# Was PLAYBOY ever all that great? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 25, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301 "2013-05-25T08:12:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/41 "2013-05-25T21:21:22Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Arthur C. Clarke, talking about the end of the Clayton era? You caught me. I love that line but didn’t recall where it came from. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/42 "2013-05-26T00:19:29Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I agree that Playboy peaked in the 1960s. It had trouble coming to grips with the swinging 60s. It’s weird to see that not one single rock album was reviewed, nor were any mentioned in the long write up of albums suggested for Christmas presents. The decline was gradual, though. Even worse than music, remember their fashion spreads. If you believed Playboy in the late '60s early '70s young men went to college in jackets and ties or classy sportswear. It was pretty clear that they had no clue, or else did it because the makes of clothes that people actually wore didn’t buy expensive ads. I also think their pictorials went down the hill after they went to full frontal, because they didn’t have to be as creative without that constraint. However, I actually enjoyed things like the Sex in Cinema series more than the celebrity shoots. As for the writers, I have the Playboy SF anthology, which is top notch. And the later James Bond novels were partially serialized in the magazine. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/43 "2013-05-26T01:21:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Even worse than music, remember their fashion spreads. If you believed Playboy in the late '60s early '70s young men went to college in jackets and ties or classy sportswear. It was pretty clear that they had no clue, or else did it because the makes of clothes that people actually wore didn’t buy expensive ads. > I also think their pictorials went down the hill after they went to full frontal, because they didn’t have to be as creative without that constraint. However, I actually enjoyed things like the Sex in Cinema series more than the celebrity shoots. > > As for the writers, I have the Playboy SF anthology, which is top notch. And the later James Bond novels were partially serialized in the magazine. While in college, it was clear that Playboy was written for our Dads, and not for us. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/44 "2013-05-26T03:26:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > People can complain nowadays that _Playboy_ takes itself too seriously and there’s certainly some truth to that. But _Playboy_ at least tries. > > Compare _Playboy_ to the magazines that have replaced it: _Hustler_ and _Maxim_. Are they improvements? I subscribed to Playboy for a couple years in the early 1990s, but eventually just lost interest. This was largely due to the fact that, once I was done looking at the pictorials, there was nothing else there for me. All of their product reviews were for things/brands that I was never going to be able to afford, or that I had no interest in to begin with. The articles were on topics that I couldn’t relate to. Even the pictorials themselves comprised such a relatively small part of each issue. _Hustler_, OTOH, had articles that entertained me and that I could relate to. And the pictorials made up more of the magazine. Sure, _Hustler’s_ models may not have been as attractive as _Playboy’s_ but they looked like girls that a 20-something guy of modest means could approach. _Hustler_ was the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet to _Playboy’s_ filet mignon that cost too much and left you hungry. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/45 "2013-05-26T03:42:11Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Even worse than music, remember their fashion spreads. If you believed Playboy in the late '60s early '70s young men went to college in jackets and ties or classy sportswear. It was pretty clear that they had no clue, or else did it because the makes of clothes that people actually wore didn’t buy expensive ads. > I also think their pictorials went down the hill after they went to full frontal, because they didn’t have to be as creative without that constraint. However, I actually enjoyed things like the Sex in Cinema series more than the celebrity shoots. > > As for the writers, I have the Playboy SF anthology, which is top notch. And the later James Bond novels were partially serialized in the magazine. They had one great quote under the category “biggest movie villain” for The Year In Movies. > [@](#): > > “Everyone involved in the making of Dune” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/46 "2013-05-26T04:37:48Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > They’ve gone bi-monthly? More like ten-issues-a-year. On the straight porn side Playboy had already taken massive hits from Penthouse and the Flynt publications in the late pre-Web and dial-up era. It could not really move too far in that direction, either, since that would have required changing their brand identity. When hi-speed web porn showed up, it was not surprisingly Flynt who was readiest to move to survive in that environment, but it was _Penthouse_ that collapsed when they decided to go all-out hardcore thus rendering themselves undifferentiated. Playboy survived thanks to wise managerial moves under Christie Hefner (the corporate empire – clubs, casinos – was already history for most real purposes when she got there) but when she herself moved on, the new team seemed to lose their plot again. On the “lifestyle” side Playboy, already faltering in the 90s, took it in the delicates with the rise of the Maxim-class of magazines at one end and the revived GQ, Men’s Health, even Esquire itself at the other. Lad Mags appealed to the sensibilities of the younger generations and their tastes and purchasing power. Playboy also clumsily tried to copy some of the aspects of the Lad Mags content style with shorter, lighter material, but the net efect was less of what the old audience was used to, and still not what the young guys wanted. Meanwhile GQ, Robb Report, Condé Nast etc. cranked up the aspirational product placement for the upwardly mobile with not as much need for naked girls. Heck, even on the girlie side, Lad Mags revived the original naughty-cheesecake concept to the point that celebs who are actually on the _upswing_ of their careers will show up in the Maxim type mags since they have picked up the banner of _“technically nude, but not showing anything you can’t show at the public beach” cheesecake so I can still deny I’ve done nude"_. Meanwhile a celeb who is a box office hit or at least headliner and who wants to do a shoot with poses replicating classical paintings in which a convenient palm frond or wine carafe keeps things discreet but it’s obvious her knickers are in the next room, can now have that appear in Vanity Fair or GQ instead! That Playboy did not become the go-to place for all top-tier fiction and nonfiction writers of the later generation, to fill in for the exiting old giants, was inevitable IMO. If the son of the Man Who Reads Playboy is NOT reading Playboy, then you publish in what he IS reading, and there is no need to move to Playboy to prove you’ve hit the big time. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/47 "2013-05-27T02:05:09Z")
I disagree with anyone who thinks the interviews weren’t sometimes remarkable in the 70s, as was the fiction. In its efforts to appear as more than just a titty magazine, Playboy actually succeeded by providing space to real content. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/48 "2013-05-27T02:14:02Z")
An entertaining, ongoing, and NECTSFW (not even close to safe for work) look at what the author calls “The Pubic Wars” can be found [here.](http://venusobservations.blogspot.co.uk/) Wife’s cousin worked in the art department at Playboy for years. Beautiful, but I never saw her in the magazine. Woulda liked to, though. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/49 "2013-05-27T02:25:24Z")
I think that the kind of stories and writers that appeared in Playboy, Penthouse and even Rolling Stone were of the highest quality and were paid well for their contributions but alas we have seen a downturn in journalism lately as companies chase the lowest and cheapest common denominator. Its shame but hey its all on the interwebs now. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/50 "2013-05-27T22:30:48Z")
The big interview in this month’s issue is with Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei. They may be long past their glory days, but at least they are still giving it the ol’ college try. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/51 "2013-05-27T22:42:33Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > I bought one of those digital subscriptions to Playboy where access to all the back issues is part of the package. As long as I’ve been able to purchase the magazine, I’ve always had a suspicion that it was past its glory days, and now I’m not so sure it ever had any. They used to get pictorials from a better grade of actress/celebrity, that’s for sure. > > When would you say the magazine peaked? The first Madonna issue? The Jimmy Carter Interview? When Bradbury and Vonnegut were fairly regular contributors? When Jack Cole was still alive? Also, how do I cancel this subscription? It’s been twenty-some years since I read Playboy regularly. Back in college I always thought it had better-looking women than the more-explicit Penthouse, which in turn had better looking women than the more-explicit Hustler, which was as far down the chain as I was willing to go. But people weren’t lying when they said they read it for the articles. The articles WERE worth your time, and sometimes the pictures were an impediment; you wouldn’t want to sit in the quad reading because you’d look like a creep. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/52 "2013-05-28T04:03:10Z")
And the cartoons. The cartoons have always been very good. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/53 "2013-05-28T13:06:23Z")
Playboy was what informed young men like Red Wiggler, who grew up in repressed households in the sixties, that young women liked sex, too, and that it was a great thing that they did. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/54 "2013-05-28T13:10:27Z")
But Playboy also told us that young women wanted to have sex with men who ordered this drink, wore these clothes, drove that car, read these authors and told these jokes. Didn’t work for you? Well, that’s because you were trying things that are at least a month old. This month the young women are flocking after men who order \*this \*drink, wear \*these \*clothes, etc. A painful lesson in consumerism. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/55 "2013-05-28T14:33:02Z")
The “how to be cool” meme was a little irritating indeed but pretty secondary to the other great secrets that had been revealed. Women got horny. Who knew? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/56 "2013-05-28T14:38:03Z")
Playboy peaked whenever you happened to be 13, basically. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/57 "2013-05-28T14:48:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > And the cartoons. The cartoons have always been very good. Are there any good cartoon compilations out there? I see the 2004 Hefner compilation on Amazon and I wonder how complete it is. Any web sites that have any of the classics? I recall one from a 1967(?) issue - the blind painter who had to touch his nude models so he could make a painting of them, except he wasn’t really blind (ha! ha!). That was a very popular with with my fellow fifth-graders then. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/58 "2013-05-28T16:41:16Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > Are there any good cartoon compilations out there? I see the 2004 Hefner compilation on Amazon and I wonder how complete it is. Any web sites that have any of the classics? > > I recall one from a 1967(?) issue - the blind painter who had to touch his nude models so he could make a painting of them, except he wasn’t really blind (ha! ha!). That was a very popular with with my fellow fifth-graders then. That reminds me of a cartoon I saw in _Hustler_. It showed a painter and his nude model. The model has her back to the painter, and she is bent over at the waist. She’s complaining, “Are you almost done? I’ve been like this for hours!” Meanwhile, the painter is standing there with a big, lascivious grin on his face … next to a completely blank canvas. He hasn’t painted a single stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/59 "2013-05-28T17:17:42Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > Playboy was what informed young men like Red Wiggler, who grew up in repressed households in the sixties, that young women liked sex, too, and that it was a great thing that they did. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > But Playboy also told us that young women wanted to have sex with men who ordered this drink, wore these clothes, drove that car, read these authors and told these jokes. > > Didn’t work for you? Well, that’s because you were trying things that are at least a month old. This month the young women are flocking after men who order \*this \*drink, wear \*these \*clothes, etc. > > A painful lesson in consumerism. From my very limited reading of Playboy, I got the impression that young women were impressed by material things, that they were interchangeable, disposable when a man got tired of them, and not really considered to be full adult humans. And I got the impression that it was OK to treat women as objects. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301/60 "2013-05-28T17:28:55Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > From my very limited reading of Playboy, I got the impression that young women were impressed by material things. Do you think Hefner would still be boffing 20-year-olds if at least some weren’t? :dubious: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-playboy-ever-all-that-great/659301.md?page=4)