Playgirl

June 1973 cover (issue 1, number 1)
Categories	Women's magazines
Frequency	Monthly (1973–2009) Quarterly (2010–2016)
Publisher	Douglas Lambert (1973–1976) Ira Ritter (1977–1986) Drake Publishers, Inc. (1986–1993) Crescent Publishing Group, Inc. (1993–2001) Blue Horizon Media, Inc. (2001–2011) Magna Publishing Group, Inc. (2011–2016)
Founded	1973
First issue	June 1973
Final issue	Winter 2016
Company	Magna Publishing Group
Country	United States
Based in	Paramus, New Jersey
Website	playgirl.com
ISSN	0273-6918

Playgirl is an American magazine that has historically featured pictorials of nude and semi-nude men alongside general interest, lifestyle, and celebrity journalism, as well as original fiction. In the 1970s and 1980s, the magazine printed monthly and was marketed mainly to women, though it quickly developed a significant gay male readership.

In 2009, Playgirl transitioned from a monthly to quarterly print publication, before ceasing regular print operations in 2016. In 2020, the magazine relaunched with a sold-out special print edition and resumed monthly publication as an online-only magazine in 2020.^[1][2]

History

The magazine was founded in 1973^[3] by Los Angeles-based nightclub owner Douglas Lambert, who'd initially explored creating a men's lifestyle magazine featuring nude women to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy.^[4] At the suggestion of his wife, and inspired by the success of Helen Gurley Brown's use of male nudes in Cosmopolitan magazine (including a shoot featuring film star Burt Reynolds), Lambert refashioned his idea as a feminist response to movement as a response to Playboy and Penthouse instead. In partnership with William Miles Jr., an area advertising executive, Lambert founded Playgirl in Century City, California, in 1973 with a $20,000 investment.^[5][4]

After two test issues (featuring race car driver Mike Hiss and the Hager Twins, country singers and stars of TV's Hee Haw, in seminude centerfolds), the magazine, initially styled as Playgirl: The Magazine for Women formally debuted in June 1973, featuring television and film star Lyle Waggoner as centerfold and an interview and nude photoshoot with actor Ryan McDonald. Editorial in the issue included a travel pictorial on Hong Kong, long-form interview with actress Cloris Leachman, original fiction by Jillian Charles, and a guide to selecting artwork for the home.^[6]

From its inception, Playgirl has featured full frontal nude and semi-nude, rear and obscured frontal, pictorials of men (except for a 10-month period in 1986 and 1987, following the sale and reorganization of the magazine, when new ownership mandated a more modest approach in the hopes of attracting a wider readership during an increasingly culturally and politically conservative time.)^[7][8] For most of its run, the magazine covered issues like abortion and equal rights and, in the magazine's first decade, typically did so via long-form journalism and commentary from prominent journalists and writers.^[7] Through the mid-1980s, in-depth interviews with A-list celebrities and newsmakers, including Maya Angelou, Larry Flynt, Barbra Streisand, and Jane Fonda, were frequently paired with original fiction from writers including Erica Jong and Truman Capote.^[7][5]

In 1977, Lambert sold Playgirl to Ira Ritter who took over as publisher, continuing the magazine's editorial style and direction (including inclusion of male nude pictorials) but leaning even more into the magazine's feminist and substantive writing bona fides, often releasing covers featuring women alone to highlight female perspectives on politics and other cultural issues, deemphasizing the nude photography still found within the pages in terms of the magazine's public-facing image and newsstand presence. In 1986, Playgirl filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection^[9] and was subsequently acquired by Drake Publishers, Inc.^[10] The magazine was published by Drake from 1986 until 1993, when Drake was merged into Crescent Publishing Group, Inc.^[11]

Until the 1986 change of ownership, Playgirl's interviews, journalism, and original fiction were central to the magazine's identity and featured and promoted as such.^[12][7] Post restructuring, the magazine began featuring simplified beefcake-style covers (usually featuring a model from the issue, often in underwear or speedo-style swimwear), and implemented changes to cut costs and expand readership in an increasingly conservative and less feminist-friendly cultural environment of the late Reagan era.^[12][13] This resulted in substantial reductions in the in-depth, substantive journalism, political and social feminist commentary the magazine was known for, a decrease in non-pictorial pages, and an increase in advertising space.^[5][12]

Ultimately, the 1986-87 reorganization of the magazine failed to significantly increase general readership or improve the magazine's cultural palatability in the new environment, but did have the effect of eroding the magazine's credibility as a substantive mainstream publication that blended erotic content with substantive journalism, repositioning it as a niche, adult-oriented publication.^[4][5] The 1993 acquisition of the title by Crescent Publishing Group, the owner of hardcore magazine like High Society and other pornographic titles, cemented this reputation and, as a result, the number of celebrities and newsmakers sitting for interviews or pictorials rapidly decreased.^[10][5]

By the 2000s, Crescent had fully positioned the title as an adult brand, relaunching Playgirl's website as a pay site primarily featuring co-branded hardcore straight pornography, and increasing explicit content in the print magazine.^[4][5] In August 2000, Crescent was charged by the Federal Trade Commission with over $180 million of online credit card fraud, some of which was alleged by the FTC to have taken place on the new Playgirl website.^[14][15] In November 2001, Crescent agreed to pay $30 million in refunds and subsequently changed its name to Blue Horizon Media, Inc.^[16]

In August 2008, the magazine announced that it would cease publication of its print edition as of the January 2009 issue.^[5] The last print issue of the magazine's initial print run was published as a January/February issue and sold on newsstands through March 2009.^[8] Playgirl was then published online through February 2010, when print publication resumed with a March issue featuring political celebrity Levi Johnston, shot by longtime Playgirl photographer Greg Weiner.^[17] In 2011, Blue Horizon sold the print rights for Playgirl and other titles to Magna Publishing Group, Inc. of Paramus, New Jersey,^[18][19] and the magazine continued to publish as a print title, approximately quarterly, until 2016, when title ceased regular print operations. By then, most of the brand's subscribers were online, with remaining print subscriptions dwindling to approximately 3,000.^[20][12]

In 2020, new owner Jack Lindley Kuhns revived the title, relaunching the "New Playgirl Magazine" with a sets special print edition, featuring a pregnant and nude actress Chloe Sevigny on the cover (a nod to both Playgirl's feminist roots and the magazine's early issues, which often featured women on the cover), edited by Skye Parrott.^[1][21] The issue, described by Kuhns as "part political magazine and part art magazine" featured images of nude bodies of all ethnicities and genders, as well as writing about racial injustice, trans empowerment, and body positivity and sold out immediately.^[1][22]

Since, the magazine has moved to regular monthly operations as an online-only publication under the direction of Daniel McKernan, returning to the male nude and semi-nude portraiture the magazine is historically known for, with added video and multi-media content. The substantive journalism, commentary, fiction, and pictorials from the magazine's archives, going back as far as the magazine's 1973 debut, is heavily featured in newly digitized formats. Nude and semi-nude pictorials in the current era have resumed focus on traditional male physique and art nude composition, firmly moving away from the explicit depictions of the print magazine's final years and toward the magazine's original roots.^[23]

Celebrity nudes

Many celebrities and public figures posed nude or semi-nude for Playgirl during the magazine's print runs (with "posed" defined as sitting for the magazine specifically vs. appearing fully clothed and/or merely shirtless or in photos acquired from external sources).

Playgirl had the most success recruiting A-list celebrities to pose nude in the early 1970s, in the wake of the American sexual revolution and early feminist positioning of the magazine, and 1980s.^[7] The number of mainstream celebrities appearing nude in the magazine slowed following a 1986 restructuring (which cut the budget for feature interviews and the payouts for celebrity models dramatically) and as a result of rising cultural conservatism at the end of the Reagan Administration, and the rise of Moral Majority and similar movements, calling for the censorship and restriction of nudity and non-"family friendly" content in American media.^[13]

With top publicists and representatives for A-list actors and professional athletes increasingly wary of associating with the magazine, celebrity appearances grew rarer, a trend that only hastened as the print magazine's final owners moved the publication in a more explicit direction in its later years as a print publication. ^[10][5] By the final years of the magazine's initial print run, celebrity appearances were limited exclusively to reality television personalities.

In February 2024, the newly relaunched (and no longer explicit) Playgirl announced the first celebrity pictorial of its new era -- featuring actors Bryan Dattilo, Eric Martsolf, and Paul Telfer, and Robert Scott Wilson, stars of the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives, and their former co-star, Hawai'i 5-0 and Star Wars: Resistance actor Christopher Sean -- would debut in April.^[24]

Readership and Gay Following

Though the magazine was mainly marketed to heterosexual women, it developed a substantial gay male following. In 2003, then-editor-in-chief Michele Zipp acknowledged the magazine's gay readership, noting "it's 'Entertainment for Women' because there's no other magazine out there that caters to women in the way we do [but]...we love our gay readers as well, and the gay readership [of the magazine] is about 30%."^[26]

Dirk Shafer, one of the gay men featured later produced a comic mockumentary titled Man of the Year in which he discussed balancing his own homosexuality with his role as Playgirl's "Man of the Year," a seemingly heterosexual sex symbol. While the magazine always presented its models as heterosexual, openly gay models have appeared in the magazine, including Scott Merritt, Playgirl's 30th-anniversary centerfold, who came out publicly in an interview with The Advocate. Several models through the years also worked as actors and models in the gay pornographic industry.^[26]

Other versions

Playgirl is available in English and has been published in a number of other languages and international English-language editions during its history:

• Germany (1978–1980 and 1989–2003)
• France (1978)
• Australia (1985–88) and as Interlude in 1991
• Netherlands (1987–88)
• United Kingdom (1992–93, 2011)
• Spain (1992-93)
• South Africa (1995)
• Brazil (1985)
• Russia (2004–2009) Japan 1986 2015

When the Russian version of Playgirl was launched in June 2004, it contained photographs of nude, circumcised American men despite circumcision's being less common outside the U.S., being practiced mainly by Muslims and Jews in Russia.^[27]

Playgirl UK's brief 2011 relaunch was accompanied by an announcement that it would feature no below-the-waist nudity, and would focus on attractive male celebrities rather than models and pornography actors. It was a failure, and ceased circulation soon after it began.^{[citation needed]}