Playboy Rechained

Playboy was founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953 with a $1000 loan from his mother.

Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine will no longer feature nude women featuring a centerfold of Marilyn Monroe.

The first issue sold out within a week and the magazine featuring first-class writing, satirical cartoons, and nude playmates of the month soared to a circulation of 7,161,561 in November 1972.

Pam Rawlings was the centerfold photographed by Rowland Scherman.

Not any more.

According to the news Hugh Hefner, 89, announced that Playboy will no longer publish nude shots bringing to end over sixty years of nudity.

The first nudesBack in 1962 my best friend and I found several moldy Playboy in the deep woods of the Blue Hills. Up to then my only knowledge of the female anatomy came from examinations of my sister's Barbie dolls, but I understand the Playboy Messiah's decision to drop nudity.

The Internet is awash with sex of all genres and it costs nothing.

Playboy is just another casualty of the Web.

Where nothing is real, not even a teenage boy's fantasy.

No Nude Playboy

In 1953 Hugh Hefner launched Playboy with a $1000 loan from his mother and the magazine's first cover featured a black and white shot of Marilyn Monroe at the height of her beauty.

The blonde starlet starred as the centerfold. According to Wikipedia the first issue sold out within a week and circulation hit 50,000 at $.50 a month. The magazine's fortune rose with the advent of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Hefner took risks and reaped a fortune. Every male, single of married' wanted to be a 'playboy', if only to meet a playmate.

The first Playboy to fall into my hands was from a pile of moldy stroke magazines in the Blue Hills south of Boston. The year had to have been 1964.

Nancy Jo Hooper was playmate of the month. The brunette lay on a red couch. She reminded me of Kyla Rossi from down the street. My next-door neighbor and I fought over this issue. I won and later in the 60s the cheerleader was my high school sweetheart for three years. I never called her Nancy Jo.

My all-time favorite playmate was PJ Lansing from February 1972.

She was another goddess.

As were they all, although the circulation peaked later that year with over seven million magazines sold in November of 1972.

Sadly this month Playboy has announced that they will no longer show full nudity, since according to the CEO the magazine can't compete with online porno. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture."

The First Playboy green-lighted the decision, although critics feel that the magazine's shift will appeal to the less prurient cultures of India and Playboy in order to boost ancillary products from the Playboy Empire.

Greed over need.

But if you want to view the long line of playmates, please go to the following URL. http://playmate.uw.hu/html/7202.html

I think you will be pleased.

I certainly enjoyed the trip down the memory lane of my libido.

Helmut Newton Of Course

Sex for Helmut Newton was different from the Playboy's softcore offerings, however Hugh Hefner recognized the Berlin-born photographer's talent and hired Newton to shoot 'vanilla' pictorials of Natassia Kinski and Kristine DeBell.

Newton's fixated vision of sexuality will always be renowned for a departure point far beyond most people's ken of fetishism, because his models' lingerie was almost as expensive as the settings.

His ashes were buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Städtischen Friedhof III in Berlin.

Click on this URL to see more of his photos

http://www.ocaiw.com/galleria_fotografi/index.php?author=newton

Sehr Mittel Europa and Stanley Kubrick failed to capture that spirit in EYES WIDE OPEN, mostly because neither Nicole Kidman nor Tom Cruise are sexy.

But what else can be expected from Hollywood's Barbie and Ken.