Why, you ask?
Because this is the last issue ever that will feature naked women.
What?? No naked women in Playboy? Isn't that what they're known for??
Well, yes, they are. But the magazine has decided, after 62 years, that they just can't compete with all the nakedness (and all the sex acts under the sun) that can be found on the internet. Getting a copy of a magazine with naked women in it mailed to your home, one that you hide from your wife and kids, just doesn't do it for people anymore.
The first issue of Playboy, published in 1953, featured Marilyn Monroe on the cover. This last issue features the magazine's most popular Playmate, Pamela Anderson. This will be the 14th time she's graced the cover.
I remember reading Playboy early in life. My father and uncles always had a copy lying around somewhere. Next to the scotch and Sinatra records. We weren't very modest in our household. Nudity was okay. Not nudist colony style nudity, but let's just say it wasn't unusual to see someone running from the bathroom to their room naked. Nudity wasn't sexualized, it just was.
So after my parents got divorced and my mother remarried, we discovered that my step-father had boxes and boxes of old Playboy magazines stored in his attic. Old ones, from the fifties and sixties. My brother and I would sit up there for hours and pore over them, handing each other the ones we each just finished. I loved that the women were so beautiful - for me, it was about their clothing, their hair, their makeup, the setting they were photographed in, their centerfold questionnaire answers, and their vintage perfection. My brother may have had different interests! But I devoured everything from the advertisements, to the interviews (really, they were good), to ALL the comics. Little Annie Fanny was my favorite.
Playboy has always been the classiest of men's magazines and plenty of famous women have graced its pages. I haven't read a complete issue in years, but every once in a while I do pick up a copy and thumb through it. And I have to say, I much prefer the older issues, definitely the ones before 2000 but mostly the issues from the 60s and 70s. I have a few special issues saved - the one with Barbra Streisand on the cover (October 1977), Raquel Welch (December 1979), Cindy Crawford (July 1988), and Sherilyn Fenn (December 1990) to name just a few. I think someday they may be valuable. Or not. But I'm keeping them anyway.
If you're internet savvy you might know that NSFW means "Not Safe For Work". This acronym is usually seen in the subject line of an email and it means that the contents of the communication are not safe to open at work for fear of someone looking over your shoulder and seeing....well, whatever it is that's not appropriate to view at work. Typically it means someone in a NSFW email is naked.
Well, NSFW can take on new meaning these days, at least when it comes to Playboy magazine...
Now Safe For Work.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
2014: Mirrors, Glass, And Anxiety
2013: Skip The Stockyards, Head To The Roadhouse
2012: One Week To A Delightfully Dazzling Christmas
2011: My, What A Long Truck You Have
2010: A Place For The Snow To Rest
2009: They’re Always Touching Their Hammers
2008: Raindrops On Roses And Whiskers On Kittens
2007: Love Hate Relationship
2006: Full Service
2005: Struffo-What??
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