Wait… what? They used to have underage centerfolds? I knew Hef was a sleeze, but I didn’t know he was THAT sleezy.
I’ve seen not only Playboy, but also several much raunchier nudie magazines at 7-11, all I remember happening was them moving them behind the counter, and later putting a blocking thing over the cover in the behind the counter rack, so you could only see the title. If there ever was an actual chainwide ban, it was certainly lifted fairly quickly.
Reviewing it, that link of centerfolds has one of the youngest underage girls on it. I won’t point her out but to relate that her mother had to bring her to the shoot and sign a permission slip.
The law was not as clear in the 1950s. There was one 16-year-old Playmate(her mother signed the paperwork) and several who were either 17 when the issue appeared or when the pictures were taken.
They are all included in that Playmates link, including Roberts.
The case law apparently wasn’t clear. The age of consent varies from state to state; in many states it’s sixteen not eighteen. So is a nationally distributed publication required to adhere to the most restrictive law in the country?
And there’s another big issue; this was nude photography not sex. And in Playboy’s early years (like 1958 when Elizabeth Ann Roberts posed) it barely qualified as nudity.
I certainly don’t want to look like I’m advocating for child pornography. But there is an element of hysteria that’s developed around the subject. A topless photo of a seventeen year old professional model shouldn’t be seen as the equivalent of raping a five year old.
I believe there was another, more recent, exception. Ursula Buchfellner, who is German, originally appeared in the German edition of Playboy in 1977. She subsequently appeared in the American edition in 1979.
She was eighteen when she modeled for the American edition but she had modeled for the German pictures when she was sixteen and seventeen. However all of the photos from different international editions are available to Playboy and I’ve read that some of her German pictures were inadvertently published in America.
Serious question–do you have that kind of reaction to teenage girls in bikinis? Because they show very nearly as much skin as that picture does.
By the way, most states allow 16-year-olds to get married with parental consent. Most states allow that age or younger to drive a car. Children MUCH younger than that can use guns under adult supervision.
It seems to me that you’re over-reacting rather badly.
Talking about court cases –
I was thinking about Sally Mann recently. For those who don’t know her, she’s a photographer whose exhibition once included pictures of her own children – a few of them naked. She never got into trouble, but it wasn’t for lack of trying in certain quarters. More info here. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html?_r=0
In thinking about that and other controversies, I’ve come to the conclusion that the average DA has a significantly dirtier and more perverted mind than the average pedophile. That seems to be the only explanation for why so many people are taken to court for pictures that manifestly do not meet the legal description of child porn.
David Hamilton is a better comparison for this thread. His photography is of post-pubescent girls too young for Playboy. Even though he works in France, his work has driven prosecutors crazy in the same way.