Yeah, pretty much. The women were accessories to the man, just as the cars, clothes and scotch were.
And that reminds me of this visual joke of parodying the similar scene from Titanic.
I got the impression that Playboy was saying that ALL young women were impressed by material things…which I knew wasn’t true. Yeah, some women are, and so are some men. But just flashing a big bankroll isn’t enough to get most women into bed with a man. Nor is just flashing a big dick.
The key word here being “most.” “Some” are apparently enough to ensure you keep getting laid well into your 80s (though I’m convinced Hefner’s even older than that).
I disagree. The pin-up has existed in one form or another since Willendorf days, and doubtless before, but PLAYBOY was the first mass venue to humanize it. The monthly centerfold was always accompanied by a story that showed her walking her dog, or painting, or singing, or reading to blind children, or whatever, but it showed that there was more to her than just the sexuality.
Only when “feminism” came along and usurped the sexual repression left in the void of dwindling religious belief did the repetition of the Big Lie of “objectification” give it general unquestioned acceptance–but that’s another topic!
You are aware that during the magazine’s heyday the Playmate bios were mostly nothing more than a bit of creative writing by the magazine staff? Now, I’m not suggesting that most Playmates were really round-heeled bimbos with only one functional brain cell. I’m sure many were normal young women of at least average intelligence. It’s just that what you saw in the bio and the “ordinary everyday life photos” generally should have been taken with half a grain of salt.
Now I’m remembering National Lampoon’s Penthouse Parody issue. It had such “quotes” from the “centerfold” model as, “Sometimes I just get off on the idea of guys getting off on photos of me pretending to get off!” 
The “Playmate Data Sheet” and the doing-everyday-things pictures arose of course from the editorial conceit of the Playmate being the “Girl Next Door”. During the 60s Hef was pitching the notion of the Playmate as some “regular” girl with a regular life who juust happened to be “liberated” … in the very convenient sense of being up for getting nekkid for some shagadelic fun with The Man Who Reads Playboy :rolleyes: .
In another recent thread was posted a quote from Hef back in those old days in which he just as much as admits at the time he was seeking girls who’d give off an unworldly vibe.
The Data Sheet also kept up the pretension that the titular playboy would take notice of the ladies’ likes, dislikes and aspirations “Hey, honey, I care that you’re into kittens and hiking and hate loud drunks, you know it’s not at all about those 38DD’s…”
When he moved to the California mansion however, now the G.N.D. was an aspiring actress/model looking for a payday, but they bravely kept trying to pitch the notion, expanding it to the “Girls of _____” features until it eventually became a self-parody (being used as the Reality Show title to refer not to the general-public GNDs but to the Mansion Harem) in a world of women who were deliberately trying out for Playmatehood.
Are you suggesting that the “Girls of __________” were not really the girls of _____________? Because I’m pretty sure that ain’t so. I remember very well when Playboy made the rounds at my college’s campus, looking for Girls of the ACC, and I knew a couple who answered the call.
Once you could see boobies with a few clicks of a mouse, Playboy lost any reason for existing.
But when you consider that the vast majority of the actual “girls of the ACC” had no wish to pose for a spread and did not do so, it seems somewhat disingenuous to give your photo exhibition of the few that did (and perhaps some unrelated models if not enough acceptable “ACC girls” applied) the title of “Girls of the ACC”. But I suppose “aspiring models, some of whom are enrolled in ACC schools” doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.
One of the smartest things Hefner ever did was use the woman he named Janet Pilgrim as a centerfold. She was so popular that he brought her back twice more as Playmate in the next year.
Pilgrim really did work in the Playboy office. She was 20 years old and had the requisite 36-24-36 figure. By making her a Playmate, Playboy undercut the image of nude models as bimbos, tramps, and prostitutes. Playmates could be the girl next door before and after their appearance in the magazine.
The Playmate Data Sheet came along years later, BTW. The image was developed first by the actual Playmates before artificial enhancements. Just like the Playmates.
It’s like the old joke:
Q: Why do rock stars date models?
A: Because they can.
She posed in exchange for a new Addressograph for the office? A true office worker, who realized that sometimes reducing headaches at work is worth more than mere money. And other than her makeup and hair color there was nothing artificial about Janet. She got to be zaftig one cheeseburger at a time.
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
They were crowded out because the cover had 15[!] names apparently more famous on it.
Vladimir Nabokov, Ray Bradbury, Terry Southern, Budd Schulberg, Martin Luther Ling, Jack Kerouac, P. G. Wodehouse, Kenneth Tynan, J. Paul Getty, Mortimer Adler, Sir Julian Huxley, Bennett Cerf, Hugh M. Hefner, Shel Silverstein, and Peter Ustinov. The Interview was with King. Hefner did a slice of the Playboy Philosophy.
[/QUOTE]
What on earth piece by Wodehouse made it into Playboy?!?
Hey, as a literary magazine 1960s Playboy was something else altogether. And the Interview kept standing up for the former glory every so often years after the peak.
No, I’m saying the “Girls of _______” feature was an attempt to keep up the image of the women in Playboy as the Girls Next Door after the Playmate department was taken over by pro models, by going to various school conferences, States, companies, career fields, etc. and saying *“See? The Playmate may be now this perfect goddess you stand no chance with, but we still give you real girls with real lives!” *
Like **colander **said, that may have been so at the beginning but by the last few years it’s ever more common that women who first appear in the “College Girls” specials are not even cast at the colleges but in an open citywide call, and they then show up in the other themed specials as well.
I honestly don’t understand how magazines like Playboy are still in business. Who buys it? 
Of course, I don’t understand why anybody pays for porn of any kind these days.
Sorry, I thought I made it obvious that Janet was completely natural and therefore before the era of Playmates with breast implants. She was also 5’6" and 115 lbs, so zaftig as pleasingly plump is a poor description for her.
This one happened to be a Bingo Little story, “Bingo Bans the Bomb.” Wodehouse was a regular in that era with bunches of stories published. Why not? He knew where the money was.
My mind boggled at seeing Wodehouse’s name on that list, too. Even Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge would be shocked at nudie photos, never mind Aunt Agatha or The Oldest Member. (Aunt Dahlia might be okay with it; as a fellow magazine publisher, she would understand the need to do whatever it takes to get the punters to sign on the dotted line).
How do you know what they were aspiring to? One of the women I knew who posed was in engineering school.