Playgirl: In the Beginning--The 1970s


  A few days ago we reported that Playgirl was going to discontinue its print edition at the end of the year and we decided to turn the blog over to someone who had his own thoughts on the news. Today, we're delighted to be able to share with you this guest blog entry. It's one person's nostalgic eulogy to an era gone by.

           ===========================================================

  When I heard the news about Playgirl's decision to stop printing their magazine, I was relieved to learn that it was still going to be online. But I also felt the loss of something intangible. A little bit of history was gone and my mind was flooded with memories of a time that many of you probably can't really relate to. Call it nostalgia for something you didn't think you'd really miss until it was gone. It would be like finding out that an old building was torn down--a building that I used to drive past all the time and usded to appreciate but that was suddenly no longer there.

 When I was an adolescent and my sexuality was forming, I wasn't confused about my orientation there sure weren't as many visual outlets as there are today. There was an occasional bodybuilding TV show, a muscular guy in a TV show, gladiator movies on TV  or the occasional trip to the newsstand to peak at a muscle magazine. Slim pickings in the days before Calvin Klein underwear ads. Sometimes I'd get a chance to check out my dad's Playboys in the garage and check out the yearly "Sex in the Cinema" articles where you'd get to see glimpses of male nudity. Then, Playgirl came along.

 When it first was published Playgirl wasn't taken very seriously and I didn't think it would last especially since no stores seemed to be stocking it. By the time I got to college I was finally able to see one at a drug store near the bus stop----and WOW! Seeing pictures handsome and well built guys with full frontal nudity was a revelation. I didn't care whether the guys were straight--I got to see them naked!

  Eventually I threw caution to the wind and bought a Playgirl and those other barriers just seemed to fall away. I felt free to pick up an Advocate from the vending machine. I started picking up catalogs from Ah Men (a predecessor to International Male) and saw some of those same Playgirl models within and realized that maybe those guys inside weren't so straight after all. 

 Eventually there was so much more stuff available to me as a gay man now that in comparison Playgirl seemed as tame as those underwear ads from the Sears catalogs or a scene from Muscle Beach Party.  Yes, I did go back to skimming through Playgirl when it went back to featuring hunks on their covers and showing erections inside but I was now looking out of curiosity to see which gay porn star was inside this time trying to pretend he was straight. 

 I wonder if young men of today coming out and having so much more stuff to look at than I did (or generations before me) fully appreciate that. Are they even looking at Playgirl any more the way I was when my sexuality was blossoming?  I guess if Playgirl is folding then probably not. Of course in my idealistic way I hope that somehow somewhere there are guys still sneaking a peek at their mom's dusty old Playgirl magazines in the garage or secretly visiting the Playgirl site to catch a glimpse of a video or fleeting image of male nudity. But I know it won't be the same as it was for me and countless other young men who used to look for the slightest hint of a reference to male erotica and found a paradise in Playgirl.