(October 13, 2015 at 5:20 am)abaris Wrote: Not sure how they will fare. It's on the same lines as the Hustler or Penthouse suddenly deciding on serious journalism. There's certainly no shortage of lifestyle magazines on the market and I can't imagine Playboy being bought for that. To me, it seems, as if they're swapping a shrinking audience for a non existing one.

You'd be surprised. They've been doing things other than porn from the beginning. Christ, they published short stories by Chuck Palahniuk, Roald Dahl, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and P.G. Wodehouse, for crying out loud!

Honestly, they've always tried to have some level of class, and this is really just them going in a direction they've gone before.

Charles Rodrigues did many cartoons for Playboy (and National Lampoon).

He also did many hysterical audiophile cartoons for Stereo Review magazine and they were collected into a book, Total Harmonic Distortion which I have a copy of and love. You have to be an audio/stereo geek/nerd to appreciate most of the cartoons.

Doesn't bother me... much better more hardcore stuff on the internet

So I heard that the real reason for the change is that their biggest market is China which has strict laws against nudity. This way they keep their biggest market while also growing it.

(October 14, 2015 at 11:38 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: You'd be surprised. They've been doing things other than porn from the beginning. Christ, they published short stories by Chuck Palahniuk, Roald Dahl, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and P.G. Wodehouse, for crying out loud!

First, they never did porn. I'm always amazed when the word porn is used in the American sense, which covers anything between exposed nipple to gang bang.

Second, I'm well aware which authors wrote for Playboy. And still, it didn't sell for nearly a decade. So why should that suddenly change when getting rid of their USP?

(October 15, 2015 at 8:23 am)abaris Wrote:

(October 14, 2015 at 11:38 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: You'd be surprised. They've been doing things other than porn from the beginning. Christ, they published short stories by Chuck Palahniuk, Roald Dahl, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and P.G. Wodehouse, for crying out loud!

First, they never did porn. I'm always amazed when the word porn is used in the American sense, which covers anything between exposed nipple to gang bang.

Second, I'm well aware which authors wrote for Playboy. And still, it didn't sell for nearly a decade. So why should that suddenly change when getting rid of their USP?

Have you seen any 1970s british "porn" you see harder stuff on normal tv now.

(October 15, 2015 at 8:27 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Have you seen any 1970s british "porn" you see harder stuff on normal tv now.

I don't think I have ever seen a playboy magazine. Maybe if they hire Esqui to write for them....

(October 14, 2015 at 11:38 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(October 13, 2015 at 5:20 am)abaris Wrote: Not sure how they will fare. It's on the same lines as the Hustler or Penthouse suddenly deciding on serious journalism. There's certainly no shortage of lifestyle magazines on the market and I can't imagine Playboy being bought for that. To me, it seems, as if they're swapping a shrinking audience for a non existing one.

You'd be surprised. They've been doing things other than porn from the beginning. Christ, they published short stories by Chuck Palahniuk, Roald Dahl, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and P.G. Wodehouse, for crying out loud!

Honestly, they've always tried to have some level of class, and this is really just them going in a direction they've gone before.

Right. The "I really get Playboy for the articles" thing became a punch line a long time ago, but there is an element of truth to it. They have featured some heavyweight writers over the years, and their interviews are justly esteemed.

I'm not going to blow smoke up anyone's ass: of course, I turned immediately to the photo spreads and the centerfold. But after I'd finished ogling the women, I usually found plenty else to justify the cost of the magazine on the relatively rare occasions I purchased it. Penthouse, Hustler, and the rest seldom -- if ever -- demonstrated a similar aspiration to some degree of high-mindedness in the midst of the T&A.

(October 13, 2015 at 8:45 am)mh.brewer Wrote: My youth is now officially dead.

Don't worry man: there's a pill.

(October 13, 2015 at 9:51 am)mh.brewer Wrote: Actually can you take my youth death story to the science community so that they can come up with a youth resurrection formula? This way I can some day have an eternal blissful youth. This should be the science communities main goal.

Already been done, bro.