Love it or hate it, Playboy is one of the most iconic American publications of all time.
Under the leadership of the late Hugh Hefner, Playboy became an American counterculture
trailblazer, influencing for better or worse the way we look at lovemaking, literature,
and even civil rights.
This is the untold truth of Playboy.
Stag Party
In December 1953, Hefner reportedly mortgaged the furniture from "what would be his first
wedding" for a $600 loan.
He took that and some other money borrowed from those close to him and used it to publish
the first edition of Playboy.
However, he didn't originally want to call it Playboy.
The magazine's mission statement declared that their intended readership was men who
"enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d'oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the
phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion..."
But he actually wanted to call the magazine Stag Party.
Which sounds a whole lot less cosmopolitan, and more frat house.
Luckily for Hefner, a men's magazine called Stag wasn't very happy with the idea of brand
confusion.
Hefner and art director Art Paul brainstormed new ideas with founding associate Eldon Sellers,
who pitched the title Playboy.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
The Playboy bunny
With stags out the window, the magazine needed a new mascot, and Hefner and Paul quickly
landed on the bunny.
In 1976, Hefner explained in an interview that he chose the bunny because "it's a fresh
animal, shy, vivacious, jumping [...] First it smells you then it escapes, then it comes
back, and you feel like caressing it, playing with it.
A girl resembles a bunny.
Joyful, joking.
… The Playboy girl has no lace, no underwear [...] and she is happy."
According to Paul, it only took him an hour to design the iconic Playboy Bunny, which
debuted on the cover for the second issue.
Since then, the bunny has appeared somewhere on every single Playboy cover, though it's
often hidden.
Happy hunting!
A minor controversy
According to The New Yorker, Hefner found himself in hot water early in his publishing
career in 1958 when Playboy "published a centerfold of a sixteen-year-old girl."
Hefner faced charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but the case was dismissed
after he produced "written permission from her mother," though that didn't keep her from
facing jail time.
It wasn't until 1984 that the magazine officially instituted a minimum age of 18 for its models.
Reading it just for the articles
In 2015, Playboy decided to remove clothes-free images from the magazine, with chief executive
Scott Flanders citing the overabundance of adult content on the internet as a key factor.
One factor he didn't mention, however was pressure from the Chinese market.
Though Playboy is banned in China because of its pictorials, The New York Times reported
that China is responsible for up to 40% of the company's revenue thanks to licensing.
From 2009 to 2013, Playboy's international licensing revenue rose by $28 million, which
kept the company afloat since the American magazine branch was actually losing millions
of dollars every year.
Still, despite their reliance on Chinese money, Playboy eventually reversed their decision
and added its most famous, ahem, assets back to the magazine in 2017.
Ironically, this retrograde decision came after the magazine's sales actually rose after
it took the salacious centerfolds out, proving that the old joke about reading Playboy for
the articles was actually true.
At least for a little while.
Literary legacy
So why would people buy Playboy just for the articles?
It might be because the magazine has long been a champion of fine literature, publishing
works by everyone from John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac to Arthur C. Clarke and Margaret
Atwood.
In fact, Ray Bradbury's classic novel Fahrenheit 451 was introduced to a mass audience when
Hefner decided to serialize it in the pages of Playboy.
For his contributions to the literary world, Hefner was given the Award of Honor from Pen
Center USA.
Jamie Wolf, vice president of the organization, told the BBC, "[Hefner] published Saul Bellow,
he published Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he published John Updike, he published an extraordinary
range of writers, serious literary writers who you were not otherwise getting when you
went into the grocery store.
And he was paying them substantial wages.
And some of them were blacklisted writers who other people wouldn't publish."
Sleek lines
According to historian Beatriz Colomina, "Playboy did more for modern architecture and design
than any architectural journal or even the Museum of Modern Art."
And she should know, because Colomina headed a Princeton study examining Hefner's obsession
with design and architecture, which was prominently featured in Playboy's famous photo spreads.
Colomina told Architecture Magazine, "They really felt that this was an important tool
— actually crucial — for seduction.
The modern apartment is a necessity for the bachelor, who has to surround himself with
all these gadgets and all this modern furniture, and eventually even the architecture, the
Playboy Pad.
These are the settings in which seduction [happens]."
Romance through feng shui.
Genius.
Free speech and civil rights
In 2010, Hefner was awarded the First Amendment Award by Pen Center USA, which describes the
honor as being "given to a candidate who has done work in the domestic United States to
protect the First Amendment."
Through the Hugh Hefner Foundation, Hefner's daughter Christie Established Playboy's own
First Amendment awards.
According to Business Insider, since 1979, the foundation has awarded multiple recipients
per year "whose actions support and often fight to preserve the values of the First
Amendment."
And Hefner has also used Playboy's reach to promote civil rights.
In an interview with CBS, Hefner said, "I felt from a very early age that there were
things in society that were wrong, and that I might play some small part in changing them."
He did this by desegregating the Playboy Clubs, publishing works by Martin Luther King Jr.,
and giving a platform to outspoken figures such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson and jazz
legend Miles Davis.
According to People, Hefner also strongly advocated for gay rights, women's reproductive
rights, and religious freedom.
"The magazine, it was so successful I knew could do the other half of what I'm really
all about.
Which is, you know, the social justice.
That's right: Hugh Hefner as a self described social justice warrior is the ultimate untold
truth of Playboy.
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