Playboy
Encyclopedia
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner
and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
, with a presence in nearly every medium. Playboy is one of the world's best known brand
s. In addition to the flagship magazine in the United States, special nation-specific versions of Playboy are published worldwide.
The magazine has a long history of publishing short stories by notable novelists such as Arthur C. Clarke
, Ian Fleming
, Vladimir Nabokov
, Chuck Palahniuk
, P. G. Wodehouse
and Margaret Atwood
. With a regular display of full-page color cartoons, it became a showcase for notable cartoonists, including Jack Cole
, Eldon Dedini
, Jules Feiffer
, Shel Silverstein
, Erich Sokol and Rowland B. Wilson
.
Playboy features monthly interviews of notable public figures, such as artists, architects, economists, composers, conductors, film directors, journalists, novelists, playwrights, religious figures, politicians, athletes and race car drivers. The magazine generally reflects a liberal
editorial stance.
— a 1949 University of Illinois psychology graduate who had worked in Chicago
for Esquire
magazine writing promotional copy; Publisher's Development Corporation in sales and marketing; and Children's Activities magazine as circulation promotions manager — had planned out the elements of his own magazine, that he would call Stag Party. He formed HMH Publishing Corporation, and recruited his friend Eldon Sellers to find investors. Hefner eventually raised just over $8,000, including from his brother and mother. However, the publisher of an unrelated men's adventure
magazine, Stag
, contacted Hefner and informed him it would file suit to protect their trademark
if he were to launch his magazine with that name. Hefner, his wife Millie, and Sellers met to seek a new name, considering "Top Hat", "Gentleman", "Sir'", "Satyr", "Pan" and "Bachelor" before Sellers suggested "Playboy".
The first issue, in December 1953, was undated, as Hefner was unsure there would be a second. He produced it in his Hyde Park
kitchen. The first centerfold was Marilyn Monroe
, although the picture used originally was taken for a calendar rather than for Playboy. The first issue sold out in weeks. Known circulation was 53,991. The cover price was 50¢. Copies of the first issue in mint to near mint condition sold for over $5,000 in 2002. The novel Fahrenheit 451
, by Ray Bradbury
, was serialized in the March, April and May 1954 issues of Playboy. First published in 1953 by Ballantine Books
, Fahrenheit 451 had earlier appeared in a shorter form as The Fireman in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
.
The logo, the stylized profile of a rabbit
wearing a tuxedo
bow tie, was originally designed by art designer Art Paul
for the second issue to be used as an endnote
, but was adopted as the official logo and has appeared ever since. A running joke in the magazine involves hiding the logo somewhere in the cover art or photograph. Hefner said he chose the rabbit for its "humorous sexual
connotation," and because the image was "frisky and playful."
An urban legend
started about Hefner and the Playmate of the Month because of markings on the front covers of the magazine. From 1955 to 1979 (except for a six month gap in 1976), the "P" in Playboy had stars printed in or around the letter. The legend stated that this was either a rating that Hefner gave to the Playmate according to how attractive she was, the number of times that Hefner had slept with her, or how good she was in bed. The stars, between zero and 12, actually indicated the domestic or international advertising region for that printing.
From 1966 to 1976 Robie Macauley
was the Fiction Editor at Playboy. During this period the magazine published fiction by Saul Bellow
, Sean O'Faolain, John Updike
, James Dickey
, John Cheever
, Doris Lessing
, Joyce Carol Oates
, Vladimir Nabokov
, Michael Crichton
, John LeCarre, Irwin Shaw
, Jean Shepherd
, Arthur Koestler
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
, Bernard Malamud
, John Irving
, Anne Sexton
, Nadine Gordimer
, Kurt Vonnegut
and J. P. Donleavy
, as well as poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
. Macauley also contributed all of the popular Ribald Classics series published between January 1978 and March 1984.
Since reaching its peak in the 1970s, Playboy has seen a decline in circulation and cultural relevance because of competition in the field it founded — first from Penthouse
, Oui
(which was published as a spin-off of Playboy) and Gallery
in the 1970s; later from pornographic videos
; and more recently from lad mags such as Maxim
, FHM
, and Stuff
. In response, Playboy has attempted to re-assert its hold on the 18–35 male demographic through slight changes to content and focusing on issues and personalities more appropriate to its audience — such as hip-hop artists being featured in the "Playboy Interview".
Christie Hefner, daughter of the founder Hugh Hefner, joined Playboy in 1975 and became head of the company in 1988. She announced in December 2008 that she would be stepping down from leading the company, effective in January 2009, and said that the election of Barack Obama as the next President had inspired her to give more time to charitable work, and that the decision to step down was her own. “Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well,” she said.
The magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary with the January 2004 issue. Celebrations were held at Las Vegas
, Los Angeles, New York, and Moscow during the year to commemorate this event.
The magazine runs several annual features and ratings. One of the most popular is its annual ranking of the top "party schools" among all U.S. universities and colleges. For 2009, the magazine used five considerations: bikini, brains, campus, sex and sports in the development of its list. The top ranked party school by Playboy for 2009 was the University of Miami
.
In June 2009, the magazine reduced its publication schedule to 11 issues per year, with a combined July/August issue and on August 11, 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. In December 2009, they further reduced the publication schedule to 10 issues per year, with a combined January/February issue.
On July 12, 2010, Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced Hefner's $5.50 per share offer ($122.5 milion based on shares outstanding on April 30 and the closing price on July 9) to buy the portion of the company he does not already own and take the company private with the help of Rizvi Traverse Management LLC. The company derives much of its income from licensing rather than the magazine. On July 15, Penthouse owner FriendFinder Networks Inc. offered $210 million (the company is valued at $185 million), though Hefner, who already owns 70 percent of voting stock, does not want to sell.
January 10, 2011 The publisher of Playboy magazine has agreed to a sweetened offer by founder Hugh Hefner to take the company private for $6.15, 18 percent premium over the price of the last previous day trading. A tender offer is expected to initial by January 21, 2011 and the deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
, for example, served as a Playboy interviewer on a few occasions; one of his interviews was with Martin Luther King Jr.; he also interviewed Malcolm X
, then coauthored his autobiography). One of the magazine's most notable interviews was a discussion with then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter
in the November 1976 issue in which he stated "I've committed adultery
in my heart many times." David Sheff
's interview with John Lennon
and Yoko Ono
appeared in the January 1981 issue, which was on newsstands at the time of Lennon's murder; the interview was later published in book format.
Another interview type section, entitled "20Q" (a play on the game of Twenty Questions
), was added in October 1978. Cheryl Tiegs
was the first interviewee for the section.
The best-selling Playboy edition was the November 1972 edition, which sold 7,161,561 copies. One-quarter of all American college men were buying the magazine every month. On the cover was model Pam Rawlings, photographed by Rowland Scherman
.
Perhaps coincidentally, a cropped image of the issue's centerfold (which featured Lena Soderberg
) became a de facto
standard image
for testing image processing algorithms. It is known simply as the "Lenna
" (also "Lena") image in that field.
In 1970, Playboy became the first gentleman's magazine to be printed in braille
.
pastor and author L. L. Clover
, in his treatise Evil Spirits Intellectualism and Logic, writes in 1974 that the publication encourages young men to view themselves as "pleasure-seeking individuals for whom sex is fun and women are play things." Clover also decries the inclusion of sexual material in popular films. "Parents and leaders could remove these lewd stumbling blocks in a very short time if they so desired. The sad truth is that many of them... tacitly approve of an illegitimate sexual atmosphere." claimed the clergyman.
In many parts of Asia
, including India
, mainland China
, Myanmar
, Malaysia, Thailand
, Singapore
and Brunei
, sale and distribution of Playboy is banned. In addition, sale and distribution is banned in most Muslim countries (except Lebanon
and Turkey
) in Asia and Africa, including Iran
, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan
. However, the magazine is sold in Hong Kong
. In Japan, where genitals of models cannot be shown, a separate edition is published under license by Shueisha
.
An Indonesia
n edition was launched in April 2006, but controversy started before the first issue hit the stands. Though the publisher said the content of the Indonesian edition will be different from the original edition, the government tried to ban it by using anti-pornography rules. (The Indonesian government cannot ban any medium.) A Muslim
organization, the Islamic Defenders Front (IDF), opposed Playboy on the grounds of pornography. On April 12, about 150 IDF members clashed with police and stoned the editorial offices. Despite this, the edition quickly sold out. On April 6, 2007 the chief judge of the case dismissed the charges because they had been incorrectly filed.
In 1986, the American convenience store
chain 7-Eleven
removed the magazine. The store returned Playboy to its shelves in late 2003. 7-Eleven had also been selling Penthouse and other similar magazines before the ban.
In 1995–after a 36-year ban–Playboy was returned to shelves in Ireland
, despite staunch opposition from many women's groups.
In bookstores throughout the world it is common for Playboy, as well as other adult publications, to be wrapped in opaque plastic bags and put on a higher shelf than other magazines, keeping them out of the reach of curious children. Before the late 1980s, Playboy was usually covered with a heavy paper wrapping, similar to paper bags commonly found in grocery stores, with the famous bunny head logo printed in jet black on both sides; however, up to and into the 1970s in the United States, mailed issues using the "plain brown wrapper" did not indicate the Playboy name or logo.
Playboy was not sold in the state of Queensland, Australia during 2004 and 2005 but returned as of 2006. Due to declining sales, the last Australia-wide edition of Playboy was the January 2000 issue.
terms "Playboy" and "Playmate" should be protected in the situation where a user typing "Playboy" or "Playmate" in a browser
search was instead shown advertisements of companies that competed with PEI. (The decision reversed an earlier district court ruling.) The suit started on April 15, 1999, when Playboy sued Excite Inc.
and Netscape for trademark infringement.
, Richard Fegley
, Arny Freytag
, Ron Harris
, Tom Kelley
, David Mecey
, Russ Meyer
, Pompeo Posar
, Suze Randall
, Herb Ritts
, Stephen Wayda
, Sam Wu
, Mario Casilli
, Annie Leibovitz
, Helmut Newton
, and Bunny Yeager
.
Many celebrities (singers, actresses, models, etc.) have posed for Playboy over the years. This list is only a small portion of those who have posed. Some of them are:
(starting at the accompanying date, or during the accompanying date range)
Current:
Former:
(formerly called News Stand Specials), such as Playboy's College Girls and Playboy's Book of Lingerie, as well as the Playboy video collection.
The growth of the Internet
prompted the magazine to develop an official web presence called Playboy Online or Playboy.com, which is the official website for Playboy Enterprises
, and an online companion to Playboy magazine. The site has been available online since 1994. As part of the online presence, Playboy developed a pay web site called the Playboy Cyber Club in 1995 which features online chats, additional pictorials, videos of Playmates and Playboy Cyber Girls that are not featured in the magazine. Archives of past Playboy articles and interviews are also included. In September 2005, Playboy launched the online edition of the magazine Playboy Digital.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
(NLS) has published a Braille
edition of Playboy since 1970. The Braille version includes all the written words in the non-Braille magazine, but no pictorial representations. Congress cut off funding for the Braille magazine translation in 1985, but U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan reversed the decision on First Amendment
grounds.
In 2010 Playboy introduced "The Smoking Jacket", a safe-for-work website designed to appeal to young men, while avoiding nude images or key words that would cause the site to be filtered or otherwise prohibited in the workplace.
In May 2011 Playboy introduced i.playboy.com, a complete, uncensored version of its near 700 issue archive, targeting the Apple
iPad
. By launching the archive as a web app, Playboy was able to circumvent both Apple's App Store content restictions and their 30% subscription fee.
Anniversary collections
Interview compilations
Others
Hugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
, with a presence in nearly every medium. Playboy is one of the world's best known brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
s. In addition to the flagship magazine in the United States, special nation-specific versions of Playboy are published worldwide.
The magazine has a long history of publishing short stories by notable novelists such as Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...
, P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
and Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
. With a regular display of full-page color cartoons, it became a showcase for notable cartoonists, including Jack Cole
Jack Cole (artist)
Jack Ralph Cole was an American comic book artist and Playboy magazine cartoonist best known for creating the comedic superhero Plastic Man....
, Eldon Dedini
Eldon Dedini
Eldon Dedini was an American cartoonist whose work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Playboy and elsewhere....
, Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
, Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein
Sheldon Allan "Shel" Silverstein , was an American poet, singer-songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books. He styled himself as Uncle Shelby in his children's books...
, Erich Sokol and Rowland B. Wilson
Rowland B. Wilson
Rowland Bragg Wilson is an American animation production artist and gag cartoonist who did watercolor illustrations for leading magazines, notably Playboy and TV Guide. His work was usually signed Rowland B...
.
Playboy features monthly interviews of notable public figures, such as artists, architects, economists, composers, conductors, film directors, journalists, novelists, playwrights, religious figures, politicians, athletes and race car drivers. The magazine generally reflects a liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
editorial stance.
History
By spring 1953, Hugh HefnerHugh Hefner
Hugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
— a 1949 University of Illinois psychology graduate who had worked in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
for Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
magazine writing promotional copy; Publisher's Development Corporation in sales and marketing; and Children's Activities magazine as circulation promotions manager — had planned out the elements of his own magazine, that he would call Stag Party. He formed HMH Publishing Corporation, and recruited his friend Eldon Sellers to find investors. Hefner eventually raised just over $8,000, including from his brother and mother. However, the publisher of an unrelated men's adventure
Men's adventure
Men's adventure is a genre of magazines that had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. Catering to a male audience, these magazines featured glamour photography and lurid tales of adventure that typically featured wartime feats of daring, exotic travel or conflict with wild animals.These magazines are...
magazine, Stag
Stag (magazine)
Stag was the name of various American men's magazines published from the 1930s through at least the 1990s.-Publication history:The first, published by Leeds Publishing Corp., beginning with vol...
, contacted Hefner and informed him it would file suit to protect their trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
if he were to launch his magazine with that name. Hefner, his wife Millie, and Sellers met to seek a new name, considering "Top Hat", "Gentleman", "Sir'", "Satyr", "Pan" and "Bachelor" before Sellers suggested "Playboy".
The first issue, in December 1953, was undated, as Hefner was unsure there would be a second. He produced it in his Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
kitchen. The first centerfold was Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, although the picture used originally was taken for a calendar rather than for Playboy. The first issue sold out in weeks. Known circulation was 53,991. The cover price was 50¢. Copies of the first issue in mint to near mint condition sold for over $5,000 in 2002. The novel Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books...
, by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, was serialized in the March, April and May 1954 issues of Playboy. First published in 1953 by Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
, Fahrenheit 451 had earlier appeared in a shorter form as The Fireman in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
.
The logo, the stylized profile of a rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
wearing a tuxedo
Black tie
Black tie is a dress code for evening events and social functions. For a man, the main component is a usually black jacket, known as a dinner jacket or tuxedo...
bow tie, was originally designed by art designer Art Paul
Art Paul
Art Paul is an American graphics designer, Art Director of Playboy through its first 30 years of publication, and the designer of the Playboy rabbit-head logo.-Early life and education:...
for the second issue to be used as an endnote
EndNote
EndNote is a commercial reference management software package, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles. It is produced by Thomson Reuters.- Features :...
, but was adopted as the official logo and has appeared ever since. A running joke in the magazine involves hiding the logo somewhere in the cover art or photograph. Hefner said he chose the rabbit for its "humorous sexual
Human sexual behavior
Human sexual activities or human sexual practices or human sexual behavior refers to the manner in which humans experience and express their sexuality. People engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time, and for a wide variety of reasons...
connotation," and because the image was "frisky and playful."
An urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
started about Hefner and the Playmate of the Month because of markings on the front covers of the magazine. From 1955 to 1979 (except for a six month gap in 1976), the "P" in Playboy had stars printed in or around the letter. The legend stated that this was either a rating that Hefner gave to the Playmate according to how attractive she was, the number of times that Hefner had slept with her, or how good she was in bed. The stars, between zero and 12, actually indicated the domestic or international advertising region for that printing.
From 1966 to 1976 Robie Macauley
Robie Macauley
Robie Mayhew Macauley was an editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned over 50 years.-Early life:...
was the Fiction Editor at Playboy. During this period the magazine published fiction by Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, Sean O'Faolain, John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
, James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
, John Cheever
John Cheever
John William Cheever was an American novelist and short story writer. He is sometimes called "the Chekhov of the suburbs." His fiction is mostly set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the Westchester suburbs, old New England villages based on various South Shore towns around Quincy,...
, Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
, Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
, Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
, John LeCarre, Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
, Jean Shepherd
Jean Shepherd
Jean Parker Shepherd was an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep....
, Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
, Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud was an author of novels and short stories. Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford...
, John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
, Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton
Anne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
, Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
, Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
and J. P. Donleavy
J. P. Donleavy
James Patrick Donleavy is an Irish American author, born to Irish immigrants. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II after which he moved to Ireland. In 1946 he began studies at Trinity College, Dublin, but left before taking a degree...
, as well as poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko is a Soviet and Russian poet. He is also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, actor, editor, and a director of several films.-Early life:...
. Macauley also contributed all of the popular Ribald Classics series published between January 1978 and March 1984.
Since reaching its peak in the 1970s, Playboy has seen a decline in circulation and cultural relevance because of competition in the field it founded — first from Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
, Oui
Oui (magazine)
Oui is a men's adult pornographic magazine published in the USA and featuring explicit nude photographs of models, with full page pin-ups, centerfolds, interviews and other articles, and cartoons.- Playboy years :...
(which was published as a spin-off of Playboy) and Gallery
Gallery (magazine)
Gallery is a men's magazine begun by Montcalm Publishing in 1972. It is one of the more popular "skin" magazines that arose on the Playboy magazine pattern in the 1970s...
in the 1970s; later from pornographic videos
Videotape
A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
; and more recently from lad mags such as Maxim
Maxim (magazine)
Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured dressed, often pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude....
, FHM
FHM
FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...
, and Stuff
Stuff (magazine)
Stuff is a men's magazine featuring reviews of consumer electronics, and other articles of interest to a predominantly male audience.- UK edition :...
. In response, Playboy has attempted to re-assert its hold on the 18–35 male demographic through slight changes to content and focusing on issues and personalities more appropriate to its audience — such as hip-hop artists being featured in the "Playboy Interview".
Christie Hefner, daughter of the founder Hugh Hefner, joined Playboy in 1975 and became head of the company in 1988. She announced in December 2008 that she would be stepping down from leading the company, effective in January 2009, and said that the election of Barack Obama as the next President had inspired her to give more time to charitable work, and that the decision to step down was her own. “Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well,” she said.
The magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary with the January 2004 issue. Celebrations were held at Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
, Los Angeles, New York, and Moscow during the year to commemorate this event.
The magazine runs several annual features and ratings. One of the most popular is its annual ranking of the top "party schools" among all U.S. universities and colleges. For 2009, the magazine used five considerations: bikini, brains, campus, sex and sports in the development of its list. The top ranked party school by Playboy for 2009 was the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
.
In June 2009, the magazine reduced its publication schedule to 11 issues per year, with a combined July/August issue and on August 11, 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. In December 2009, they further reduced the publication schedule to 10 issues per year, with a combined January/February issue.
On July 12, 2010, Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced Hefner's $5.50 per share offer ($122.5 milion based on shares outstanding on April 30 and the closing price on July 9) to buy the portion of the company he does not already own and take the company private with the help of Rizvi Traverse Management LLC. The company derives much of its income from licensing rather than the magazine. On July 15, Penthouse owner FriendFinder Networks Inc. offered $210 million (the company is valued at $185 million), though Hefner, who already owns 70 percent of voting stock, does not want to sell.
January 10, 2011 The publisher of Playboy magazine has agreed to a sweetened offer by founder Hugh Hefner to take the company private for $6.15, 18 percent premium over the price of the last previous day trading. A tender offer is expected to initial by January 21, 2011 and the deal is expected to close by the end of the first quarter.
The Playboy Interview
Besides its centerfold, a major part of Playboy for much of its existence has been the Playboy Interview, an extensive (usually several thousand-word) discussion between a notable individual and an interviewer (historian Alex HaleyAlex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...
, for example, served as a Playboy interviewer on a few occasions; one of his interviews was with Martin Luther King Jr.; he also interviewed Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, then coauthored his autobiography). One of the magazine's most notable interviews was a discussion with then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
in the November 1976 issue in which he stated "I've committed adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
in my heart many times." David Sheff
David Sheff
David Sheff is an American author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction. In 2009, Sheff was included in the Time Magazine Time 100, The World's Most Influential People, and Beautiful Boy was named the best nonfiction book of the year...
's interview with John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
appeared in the January 1981 issue, which was on newsstands at the time of Lennon's murder; the interview was later published in book format.
Another interview type section, entitled "20Q" (a play on the game of Twenty Questions
Twenty Questions
Twenty Questions is a spoken parlor game which encourages deductive reasoning and creativity. It originated in the United States and escalated in popularity during the late 1940s when it became the format for a successful weekly radio quiz program....
), was added in October 1978. Cheryl Tiegs
Cheryl Tiegs
Cheryl Rae Tiegs is an American model and actress.- Early years :Tiegs was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota but raised in Alhambra, California, and she graduated from Alhambra High School in 1965. She also attended the California State University, Los Angeles and became a little sister to the Sigma...
was the first interviewee for the section.
Circulation
Rowland Scherman
Rowland Scherman is an American photographer.He studied at Oberlin College, and was dark room apprentice at LIFE magazine. He was the first photographer for the newly formed Peace Corps in 1961...
.
Perhaps coincidentally, a cropped image of the issue's centerfold (which featured Lena Soderberg
Lena Soderberg
Lena Söderberg appeared as a Playmate in the November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine, under the name Lenna Sjööblom. Her centerfold was photographed by Dwight Hooker....
) became a de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
standard image
Standard test image
A standard test image is a digital image file used across different institutions to test image processing and image compression algorithms. By using the same standard test images, different labs are able to compare results, both visually and quantitatively...
for testing image processing algorithms. It is known simply as the "Lenna
Lenna
Lenna or Lena is the name given to a 512 x 512 pixel standard test image originally cropped from the centerfold of November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. It is a picture of Lena Söderberg, a Swedish model, shot by photographer Dwight Hooker...
" (also "Lena") image in that field.
In 1970, Playboy became the first gentleman's magazine to be printed in braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
.
Bans on the sale of Playboy
Many in the American religious community opposed the publication of Playboy. The LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
pastor and author L. L. Clover
L. L. Clover
Leander Louis Clover, known as L. L. Clover , was an American Baptist Association clergyman who in 1952 established Louisiana Missionary Baptist Institute and Seminary in Minden, Louisiana...
, in his treatise Evil Spirits Intellectualism and Logic, writes in 1974 that the publication encourages young men to view themselves as "pleasure-seeking individuals for whom sex is fun and women are play things." Clover also decries the inclusion of sexual material in popular films. "Parents and leaders could remove these lewd stumbling blocks in a very short time if they so desired. The sad truth is that many of them... tacitly approve of an illegitimate sexual atmosphere." claimed the clergyman.
In many parts of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, including India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
, Malaysia, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Brunei
Brunei
Brunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
, sale and distribution of Playboy is banned. In addition, sale and distribution is banned in most Muslim countries (except Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
) in Asia and Africa, including Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. However, the magazine is sold in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. In Japan, where genitals of models cannot be shown, a separate edition is published under license by Shueisha
Shueisha
is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...
.
An Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n edition was launched in April 2006, but controversy started before the first issue hit the stands. Though the publisher said the content of the Indonesian edition will be different from the original edition, the government tried to ban it by using anti-pornography rules. (The Indonesian government cannot ban any medium.) A Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
organization, the Islamic Defenders Front (IDF), opposed Playboy on the grounds of pornography. On April 12, about 150 IDF members clashed with police and stoned the editorial offices. Despite this, the edition quickly sold out. On April 6, 2007 the chief judge of the case dismissed the charges because they had been incorrectly filed.
In 1986, the American convenience store
Convenience store
A convenience store, corner store, corner shop, commonly called a bodega in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States, is a small store or shop in a built up area that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, toiletries, alcoholic and soft drinks, and may also offer money order and...
chain 7-Eleven
7-Eleven
7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...
removed the magazine. The store returned Playboy to its shelves in late 2003. 7-Eleven had also been selling Penthouse and other similar magazines before the ban.
In 1995–after a 36-year ban–Playboy was returned to shelves in Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, despite staunch opposition from many women's groups.
In bookstores throughout the world it is common for Playboy, as well as other adult publications, to be wrapped in opaque plastic bags and put on a higher shelf than other magazines, keeping them out of the reach of curious children. Before the late 1980s, Playboy was usually covered with a heavy paper wrapping, similar to paper bags commonly found in grocery stores, with the famous bunny head logo printed in jet black on both sides; however, up to and into the 1970s in the United States, mailed issues using the "plain brown wrapper" did not indicate the Playboy name or logo.
Playboy was not sold in the state of Queensland, Australia during 2004 and 2005 but returned as of 2006. Due to declining sales, the last Australia-wide edition of Playboy was the January 2000 issue.
Litigation
On the January 14, 2004, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Playboy Enterprises Inc.'s (PEI) trademarkTrademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
terms "Playboy" and "Playmate" should be protected in the situation where a user typing "Playboy" or "Playmate" in a browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
search was instead shown advertisements of companies that competed with PEI. (The decision reversed an earlier district court ruling.) The suit started on April 15, 1999, when Playboy sued Excite Inc.
Excite
Excite is a collection of Internet sites and services owned by IAC Search & Media, which is a subsidiary of InterActive Corporation . Launched in 1994, it is an online service offering a variety of content, including an Internet portal, a search engine, a web-based email, instant messaging, stock...
and Netscape for trademark infringement.
Photographers
Many notable photographers have contributed to Playboy, including Ken MarcusKen Marcus
Ken Marcus is an American photographer, known for his glamour photography with Penthouse and Playboy magazines. For over 30 years he has produced hundreds of centerfolds, editorials, album covers, and advertisements. His work is shown in galleries, published in books and magazines...
, Richard Fegley
Richard Fegley
Leon Richard Fegley was a professional photographer who worked for Playboy magazine for 30 years.Fegley started taking photos during a stint in the United States Air Force, and eventually attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 1971 he joined Playboy as a freelance...
, Arny Freytag
Arny Freytag
Arny Freytag is an American photographer. Among his works are several photo shoots for Playboy magazine, and as of 1994 held the record for photographing the most Playmate centerfolds. As of September 2008, Freytag has photographed every WWE Diva that has appeared on the cover of Playboy.-External...
, Ron Harris
Ron Harris (photographer)
Ron Harris is an American erotic photographer and television director.Ron Harris was a fashion photographer in New York for over 40 years, working with fashion magazines Elle, Vogue and Cosmopolitan and others. Harris has over 25,000 published photographs and over 450 Art Director Awards and 13...
, Tom Kelley
Tom Kelley (photographer)
Tom Kelley was an American photographer. Tom photographed the Hollywood celebrities throughout the 1940s and 1950s in Hollywood. David O...
, David Mecey
David Mecey
David Mecey began working with Playboy magazine in the fall of 1979, serving as staff photographer and later as Contributing Photographer. During his career at Playboy, Mecey has had numerous solo pictorials including; “The Girls of Texas”, and "Women of Wall Street”. Along with David Chan, he also...
, Russ Meyer
Russ Meyer
Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer....
, Pompeo Posar
Pompeo Posar
Pompeo Posar was a Playboy magazine staff photographer who photographed many centerfold spreads and accompanying pictures of women featured as playmate of the month...
, Suze Randall
Suze Randall
Suze Randall is an English model, photographer, and pornographer. She has been one of the world's leading erotic photographers for more than 35 years....
, Herb Ritts
Herb Ritts
Herbert "Herb" Ritts was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture.-Early life and career:...
, Stephen Wayda
Stephen Wayda
Stephen Wayda is an American professional photographer. He has shot many pictorials of Playboy Playmates.-External links:*...
, Sam Wu
Sam Wu
Sam Wu is an American photographer of the 1950s and 1960s.Wu worked for adult magazines such as Playboy and Modern Man. He photographed Playboy centerfolds of Rusty Fisher, Pat Sheehan and Christa Speck. He also filmed Pat Sheehan's centerfold and Tania Velia movie pics.-Notes and references:...
, Mario Casilli
Mario Casilli
Mario A. Casilli was a photographer for Playboy magazine.From 1962 until 1981 he photographed 57 Playmate pictorials, including Playmates of the Year Linda Gamble, Christa Speck, Jo Collins, Connie Kreski, Claudia Jennings and Dorothy Stratten...
, Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz
Anna-Lou "Annie" Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer.-Early life and education:Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Leibovitz is the third of six children. She is a third-generation American whose great-grandparents were Jewish immigrants, from Central and Eastern Europe. Her father's...
, Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton, born Helmut Neustädter was a German-Australian photographer. He was a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."-Early life:Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara...
, and Bunny Yeager
Bunny Yeager
Bunny Yeager is an American photographer and former pin-up model.Born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. Yeager became one of the most photographed models in Miami. After retiring from modeling, she began her career behind the camera. She met Bettie Page in 1954, and took most of her photographs...
.
Celebrities
- For a full listing, please see List of people in Playboy 1953–1959, 1960–1969, 1970–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2009, 2010–2019.
Many celebrities (singers, actresses, models, etc.) have posed for Playboy over the years. This list is only a small portion of those who have posed. Some of them are:
International editions
Current:
- ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(1985–1995, 2006–) - BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
(1975–) — see specific articlePlayboy magazine (Brazilian issue)The Brazilian issue of Playboy is a local franchise of Playboy magazine published in Brazil. The original edition of the magazine was created by Hugh Hefner in the 1950s in the United States.-History:... - BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
(2002–) - ColombiaColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
(2008–) - CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
(1997–) - Czech RepublicCzech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
(1991–) - EstoniaEstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
(2007–) - FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(1973–) - GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(1972–) - GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
(1985–) - HungaryHungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
(1989–1993, 1999–) - ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(1972–2003, 2008-) - LatviaLatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
(2010-) - LithuaniaLithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
(2008-) - Macedonia (2010- )
- MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
(1976–1998, 2002–) - NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
(1983–) - Philippines (2008-)
- PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(1992–) - RomaniaRomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
(1999–) - RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(1995–) - SerbiaSerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
(2004–) - SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
- SlovakiaSlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
(1997–2002, 2005–) - SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
(2001–) - South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
(1993–1996) (April 2011 Playboy SA will be relaunched) - SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
(1978–) - UkraineUkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
(2005–) - United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(1953–) - VenezuelaVenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
(2006–)
Former:
- Australia (1979–2000) — see specific articleAustralian PlayboyAustralian Playboy was an Australian imprint of Playboy magazine that was published between February 1979 and January 2000 for a total of 252 editions.-Content:...
- Georgia (country) (2007–2009)
- Hong Kong (1986–1993)
- Indonesia (2006–2007)
- Japan (1975–) — see specific articleMonthly Playboyalso known as or MPB was a franchise of Playboy magazine in Japan. Monthly Playboy ceased publication with the final January 2009 issue, due to a decline in readership.-Playmate Japan :* 1986 - Shiho Masui, Emi Satō, Reiko Sugano...
- Norway (1998–1999)
- Portugal (2009-)
- Sweden (1998–1999)
- Taiwan (1990–2003)
- Turkey (1986–1995)
Other editions
The success of Playboy magazine has led PEI to market other versions of the magazine, the Special EditionsPlayboy Special Edition
Playboy Special Editions are a spin-off series of Playboy magazine devoted entirely to softcore nude photographs of the Playboy models that are found sporadically scattered in the monthly Playboy magazine.Unlike the monthly magazine, which features a variety of articles, opinion columns, and works...
(formerly called News Stand Specials), such as Playboy's College Girls and Playboy's Book of Lingerie, as well as the Playboy video collection.
The growth of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
prompted the magazine to develop an official web presence called Playboy Online or Playboy.com, which is the official website for Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
, and an online companion to Playboy magazine. The site has been available online since 1994. As part of the online presence, Playboy developed a pay web site called the Playboy Cyber Club in 1995 which features online chats, additional pictorials, videos of Playmates and Playboy Cyber Girls that are not featured in the magazine. Archives of past Playboy articles and interviews are also included. In September 2005, Playboy launched the online edition of the magazine Playboy Digital.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is a free library program of braille and audio materials circulated to eligible borrowers in the United States by postage-free mail. The program is a service sponsored by the Library of Congress. People may be eligible for the...
(NLS) has published a Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
edition of Playboy since 1970. The Braille version includes all the written words in the non-Braille magazine, but no pictorial representations. Congress cut off funding for the Braille magazine translation in 1985, but U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan reversed the decision on First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
grounds.
In 2010 Playboy introduced "The Smoking Jacket", a safe-for-work website designed to appeal to young men, while avoiding nude images or key words that would cause the site to be filtered or otherwise prohibited in the workplace.
In May 2011 Playboy introduced i.playboy.com, a complete, uncensored version of its near 700 issue archive, targeting the Apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
. By launching the archive as a web app, Playboy was able to circumvent both Apple's App Store content restictions and their 30% subscription fee.
See also
- Hugh HefnerHugh HefnerHugh Marston "Hef" Hefner is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises.-Early life:...
- Playboy TVPlayboy TVPlayboy TV is a premium monthly subscription television channel. Since its launch in 1982 in partnership with Cablevision which eventually sold their share back to Playboy, Playboy TV has become a leading entertainment channel for adult entertainment...
- Playboy UK
- List of men's magazines
- List of Playboy Playmates of the Month
- List of Playmates of the Year
- List of people in Playboy 1953–1959
- List of people in Playboy 1960–1969
- List of people in Playboy 1970–1979
- List of people in Playboy 1980–1989
- List of people in Playboy 1990–1999
- List of people in Playboy 2000–2009
- List of people in Playboy 2010–2019
- List of Playboy Playmates by birthplace
- List of Playboy videos
- Playboy: The MansionPlayboy: The MansionPlayboy: The Mansion is a business simulation video game for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows and Xbox consoles, developed by Cyberlore Studios, published by Groove Games and ARUSH Entertainment and licensed by Playboy Enterprises....
- The Playboy MansionThe Playboy MansionThe Playboy Mansion is the home of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. Located in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles, California, the mansion became famous during the 1970s through media reports of Hefner's lavish parties.-History:The house is described as being in the "Gothic-Tudor" style...
- Playboy ClubPlayboy ClubThe Playboy Club initially was a chain of nightclubs and resorts owned and operated by Playboy Enterprises. The first club opened at 116 E. Walton Street in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States, on February 29, 1960. Each club generally featured a Living Room, a Playmate Bar, a Dining Room...
- Playboy Studio WestPlayboy Studio WestPlayboy Studio West is located at 2112 Broadway Avenue, Santa Monica, CA. It is one of Playboy's key studio facilities for Playboy photographers to shoot centerfolds and playmate pictorials...
- Playboy Playmate
- Playboy DollsPlayboy Collectors' Figure SeriesPlayboy Collectors' Figures are a series of dolls modeled after popular Playboy Playmates. Generally known as Playboy Dolls, the first doll was launched at the International Toy Fair in New York in 2002. The dolls are 16 inches tall, dwarfing G.I. Joe dolls by 4 inches...
- Playboy's Book of Forbidden WordsPlayboy's Book of Forbidden WordsPlayboy's Book of Forbidden Words was first published in 1972 by Playboy Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Written by Robert Anton Wilson, it is sub-titled 'A liberated dictionary of improper English, containing over 700 uninhibited definitions of erotic and scatological terms'. The...
- Playboy EnterprisesPlayboy EnterprisesPlayboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
- Pubic WarsPubic WarsPubic Wars, a pun on the Punic Wars, is the name given to the rivalry between the pornographic magazines Playboy and Penthouse during the 1960s and 1970s. Each magazine strove to show just a little bit more than the other, without getting too crude. The term was coined by Playboy owner Hugh Hefner...
Books
General compilations- Nick Stone, editor. The Bedside Playboy. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1963.
Anniversary collections
- Jacob Dodd, editor. The Playboy Book: Forty Years. Santa Monica, California: General Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN 1-881649-03-2
- Playboy: 50 Years, The Photographs. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003, ISBN 0-8118-3978-8
- Nick Stone, editor; Michelle Urry, cartoon editor. Playboy: 50 Years, The Cartoons. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004. ISBN 0-8118-3976-1
- Gretchen Edgren, editor. The Playboy Book: Fifty Years. Taschen, 1995. ISBN 3-8228-3976-0
Interview compilations
- G. Barry Golson, editor. The Playboy Interview. New York: Playboy Press, 1981. ISBN 0-87223-668-4 (hardcover), ISBN 0-87223-644-7 (softcover)
- G. Barry Golson, editor. The Playboy Interview Volume II. New York: Wideview/Perigee, 1983. ISBN 0-399-50768-X (hardcover), ISBN 0-399-50769-8 (softcover)
- David Sheff, interviewer; G. Barry Golson, editor. The Playboy Interviews with John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Yoko OnoYoko Onois a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
. New York: Playboy Press, 1981, ISBN 0-87223-705-2; 2000 edition, ISBN 0-312-25464-4 - Stephen Randall, editor. "The Playboy Interview Book: They Played the Game". New York: M Press, 2006, ISBN 1-59582-046-9
External links
Official- Playboy.com
- Playboy Enterprises Inc. (Corporate website)
- Playboy UK
Others
- Playboy Covers of the World — Thousands of Playboy covers from all past and present editions worldwide.
- Crossett, Andrew, "Index: The Women of Playboy – 1967 – 2007", 2007.
- Playmate database at the University of Chicago
- A full listing of the Playboy Interview subjects and their interviewers
- Josh Lambert, "My Son, the Pornographer: Jewish Editors at Playboy."