He likes to be called Hef.

January 1, 2009 4:53 PM

So one of your resolutions was about your lifelong dream of getting into Playboy? Here's an article that has all the details you don't normally hear about. "Hef is like any normal hot-blooded American who likes pretty ladies: He took a wife or two, has four kids, and lives in a Tudor-style mansion with luscious lawns and a personal zoo. Sounds like any old family man, right?" There's a How-To included:

1. Be a Busty Blonde
2. Be Legal (Barely)
3 – 7. Nudity and Sex! (Lots of Sex)
8. Keep to the Right (If Your Name Is Kendra)
9 & 10. ??? (and Sex)
11. Profit!!! (Playboy.com link, otherwise OK)

Or if you have your sights set higher it appears there's an opening, or two, in the harem!

posted by P.o.B. (59 comments total)

Ah, the Metafilter Enquirer.

This post is like a boob job. Big and fake and rather silly.
posted by QIbHom at 5:03 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

That face! Frankie Muniz is slowly turning into Mickey Rourke
posted by The Whelk at 5:03 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Hef found a surefire way to keep pregnancy at bay: He's a fan of all anal all the time.

Hef and his girlfriends haven't heard of birth control?
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 PM on January 1

Every young girl should read this. Especially ones who think they might want to be in Playboy. Crazy stuff.
posted by flipyourwig at 5:09 PM on January 1

what IS that ... publication & who wrote that story? this thing seriously sounds like a jealous high schooler made it up. the only thing that was even mildly funny was that pic of frankie muniz whoever he is. the rest was just creepy and sordid.
posted by msconduct at 5:17 PM on January 1

Hef and his girlfriends haven't heard of birth control?

Last stats I heard, even the best birth control was only effective 99.9% of the time. So, considering how much sex these girls must have, it's just obviously bound to fail.

Better to put it in the pooper.
posted by Netzapper at 5:17 PM on January 1

all anal all the time.

Maybe he's a fan of pegging, hard to stay regular at that age.
posted by Tenuki at 5:37 PM on January 1

11. Profit!!! (Playboy.com link, otherwise OK)

Party's over for Playboy king Hugh Hefner

Playboy Enterprises Does Restructuring; Shutting DVD Division For Online Focus; 80 Positions Will Go

Playboy's ad sales drop, shares tumble

Deathbed Stocks Revisited

Something's sagging and won't be revived with cosmetic surgery.
posted by terranova at 5:38 PM on January 1

I find it funny that Hef objected to how he was portrayed in Bob Fosse's Star 80 when that film made it look like he could at least once in a while be a human being even if it was for selfish reasons, when from almost everything I've read about him he's basically an asshole all the time. I mean, seriously - how misogynistic to you have to be to always place your lover on the side with the deaf ear so you don't ever have to hear her talk? Christ that's petty.
posted by Kiablokirk at 5:39 PM on January 1

I swear that slimy motherfucker is going to live forever. Where's your god now?
posted by dead cousin ted at 5:40 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

These days, I've heard you can score bonus points with Hef if you play Pinochle.
posted by RavinDave at 5:41 PM on January 1

it appears there's an opening, or two, in the harem!

heh.
posted by bibliowench at 5:56 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

bleah.
posted by Peach at 7:07 PM on January 1

Whenever I see a story about quirky ol' Hef in the media I want to retch. What a despicable man.
posted by Kattullus at 7:15 PM on January 1

Back when he was doing “Politically Incorrect” Bill Maher did a week of shows from the Playboy Mansion with the usual hot button guests. But he did it pool side with bikini clad Playmates... and he kissed Hefner’s ass on HBO.

Maher is evidently one of the privileged few with a standing invite to the Playboy Mansion, which makes sense in a way seeing as how, back when he was a force to be reckoned with, Hefner backed the same politics and social agenda that Maher promotes now.

But it was awful how Maher groveled and kissed Hefner’s ass, and everyone else on the show had to do it too. It was almost as bad as a White House press conference.
posted by Huplescat at 7:22 PM on January 1

What a sad pathetic man.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:35 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

In the late 1980's, I attended a fundraiser Hefner threw for Children of the Night at his Holmby Hills mansion. (It's a charity he's long supported).

The soiree was remarkably sedate: guests dined in a large tent, entertained by a band. After dinner, we could stroll the manicured grounds. Hefner's zoo was the most fascinating element: animals from all over the world housed in large enclosures. Hefner remained in his house throughout the evening, and certain VIPs slipped indoors to pay homage.

Yes, there were some Playboy bunnies poolside, and yes, Tony Curtis appeared, escorted by a blonde giantess nearly as horizontal chestwise as she was vertical. But most invitees were more interested in the entrees, the music, and the friendly marmoset in the zoo to pay much attention to the plastic T&A.
posted by terranova at 7:39 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

You know, I'm polyamorous, and have lived with my two partners for nineteen and four years now, respectively...

I've maintained a healthy, loving relationship with two women in the same household for longer than many people seem to ever manage with one.

... and yet, I look at Heffner and his blondes and still go "come on, now!"

I love women and all, but I'd like to think I wasn't a collector.
posted by markkraft at 7:43 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]

"What a sad pathetic man."

That said, this made me LOL...

Hugh's got his own world, I'm sure, and it works in a way he's quite comfortable with. So, in the sense that he's quite comfortable and gets everything he wants in life, yeah, that's really sad and pathetic, I guess.

(For you, at least. He's doing fine though, I hear.)

Really, it seems like he's got his fantasy down pat. If it's sad and pathetic in any way, it's just because his fantasy is superficial and banal... But really, if you run a big business based largely on sex, you're probably not the kind of guy who's going to want things to be too complicated, are you?!
posted by markkraft at 7:52 PM on January 1

St. Alia of the Bunnies: What a sad pathetic man.

Agreed. Love won't be free until the day people realize it's not exactly something you can pay for.
posted by koeselitz at 8:06 PM on January 1

I was always surprised at how much I enjoyed watching The Girls Next Door. Whoever thought of it truly was a genius- find out a way to make Playboy bunnies human, PROFIT! But of course, the downside was that some day, the day would come when the "relationships" between Hef and the three girls fell apart, he would quickly replace them with new blondes, and everyone would realize what a sad old leech he is. Did everybody see Hef's Christmas card this year (picture might be NSFW)? Yeah.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:17 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Confession time: for about three years, I was a paid subscriber to Playboy Magazine. My father was a lifetime subscriber, and after he died I decided that it was up to me to take over as the resident dirty-old-man of my family. Part of this self-appointed task was salvaging the twenty years' worth of Playboy magazines that my mother was going to throw out -- I still have them in storage to this day.

Unfortunately, at the time I was a subscriber, Playboy was undergoing a transition under James Kaminsky, the former editor at Maxim. Long articles were chopped, more graphics were inserted, and overall the quality of the magazine's written content deteriorated. The multi-page interview, which used to feature conversations with thoughtful subjects like Jimmy Carter and John Lennon, now focused on comparatively inarticulate baseball players of the week and pop stars with nothing interesting to say (Nickelback's Chad Kroeger was a recent interviewee). I noticed similar changes happening with other men's magazines like Esquire -- interestingly, both magazines dropped their Literary Editor from the masthead around the same time.

By the time Playboy had stooped to putting Paris Hilton on the front cover, I had let my subscription lapse. The magazine was no longer the document I remembered flipping through behind my parents' backs, reading music and book reviews and the Men/Women essays (by Asa Baber and Cynthia Heimel respectively). Of course I looked at the pictures and the Centrefold Of The Month, but it wasn't as if a resourceful teenager couldn't find nudie pics when he wanted/needed them, even in those pre-Internet Dark Ages. The naked ladies were only part of what made the magazine an institution.

The original idea of Playboy, as I understood it at the time, was that sex was only part of what men bought the magazine for. The same person who could appreciate a woman's body could also appreciate the essays of Joan Didion and the short stories of Norman Mailer and the journalism of Tom Wolfe. Hefner on one occasion commented half-seriously that he thought of Playboy as "a literary magazine with pictures of naked women". Without that intellectual component, however, the whole myth falls apart, and nowadays we're left with paparazzi snapshots of Frankie Muniz at the Mansion and an eighty-year-old Hefner pretending to an image of virility that gets more morbid with every passing year.

Once upon a time, you could joke that you only read Playboy for the articles. I miss the days when that joke still made some sense.
posted by spoobnooble at 8:21 PM on January 1 [14 favorites]

What tickles his fancy? That's obvious. Bleach-blonde hair and big fake breasts.

*stifles yawn*
posted by jason's_planet at 8:30 PM on January 1

A thousand bucks a week, which is what he pays them, seems pretty paltry, actually. Considering.

Hef and his girlfriends haven't heard of birth control?

Last stats I heard, even the best birth control was only effective 99.9% of the time. So, considering how much sex these girls must have, it's just obviously bound to fail.

Well, considering that he's unable to orgasm now by any other way than by masturbation, and that his "girlfriends" aren't allowed to fuck anyone else, I don't see that it's much of a problem.
posted by jokeefe at 8:35 PM on January 1 [4 favorites]

So, in the sense that he's quite comfortable and gets everything he wants in life, yeah, that's really sad and pathetic, I guess.

He's an old man. He's going to die soon. He's not getting everything he wants, and somewhere in his not un-intelligent mind he must know this. I'd like to think that at 82 I'd be preparing for death with a little more dignity than a man who is engaging in the same kind of empty, paid sex with women (who are being compensated to lie about how much they like him) than he's be pursuing for the last forty-odd years.
posted by jokeefe at 8:51 PM on January 1

Does anybody really believe that Hefner actually fucks these women? Come on now. The motherfucker's like two hundred years old, you guys. I'm pretty sure he puts Malcolm in the Middle and checks out the show, ifyaknowwhatimean.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:53 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

What a sad pathetic man.

Life is short, why not spend as much of it as possible in the company of beautiful women?
posted by MikeMc at 9:09 PM on January 1

Does anybody really believe that Hefner actually fucks these women?

I don't. If I thought he did it would evoke mental images that would probably scar me for life. My very sanity rests on belief that it's sham to perpetuate the Hef/Playboy lifestyle image.
posted by MikeMc at 9:12 PM on January 1

The last human Tex Avery character, yay. Just how badly do you have to fear death to strain this desperately at an appearance of cartoon masculinity?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:14 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

Afghani viagra
posted by Huplescat at 9:23 PM on January 1

Life is short, why not spend as much of it as possible in the company of beautiful women?

Yeah, Hef should do this rather than surround himself with those monsters. At some point in cosmetic surgery, these ladies simply fall right in to the uncanny valley and stop looking properly human. One of my ex-housemates had a subscription to Playboy; I thought the women in it were utterly hideous.
posted by fuq at 9:34 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

At some point in cosmetic surgery, these ladies simply fall right in to the uncanny valley and stop looking properly human.

I wonder when the exact moment was that Playboy stopped featuring attractive, natural women and just started taking them off the end of the Real Doll assembly line. The surgical "enhancements" and photoshoppery have gotten so pervasive I haven't made the slightest effort to look at a Playboy in years. Why bother? If you've seen one you've literally seen them all.
posted by MikeMc at 9:43 PM on January 1

I don't. If I thought he did it would evoke mental images that would probably scar me for life. My very sanity rests on belief that it's sham to perpetuate the Hef/Playboy lifestyle image.

It never even occurred to me until this thread that he might actually be sleeping with them. It was squarely in the same realm as watching pro-wrestling: we all know it's fake, but the whole point is the illusion.
posted by Amanojaku at 11:05 PM on January 1

That article reminded me of the polygamist mormon sect that exiles most of its young males when they become teenagers. Hef did the same thing to his own son when he reached 18. What a fucking bastard.
posted by clockworkjoe at 11:13 PM on January 1

Wait, someone isn't living how I choose to live? They must be miserable!
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 1:19 AM on January 2 [5 favorites]

I must say, it's a bit of a trash article, though. It's full of salacious-yet-unsourced details and meaningless bits of info meant to sound worse than they are. "Playmate Spencer Scott tested for Playboy via the traditional nude photo shoot when she was barely 18. She became the youngest Playmate in history." So in other words, "Consenting adult poses nude." Thanks, Radar Online. Never thought that would happen in Playboy of all places. I'll be sure to phone my congressman right away.

I'm sure there's an interesting story about all this, but "mudslinging + high horse" ain't it.
posted by Amanojaku at 2:55 AM on January 2

Thing about Playboy that makes me giggle* is the effect it has on smart, clued up men who otherwise seem to be in full touch with their higher critical faculties.

Several years ago, I used to work down the street from a Playboy office in Santa Monica. It was a very staid sort of simple office with obscured glass in the front windows and a small, discreet sign. I have no idea what part of the business it was involved in. Rumour from the local coffee hut and quickie lunch shops had it that it was a photo studio, but really, objectively, no one I knew or worked with knew for sure.

We'd walk past this office about once a week to go to lunch at a place a bit farther down the street. Every time we did, without fail, every guy in the group would look at the Playboy office and would crane their necks as we walked past. Complete and utter rubberneck. There and back again. It didn't matter that there was nothing to see (obscured glass, really generic sort of reception visible), but it did matter that it was Playboy. The 13 yr old kid in those guys was just fascinated by the very idea of it being connected to Playboy.

I mean, that's why she's Miss January, right? Because they have her working reception at the Playboy office on Broadway that month, in the buff?

I used to read my dad's Playboys back in the day. I was kind of fascinated by figuring out what made girls attractive. I don't think the articles were always fantastic. One really good article a year does not a magazine make. And the magazines were freaking hefty - discreet packaging aside, I think you could use a Playboy as a doorstop. Lots of paper, albeit thick, glossy paper, and not a whole lot of ideas within. I think the articles were always slightly OK, with rare exceptions. The whole allure of sex and nekkid girlies aside, I think the "quality" of the journalism was always slightly enhanced by the idea that a magazine that had nekkid girls in it could actually feature an article that wasn't exclusively about sex or was decently written. As much as the articles suck now, they kinda slightly sucked back then, too, with rare exceptions.

*giggling in a way of general lighthearted amusement, the vapidity of which is yet to be determined
posted by Grrlscout at 3:06 AM on January 2

...the rest was just creepy and sordid.

You were expecting enlightened and noble?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:08 AM on January 2

People still read magazines?
Playboy was an institution in the 60s and 70s, the interviews, articles, fiction were readable and relevant, but--along with spy movies, TV Westerns, musical variety and talk shows (and, with the advent of the internet, arguably all of television and print media)--well I honestly haven't looked at a Playboy in thirty-five years. Or a Rolling Stone, for that matter.

The Age of the American White Male is passing, but not before everything they've created has cracked, corroded, and crumbled, their business and political exploits taking on a cartoonish, Montgomery-Burns absurdity . . . has become outdated and irrelevant. But it cannot be denied that, for American White (Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual) Males in the 60s and 70s, life was good.
posted by Restless Day at 4:56 AM on January 2 [2 favorites]

Classy, well researched and presented articles like this are what I buy MetaFilter for.
Not the pictures.
posted by signal at 6:07 AM on January 2 [3 favorites]

Martin Amis's 1985 essay "In Hefnerland" is a good (better) look at the Playboy Empire and Hef. It's anthologised in Moronic Inferno.
posted by WPW at 6:25 AM on January 2

Life is short, why not spend as much of it as possible in the company of beautiful women Metafilter commenters?
posted by lukemeister at 8:04 AM on January 2

Didn't expect to see a gossip post about a reality TV show/"dirty" magazine on MeFi.

I just hope they cancel that show once and for all. What a pile of stupid, boring crap. That I watch.
posted by paisley henosis at 8:35 AM on January 2

Some of you are either being very disingenuous or live an existence very different from mine.

If I had Hef's fortune, both existing assets and recurring revenue stream, his celebrity, his power in the adult industry, his lifestyle as listed here would seem positively quaint compared to mine.

If I were Hef, I would live like fucking Caligula.

What's wrong with a grown man wanting to enjoy beautiful women? Beautiful women who took extraordinary measures and exerted extreme effort just for the privilege of being there?

It's more than being voluntary. The playmates did not just "agree" to go to the mansion one day... they pursued it, doggedly, whilst in competition with other beautiful women doing the same.

What part of that is sad or pathetic?
posted by Ynoxas at 12:12 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

A bit of a derail into some meta here:

Didn't expect to see a gossip post about a reality TV show/"dirty" magazine on MeFi.

Then you are not looking close enough because they've been on here before. Or would you rather I posted an obit, which seems to be the FPP rage these days?

I posted this because I think Hefner is very interesting in many ways. In one sense he's the "American Dream" by creating a business from nothing and turning it something hugely successful. In another sense he's the atypical male dream (no explanation needed for that). I've read a bit about the guy and he seems to be a very intelligent man. So there is a lot of duality to look at here and explore if you so please.
The post wasn't the greatest but if you only come to Metafilter for the links (and to bitch) then I think you're missing out on quite a bit here.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:48 PM on January 2

Gosh, he never seemed "sad" or "pathetic" to me! In the few interviews I've seen with him, one thing I always noted was that he had very good social skills, with men and women. He has a very non-threatening demeanor with women, and not just because he's some old guy. He seems to have a talent for making women feel safe. Yeah, that sounds weird, but just observe how he speaks to women sometime. It is definitely one reason why he is so successful with them. I've met guys like this who aren't wealthy at all, and women LOVE them.

And jeez, if I had his money and was unattached, I'd at least consider living in a big house full of cute, hot, young men. *sigh*

Why is this considered so sad and pathetic to you guys?
posted by uxo at 3:26 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Did you not see how even his young employees need Viagra? Normal sexuality has NOTHING for them anymore without chemical and other help.

Instead of the sweet mystery and loving and caring of a full complete relationship where love and sex and commitment and pairbonding twine to make lovemaking exciting even after decades, this jaded old man is surrounded by fake plastic vapid Barbies who are only there as long as the money and perks keep going. Can anyone truly expect me to believe that anyone on this planet loves this man for himself? (with the possible exception of his children, but, dude, he kicked out his son when he turned 18 because he didn't want him getting in on Dad's nookie supply????????)

Hef is a jaded old rake who if the truth were known probably enjoys sex less than almost everyone on this thread.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:25 PM on January 2 [3 favorites]

AAAnnddd I read this and applied it to this topic. Made good sense to me.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:35 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

What a sad pathetic man.

Life is short, why not spend as much of it as possible in the company of beautiful women?
posted by MikeMc at 12:09 AM on January 2 [+] [!]

I think the huge chasm of understanding here is between those who find the idea of spending their days being able to boink as many nubile, blonde, busty women as a desirable lifestyle and those who find the idea of living like a pimp rather disgusting. Like most pimps, Hef doesn't really seem to like women; he likes their parts and their holes, but his ideal playmate was never chosen for character or intelligence. The bunnies are never his friends, never his equal. They are sometimes his to fuck and sometimes his to give to others to fuck, like a party gift.

It isn't that sex itself is so terrible. Back through the centuries many great cultures have featured great courtesans, often it was the only pathway to power and wealth for women outside marriage. Every society developed its own list of desirable traits to be found in the sexually ideal woman. Hef had a chance in the 50's to define the perfect American pin-up as a woman with great conversational skills, musical abilities, political astuteness: grace and charm as well as perfect legs and teeth. Instead he gave the world the Playboy Bunny-- always cheerful, always ready to fuck. Noticeable mainly for large breasts and glowing skin. Loves to walk on the beach and sit naked on a bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Doesn't want children, because that would interfere with the party. Is ready to spread her legs for anyone-- including other women. Oh and let's not forget, she is the girl next door. Stress the words "girl" and "next door" meaning she is neither worldly nor particularly ambitious. The Playboy Bunny is a walking teenage boy's fantasy-- an easy, uncomplicated "sure thing."

I've given up being revolted with Hef himself. He merely lived out his dreams and profited by his passions. What I find disgusting is how he was lionized by society back in the day when men and women were proud to be associated with him and a trip to the mansion was de rigueur for the Hollywood elite. However his glory days have passed. Not only has he became a reptilian old man, he has lost most of his power to the internet. He probably has some interesting memories, but I would bet he can't keep the girls straight. They probably all blur together in his mind. How sad that he chose to go through life surrounded by a bunch of boobs and holes.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:07 PM on January 2 [5 favorites]

uxo - Why is this considered so sad and pathetic to you guys?

Jealousy?

Or maybe toeing the PC line.

Sure, I've 'read' an interview in Playboy with an athlete - Mario Lemieux - but there was so much more, in my dad's Playboys, than just nekkid women (I still love you Erika Eleniak), There were the technology predictions (haha, they missed LASIK [as opposed to "eye braces"] but I think they got the ubiqitous use of cellphones) and science fiction. Hmm, "Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Norman Spinrad, Damon Knight, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., J.G. Ballard, Frederick Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg, Joe Haldeman, and more. (Sorry, amazon link)
posted by porpoise at 7:29 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Life is short, why not spend as much of it as possible in the company of beautiful women?

Because like many women, I exist as more than a decoration.
posted by Phalene at 9:09 PM on January 2 [5 favorites]

Porpoise, how many years has Playboy been in print? How many articles in each magazine? How many of those per year? Typing monkeys and Shakespeare come to mind...

Not saying that every so often you'd get something interesting out of Playboy, but if you reread the interviews, in particular, they come across as being a whole lot of fluff. They would not be out of place if you saw them in Maxim or FHM.
posted by Grrlscout at 2:38 AM on January 3

Not saying that every so often you'd get something interesting out of Playboy, but if you reread the interviews, in particular, they come across as being a whole lot of fluff. They would not be out of place if you saw them in Maxim or FHM.

That's actually not really true. As a lit magazine, Playboy was once pretty great (I inherited a big bunch of '60s/'70s Playboy when a great-uncle died a few years ago), and not at all fluffy. It wasn't uncommon for them to publish interviews that ran, I'd estimate, 7500-10,000 words; I doubt the entire average issue of Maxim even has ten thousand words in it. Playboy is not what it used to be in this regard, but even now it's smarter than you're giving it credit for. Somebody mentioned Rolling Stone upthread, and I'd say that's a similar case; just switch out pictures of huge fake plastic tits for articles about the Jonas Brothers and you arrive at about the same place: A relatively intelligent magazine that occasionally veers toward the wildly intelligent, but you have to navigate around a lot of cheesy crap to get at it, and be prepared for mockery when friends find it on your kitchen counter. And in both cases, the magazines aren't what they were in their glory days.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:12 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]

Agreeing with kittens for breakfast.

Here is a table of contents listing for Playboy's Holiday Anniversary Issue, January 1970:

"The Americanization of Vietnam" by David Halberstam
"Reconciling the Generations" by U.S. Senator George McGovern
"Sharing the Wealth" by Cesar Chavez
"Uniting the Races" by Julian Bond
"Forging a Left-Right Coalition" by Tom Wicker
"Points of Rebellion" by Justice William O. Douglas
"Our Besieged Bill of Rights" by The Honourable Arthur J. Goldberg.

And here are some seemingly confirming remarks by Hefner himself about Playboy's changes:

HEFNER: Well, I think it's obvious for a lot of reasons that there is
a certain dumbing down of society. We get our news and information
now by sound bites, the briefest kinds of moments on television and
radio and on the Internet. And I think the nature of things also is
that the younger generation has a shorter attention span. You see
that reflected not only in magazines like Maxim, but you also see it
in changes that have taken place in PLAYBOY. In other words, readers,
by and large, are not as given to a thoughtful, extended periods of
time with fiction or nonfiction. I think we're bombarded now by so
many different sources of information, that it's kind of pick and
choose. (secondary cite, originally from msnbc)
posted by terranova at 8:39 AM on January 3

I call bullshit. "A source and former employee"? Come on. I'm surprised they didn't add something about Hefner making the girls have sex with the mansion's peacocks and monkeys.
posted by Breo at 10:01 AM on January 3

You might be right, kittens - it's been years since I looked at a Playboy, old or new. I might well be falling victim to the flipside of the bias I've mentioned. Even so, I think we're basically saying the same thing. You had to get through a boatload of rubbish to get to something worth reading. I just seem to remember a lot more rubbish than not, but then again, it might just be my taste. Celebrity interviews, for example - not my thang. I think that the articles were always there to try and hang some sort of respectability around the porn. To claim it's Granta or the NY Review of Books with the odd bit of porn in it to spice things up or increase sales is ridiculous.

You've picked the anniversary issue of a magazine, terranova. Not your normal issue, by design, right?

Playboy is OK, actually. It's porn, but it isn't sleazy. It's vanilla. I would hate to live in a world where I couldn't pick up even a vanilla porn magazine at my local Quikimart. Or in one where the women in porn had no pubes whatsoever - not from waxing, but from airbrushing or artistic convention. Playboy is the male flipside to the Good Vibrations sort of revolution about sex toys and women's sexuality. There isn't very much there to get pissed off about.

In addition to the vanillaness of it, I think that the Playboy brand's being killed off by how expensive it is. How much is a subscription to the Playboy channel these days? Or their website? Or the magazine itself? Yes, I'm sure older and more affluent men subscribe to porn magazines, but my own experience says it's more college guys. When you base your decision to subscribe to a magazine as... personal... as Playboy can be based on if you can get your roommate to split the cost with you... man, that's just bad business.

Hef's been at this whole media game for so long, I would take anything written about him with a grain of salt. His whole schtick is that he's just a normal guy surrounded by beautiful women, and a nagging wife is just part of that schtick.
posted by Grrlscout at 10:02 AM on January 3

Somebody mentioned Rolling Stone upthread, and I'd say that's a similar case

Yes, I have a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone (gotten right before I was going to quit; it was only 20 dollars more than a year's) and am often ridiculed for it, but it's got some really quality stuff in there behind all the ridiculous teen idols and whatnot. Their movie reviews are usually pretty decent but their record reviews (besides David Fricke's) are terrible.

Anyway, back on topic, I found some Playboys in the woods once and enjoyed them.
posted by saul wright at 9:39 PM on January 3

Life is short...

Compared to what? Never understood this particular cliche.
posted by signal at 1:47 PM on January 4

An old boss of mine once said: "I've never understood why people claim that 'life is short.' It's the longest span of time any of us will ever know."
posted by Kattullus at 3:13 PM on January 4