented” sex toy shops like Good Vibrations carry some gay videos. It’s also popular with a lot of the “slash” crowd (slash is basically written gay porn for and by women). > > In Japan, there’s a genre of comics written by women for women that are all gay love stories, some of them quite explicit. In some of those magazines marketed to women, video makers run ads for live action gay porn. > > So there is demand for gay porn by women but I don’t think most gay porn videos were produced with women in mind. Does any of this answer your question? Has anyone here ever seen the movie “The Kids Are All Right”? In short, it’s about a lesbian couple who each had a child with the same sperm donor; the kids are now teenagers, and the son was snooping in their bedroom and found their porn stash. The next day, he asks them, “Why do you two watch gay-man porn?” 😕 Hey, human sexuality is a complex thing. The men in said porno movie had hair and (for a short time) clothing styles from the early 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/35 "2013-07-13T23:40:52Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Was Levi Johnston in that state when he appeared in “Playgirl” a while back? Perhaps, but that was some years after the thread was started. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/36 "2013-07-14T02:42:10Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Was Levi Johnston in that state when he appeared in “Playgirl” a while back? No, he didn’t even do a frontal shot. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/37 "2013-07-14T03:33:28Z")
I think it was back around 2004 they featured their first openly gay man. Most of their models seemed to be gay porn actors. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/38 "2013-07-14T05:25:33Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > Perhaps, but that was some years after the thread was started. Oops. I hadn’t even paid any attention to the dates. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/39 "2013-07-14T05:59:29Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > Nah, not really. Maybe in small towns where gay porn is unavailable, but Playgirl’s\*\* photos aren’t aimed at male sensibilities. Playgirl’s photos are coy, showing nude men in romantic poses in fantasy settings. But gay male porn is downbright raunchy with spread buttholes, hard dicks, and plenty of sleaze. > [@Reloy3](#): > > My Men’s Health seems to have far fewer pictures of spandex clad men than my wife’s “fitness” has of spandex clad women. > > **Men’s Fitness** , however . . . ^This mag is what I thought of when reading gobear’s post. Being a gym rat, I’ve read most all the fitness mags and Men’s Fitness is clearly gay porn (or was when I last sampled an issue), but it’s nothing like what gb said. Mostly soft-focus shots if skinny teens/20-somethings with no body hair in skimpy workout wear, and most tellingly no busty female columnist with a soft science degree offering dating advice. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507/40 "2013-07-15T23:33:02Z")
A while back, I was at a flea market, and one of the vendors had a bunch of “physical fitness” magazines from the 1930s. It was SO obvious that this magazine was intended for gay male readers and really wasn’t about fitness at all. It wasn’t “Physical Culture”; I’m familiar with that magazine, having discovered it as a kid. There was a stack of them in my grandmother’s garage, and in retrospect, I can’t believe my parents let me read them. However, there is clean nudity and dirty nudity, and this magazine, which had its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, was definitely the former, and yes, it did feature full nudity, both male and female. It definitely piqued my still-ongoing interest in medical history, and if it had been “Physical Culture”, I would have purchased them because I’ve never seen actual copies of that magazine anywhere else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-playgirl-magazine-really-for-women-or-are-gay-men-really-the-main-audience/243507.md?page=3)