The first time I became aware of Playboy was in sixth grade, when my friend wore a pair of silver earrings designed as side-profiles of a bunny head. Sometime during the day, she was called out by a teacher, and when she came back, she said she’d been debarred from wearing the earring again. Confused, we asked why. She said, “As it’s like the Playboy bunny.”
It’s not completely incongruous to write about Playgirl talking about Playboy, considering how often Hefner sued the former. “Playgirl is obviously inspired by Playboy on a certain level,” said Mickey Boardman, the Creative Director of Playgirl, “except it’s exactly opposite.” He recalled when the founders playfully put up a Playgirl billboard across the street from Playboy’s office in LA. “He (Hefner) felt like he should own the name Playgirl since he owns the name Playboy,” explained Daniel McKernan, Playgirl’s Managing Director. We were sitting the day after Christmas to talk about the new book on fifty years of a publication that catered towards satisfying female desire. “Like how dare you start that company,” McKernan said. “That would have been my idea!”
One day at 7-Eleven, Mickey fell in love with Playgirl after spotting it behind the cash register, amongst a stack of Penthouses and Hustlers. “But this one was different,” he wrote- “It unashamedly celebrated hot men.” Growing up in the ‘70s, at a time when Playgirl had begun its publication, amidst Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics and the Supreme Court striking down the requirement of spousal consent for abortion, Mickey recalled how the magazine was being noticed as it really saw women beyond their domestic roles, as sexual beings and catered towards their desires.
How did anybody know what women wanted? Because there were women behind the scenes, running the magazine, said Mickey. “In the ‘70s, it was John Water’s Pink Flamingos’ Cotton, with the long hair and the busy public hair,” said Daniel. “It became less so, and a bodybuilding and workout culture started to dominate the male physique, which turned into Arnold Schwarzeneggers in the 2000s.”
Photoshoots also revolved around working class fantasies, with young-ish men gallivanting amongst foliage, as if they’d just emerged from working in the garden. A cartoon strip saw a young office-goer lusting after the Adonis who’d just joined the stockroom staff. “The women who have worked in the magazine in the past have gravitated towards this idea of the voyeuristic to working class sexuality,” said Daniel. “You’re looking at something that isn’t necessarily for you. The gardener you’re looking at from the window — and then something happens. It’s a high fantasy and we try to cater to that — because it does exist.”
Desires were also projected on tycoons, with Playgirl’s September 1986 issue proclaiming Trump as one of the Top 10 Sexiest Men. This was merely the beginning of the business blonde’s hot era, because in August 1990, he was the prize in a contest Playgirl ran called ‘Sleep with Donald Trump’. “You fill in your name and information, and you mail it back to us, and then you could win a pillow with Donald Trump’s face on it,” clarified Daniel before I jumped to horrific conclusions worse than a cheeky pillow. “I don’t know whoever won that pillow.”
Now, moving into more safe-for-work territories, Playgirl is heading back from being a purely adult magazine from the 2000s onwards, to hard-hitting journalism. “That’s how it started in the ‘70s,” said Daniel, recalling past contributors like Truman Capote and Maya Angelou. “It changed hands like a hot potato as far as ownership and people just cared less and less over the years.” Daniel recalled getting hired for the position of a ‘gay videographer’ for Playgirl in 2007, without ever having bought a copy of the magazine, and over the years, the four-floor office getting downsized and sold off to a couple of straight men from New Jersey who had no interest in the male body. “I would be selecting the cover because the straight guys just didn’t have it in them to care which photograph is better,” zie said. “We had to fight to get what we want, as straight ownership was clearly oblivious to what gays or women would want. They just had this myopic vision of making more money and how they thought that it could happen.”
Another reason is that today, one can find sexual content anywhere, noted Mickey. “Playgirl isn’t needed for that,” he said. “When it started, it was very unusual to see a nude man in the media.” However, Playgirl too had a conservative era during the late Reagan years in the ‘80s, when ownership changed to Drake’s and the magazine ran no full frontals and lesser feminist content. It was pulled to the opposite direction by Cresent, who categorised it as a purely adult porn magazine for women, without its journalistic edge. “I think now again it’s almost a job to avoid fully nude men,” he said. “That’s why we love OnlyFans, we love adult film stars, we love influencers who show off their bodies. Sexual content shouldn’t be thought of as less, but we aren’t really focusing on that because you can see that in so many places.”
PlaygirlTV still runs, containing more sexual content in video — although it doesn’t represent the brand, so they aren’t promoting it, said Daniel. “It still has a decent amount of members,” zie said. Now, for every Maluma cover, there are also storis on serious issues like sexual health, which people will chance upon after they’re done looking at the Colombian singer.
American culture is obsessed with celebrity, so it’s low-hanging fruit for a magazine to have celebrities on covers — like Rod Stewart, Richard Gere, Sylvester Stallone, Paul McCartney and more recently, Maluma. Meryl Streep’s cover drove sales for sure, added Daniel, even if most people were embarrassed to be seen purchasing the magazine publicly. “Although there are letters to the editors saying that mothers handed the magazine to their daughters back in those days,” zie said.
Beyond the cover were interviews with female celebrities like Grace Jones, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton – Daniel recalled Bette Midler talking about her breasts or Cher on how she felt like an old prostitute as she was into young men. Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton changed things when their sex tape was leaked, as having a sex tape was thought of as the worst possible thing that could happen to a celebrity, reflected Mickey. “The angle of Playgirl is sex,” said Daniel, “and there’s no denying that it’ll be discussed in some degree in the interview and its celebrities — drives sales for sure.”
Gays love porn, said Mickey. “If I may speak for the gays,” he added cheekily. Daniel agreed on the fact that hot straight men are something the gay audience will gravitate towards due to their fetishisation of the heterosexual man. “I remember this guy, rian Buzzini, who was a Playgirl man of the year, and he was also a famous model for Versace,” said Mickey. “Playgirl was the only place you would see attractive men doing other things than being sports figures or movie stars.” When the magazine was run by a gay man, they shot a lot of gay porn stars, recalled Mickey.
In 2007, the magazine was going to the white party in Palm Springs and the Southern Decadence of New Orleans — but it was moving further away from their women-centric viewpoint. “It had become a gay magazine,” he said. “But again, there are gay magazines and I don’t think Playgirl needs to be one — gays are welcome to look, of course.” Trans representation is coming in gradually, with stars like Jinkx Monsoon, particularly at a difficult time for trans people with US legislations.
Right now, Playgirl is undergoing a major overhaul, dealing with the death of print to the rise of digital. “It doesn’t matter really if you’re print or digital, people will see you in a digital format,” reflected Mickey, who also works at Paper. “I’m used to that from Paper.” Many brands don’t produce advertising campaigns for print, which don’t yield enough returns. Playgirl has lost its connection to young people, and Daniel feels its rich history as part of American pop culture needs to be highlighted, which is what the book intends. “You see it in references in Greg Arakki movies, Tina Fey’s skits,” zie said. “It would be hard to deny its relevance.”
