Is Playboy still taboo?

[Dookus]

My local independent bookstore, which is fantastic (caused a Waldenbooks across the street to go under and has thrived with a Borders just down the block) carries a HUGE variety of magazines.

I just bought "Blue" there, which is a gay-oriented art magazine featuring LOTS of full-frontal male nudity. I can buy any political magazine there, and any gay magazine. But they don't carry Playboy.

Does that strike others as odd? Is Playboy really THAT objectionable these days?

[Kamika]

1. Bet it is considered too lame

Just don't sell :p

[Richardo]

3. That's funny, Kamika...

:D :thumbsup:

[Dookus]

4. it'd be hard to believe

that some of the very obscure magazines they carry are more popular than Playboy.

[BigDaddyLove]

6. Or too tame.....

Most of the competing magazines have gotten downright disgusting, which is what it seems people want these days.

So much for at least an attempt to make it artistic.

[Dookus]

7. they don't carry any other "girlie" magazines, either

But Playboy is a lot tamer than most others, and does indeed publish great authors and worthwhile interviews.

[BigDaddyLove]

11. Authors and interviews?

I never noticed.

;-)

[Dookus]

15. heheh...

well, as a gay man, that's all I notice.

[JVS]

16. There is a magazine that has interviewed Mark Crispin Miller...

author of the Bush Dyslexicon, has a right-wing asshole of the month every month, and this month has an interview with someone who is about to begin a year long jail sentence for hosting an anarchist website. See if you can guess the magazine of which I speak.

[Dookus]

21. I have no idea...

what's the point of this guessing game?

[JVS]

22. To see who is knowledgable in the genre

I'll tell in a little while or after a few guesses are made

[BigDaddyLove]

23. Hustler?

?

[JVS]

24. Yup that's the one

They also had an ad proclaiming a national day of prayer for the death of Bill O'Reilly

[Dookus]

31. Sorry...

I'm still not seeing the relevance to this thread.

[BigDaddyLove]

32. I didn't see mentioned in your original post whether or not.......

the store sold other 'porn' magazines and you were wondering about the absence of Playboy.....you mentioned the availability of 'Gay' magazines but not 'straght' ones.

[Dookus]

33. I mentioned elsewhere they don't carry

any "girlie" magazines, meaning Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc.

I find Playboy the interesting one because it seems so mainstream. Hustler is just pornography. Penthouse is somewhere in the middle.

Of course, I haven't seen any of them in years, so I don't know that's still true.

[BigDaddyLove]

34. I can only guess that if they in fact don't carry any of the 'girlie'....

magazines that they include Playboy in that group regardless of the other things (articles) that it offers because of the fleshy content.

[Kamika]

8. Yeah

I meant that included in 'lame'

[NightTrain]

17. Bingo!

Back when I was into so-called "men's magazines," I only ever bought HUSTLER and PENTHOUSE.

PLAYBOY is for uptight rich guys who need to be told what wines to drink and which brand of high-end stereo to buy. And the photo spreads never show the pink stuff! Christ, would they run pictures of men without testicles?! (And I'm not talking about Bush and his cabinet.)

[BigDaddyLove]

20. In my ever so humble opinion, the 'pink stuff' isn't everything....

which is why I like the Playboy photographers...they are (mostly) artists.

[Whitacre D_WI]

26. Helmut Newton and Herb Ritts are geniuses.

Truly brilliant photographers of the human form.


Not simply "nudie pic" photogs, these guys are responsible for high art, both in Playboy and in galleries.

[BigDaddyLove]

27. Agreed.....

They had an appreciation for the female form which is sorely lacking in 'porn' these days.

Newton died two weeks or so ago, so you'd have to say he 'was' a genius.

[Whitacre D_WI]

28. I didn't know that!

R.I.P. Helmut Newton.

You was a hell of an artist.

[BigDaddyLove]

29. Car accident in L.A. I believe.

.

[Shrek]

2. Maybe it just doesn't sell?

I dunno, just guessing . . . but that might be a valid reason not to carry it.

[Dookus]

5. No...

I've spoken to employees there - it's a "political" decision.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. Is Hef a repug?

[mitchum]

30. He's actually a lifelong Democrat...

but he still has a banal mind. I'll take Bob Guccione's porn aesthetic any day.

[Bryan]

35. Not really

Playboy has a strong underlying interest in civil-libertarian issues that can tilt left (mocking uptight Republicans) or right (skewering PC) depending on who's writing the features in a given issue. Back when I had a subscription, the "Playboy Forum" section edited by James R. Petersen was a consistently interesting forum for freedom-of-expression issues. The features are often excellent, as well; I would recommend Molly Ivins' profile of Tom Delay from the May '99 issue.

[JVS]

10. Why would anyone want Playboy?

[Dookus]

12. Umm...

because they've published authors like Hemingway, Steinbeck, Kerouac, Alex Haley, Gore Vidal, Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and many others.

[NightTrain]

19. That was a lo-o-o-ong time ago, Dookus.

Has PLAYBOY done anything of note in the past, say, 25 years? Not that I'm aware of.

Sadly, the magazine that helped usher in the Sexual Revolution seems to have been completely overwhelmed by it.

[Dookus]

25. sigh...

I'm not trying to get into a debate on the merits of Playboy magazine. I find it much more interesting that in this day and age, a very progressive independent bookstore still refuses to carry it.

But a quick search shows they published Arthur C. Clarke in 2001, Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1993, Nadine Gordimer in '91, Jay McInerney in '97, Joyce Carol Oates in 2002, Chuck Palahniuk in 2001, Mickey Spillane in '96, Paul Theroux in 2000, Scott Turow in 2000, Kurt Vonnegut in '97 et. al.

[madrchsod]

13. any magazine that features

naked women is evil in the eyes of many. rockford ,il the third largest city in il ,just recently let borders sell playboy and penthouse. rockford has banned all nude magazines and x rated movies for years. it`s not playboy, it`s a womans body they find objectionable...

[BigDaddyLove]

18. That's a shame, because a woman's body is.........

anything but objectionable.

[Whitacre D_WI]

14. I let my subscription lapse...

...after the Darva Conger pictorial.

:scared:

[Loonman]

36. Playboy is lame, anyway

The TV Guide is racier.