Saturday, November 14, 2009

Playboy these days

Does anybody here read Playboy?
I've been told that they no longer show "kitty" as much as they used to, is this so?

I'm interested and a little surprised because I remember the first (of very few) Playboys I ever bought, as a teen in the seventies (maybe '77). If I remember correctly, it had an article and photoshoot (from a river trip, I think) celebrating a lovely raven "playmate of the year", and one of the photos had her on her knees with her back to the camera, looking back with a big smile, and her kitty was very visible indeed, which amazed and delighted us at that age. (Still sometimes delights me, if well done, but not so amazing these days.)

BTW, if the magazine no longer shows shows the vulva openly, surely this is not true of the web site (the "cyberclub")? Anybody tried it?
(Further by the by, I'm amazed at how relatively cheap that site is ($20/month), considering how huge it is and Playboy's status.)

15 comments:

Ray said...

From Wikipedia:-

In June 2009, the magazine reduced its publication schedule to 11 issues per year, with a combined July/August issue and on 11 August 2009, London's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Hugh Hefner had sold his English Manor house (next door to the famous Playboy Mansion) for $18 m ($10 m less than the reported asking price) to a Daren Metropoulos and that due to significant losses in the company's value (down from $1billion in 2000 to $84mil in 2009) the Playboy publishing empire is up for sale for $300 m.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Well, heck, maybe I'll buy it then, get some nice stuff in those pages again like they had in the fifties/sixties.

Anonymous said...

It wouldn't make any difference, for a few reasons:

Young guys today see Playboy as their father's or grandfather's nudie magazine. They are reading stuff like Maxim these days.

All magazines like newspapers are seeing declining readership.

Playboy really has had excellent articles since the beginning and is probably seen by Maxim readers as too highbrow.

Because of the internet there's no way the tame photos of Playboy can compete.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, those are good points.

It's true they've had good articles. And stories too, they were the highest paying market for short stories and had stories by authors like Ray Bradbury (I read one of his in Playboy many years ago, maybe written for them, the title had "Laurel and Hardy" in it.)

Sara said...

The board minutes for the meetings that made and implemented their decision must be among the worst in ignorance the world has known since the days of the supposed wmd. "I move that we hide all paper versions of the vulva . . ." and seconded and discussed and voted through. Pure crap. Regardless of what they put online or what their competitors are doing, it's still pure ignorant crap.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks, Sara, it's interesting to hear that it was a deliberate decision on board level.

What was their given reason for the move?

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Eolake tantalized...
"Well, heck, maybe I'll buy it then"

Seriously? That would be great!
Imagine, putting the Domai spirit in the winded body of aging Playboy, re-igniting the human beauty revolution in this half-jaded half-neoprude millenium.
I have a dream...
(Well, OK, it's a bit of a "wet dream", but come on, these are ENJOYABLE!)

"Because of the internet there's no way the tame photos of Playboy can compete."
I agree, they're VERY tame compared to what I see on an internet site called domai.com
Throw in a few GoddessNudes maybe...
I can just imagine: the male public suddenly abuzz with interest, and a new raging polemic about these "shameless women so brazenly seeming to innocently ENJOY themselves".
You can always sount on the fundies to give you the best advertising that money CAN'T buy. }:-)

the title had "Laurel and Hardy" in it.
Are you sure it wasn't "Tarzan"? Because I seem to remember something like that.
Bradbury writes WELL. I've read his Martian Chronicles. Inspiring stuff, and highly poetic. Almost poetic MORE than S-F.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

COUNT on the fundies

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I've actually met and shook the hand of Bradbury, in 1990 at an SF Writers convention in NYC. He was holding his Lifetime Achievement Nebula Award.

I also had a relaxed chat with Frederik Pohl in lazy chairs in a deluxe hotel corridor.
I tried to impress him by the Space Merchants having been published in Danish, and he said "yes, it's out in 42 languages", and it was my turn to be impressed.

neeraj said...

"42" !

The universal sense of all, or something like this ;-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yep, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Anonymous said...

Tell me what the question is and I'll be impressed. The answer has been known for many millions of years.

Anonymous said...

Btw, did what Sara said actually make sense to any of you? Seemed like the ramblings of a nut to me.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I think the question was "how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?"

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

I just can't believe the name of Frederik Pohl is alien to an S-F fanatic like me! Seems like I've never read ANYTHING by him to this day.
Now I must sit in the ashes in abject shame. :,(

Neeraj,
Then I guess an Occitan version would be out of question, because it would upsed this perfect figure? ;-)

"Seemed like the ramblings of a nut to me."
Correction: the ramblings of a NUN.
What, you mean you've never heard or the Rambler Nun, Sister Sara and her two mules?
"Sister Sara", a holy nun from the Motherly Order of Mary's Sanctuary (M.O.M.S., a monastery-turned-orphanage in Yughuristan, Central Asia), born in the 19th Century, now older than Jeanne Calment, has spent her entire life trying to find a Christian alternative to Sex Ed for young children, that would be based on miraculous enlightenment through prayer. She's been beatified by Darth Benedictus XVI for already accomplishing one miracle, immaculate conception by all of her girl orphans "without having known a man". (Or is that "having known Man"? Whatever.) Her theological research on the verse "be fruitful and multiply", demonstrating how the vulva is the Serpent's bite-shaped Forbidden Fruit, would have gotten her canonized already, but the Vatican is waiting for news of a second miracle, or for the old mummy to finally croak like a dry branch... whichever comes first. Rules are rules!