Tame middle-aged spread
Ned Pakenham
THE PLAYBOY BOOK: THE COMPLETE PICTORIAL HISTORY by Gretchen Edgren and Murray Fisher General Publishing Group USA, $45, pp. 368 Ishould say, at the beginning of this review, that Playboy has had absolutely no impact upon my life at all. That's not because I disapprove of pornographY — I'm a man, so of course I think it's great — but because long before I hit adolescence Playboy had dropped into a special, non-erotic porn league all of its own. For many years now, it has been almost impossible to walk ten yards in London without catching a eyeful of naked flesh on some hoarding or passing bus. Inevitably, erotic fatigue sets in. In the consequent struggle to keep clear blue water between itself and mainstream culture, pornograPhY, has been ratcheted up towards greater and greater sexual explicitness. One of the interesting things about Playboy is how little its 'pictorials' have changed with this prevailing tide. The models may show a little fur these days, but it's pretty tame stuff when compared to the splayed-limb and two-girl action scenes from Hustler and other magazines.
There are reasons for this conservatism. One of them is that by tradition Hugh Hefner, the magazine's publisher, has been very close to his Playmates'. He is protec- tive of their modesty. After all, Playboy Enterprises Inc. is practically a family affair. The would-be centrefold is flown out to Hefner's 'six-acre English Tudor estate' in Holmby Hills, California. She is taken under the corporate wing, shown the many sides of the business: the nightclubs, the cable and video operation, the Playboy boutiques. If she is sufficiently good- looking and compliant, she might make Playmate of the Month' and join the inner circle of Hefner's handmaids at Playboy Mansion West. The most illumi- nating picture in this book is of Hugh Heftier sharing a jacuzzi with eight top- heavy blondes, most of whom are Playboy veterans.
Playboy is also 'a serious, literary maga- zine'. Well — maybe. There have been one or two literary coups. Alex Haley's Roots and John Updike's Rabbit is Rich were both serialised. Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Gabriel Garcia Marquez have con- tributed short stories. But as far as I can tell, fiction in Playboy falls into two cate- gories: male fantasy pieces about sex (My First Ow, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas); and childish visions of life in the 21st century (sex with robots, special love- Pius, etc). The rest of the magazine divides into service features' about cars, razors and romantic etiquette which 'help to define the Playboy lifestyle', salacious cartoons, bad futuristic art, celebrity interviews, and, until quite recently, defensive, almost para- noid editorials. In the Eighties, the political attack on Playboy intensified. The Left criticised Hefner for misogyny and Philistinism, the Right for obscenity and being pro-abortion. Ronald Reagan (vilified in this book) appointed a Commission on Pornography to lead the witch-hunt. Luckily for Hefner, the clamour began to subside when fundamen- talists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker fell from grace. The magazine has now firmly aligned itself with every liberal good cause in America. It even produces an occasional braille edition for the blind.
Should you buy this book? The answer must be: if you dare. It is hagiographic, but there is much sport to be had out of the Corporate gush and tributes to 'Hen At the back of the book is a pull-out poster featur- ing all 500 'Playmates'. I showed it to my female friends and a consensus about pornography seemed to emerge: anything goes except bestiality and pain.
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