Remember when Playboy was the kind of magazine that ran articles written by Gabriel García Márquez or Marshall McLuhan and – if you were of a certain age and persuasion – you’d be likely to find a slightly damp copy of it stashed in a stump in the woods? I mean, I don’t as I am of an age where nudity is basically everywhere and – as a Canadian and University of Toronto graduate – I am deathly tired of Marshall McLuhan, but hey, what an age that probably was, right? I mean, aside from all the horrible societal issues, but whatever, LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME NAKED LADIES.
Playboy was started in 1953 by Hugh (pronounced “huuuuuuhhhhhhh”, like you’re sighing loudly) Hefner as a way to showcase writers while also showcasing THEM BOOBIES. While most people know the mag as a place to peruse heavily photoshopped pictures of women with very little body hair, the early Playmate of the Month pictures were a bit more on the “smutty” side, rather than “sexy”. Pubic regions didn’t make it into the spreads [SLIGHTLY DAMP RIMSHOT] until the 1970s, so the lower half of the models ended up being covered by something, whether it be a skirt, underwear, mustard-coloured pants, or mounds of gauzy fabric (because nothing is sexier than those curtains that you find in mid-range hotel rooms). There’s a sweetness to the photos, in sort of a burlesque-y, soft core kind of way, but there’s also a weirdness to a number of them. Occasionally, it feels like the art director went, “That’s it! I’m tired of shooting photos of women casually spread across beds and coyly peeking out from behind doors! We’re going to EXPERIMENT! Here, take off your pants, hold this cactus, and stand by that tuba.”
This is a look at some of those instances and what was probably behind said behind the scenes:
BARBARA CAMERON – POTM NOVEMBER 1955
“You know what’s sexy? A woman who is just getting out of the shower, all fresh and clean and well scrubbed. You know what else is sexy? Velvet. Not just velvet on clothing, but like, a velvet wall. Yeah, crushed velvet on a wall would be amazing, especially in a bathroom where the naked shower lady is. Except that we can’t have her actually getting out of the shower, because then her makeup would be running and her perm would be all fucked up, so what if she was in the bathroom, but totally dry? I think that works! Also, I just checked the set and there isn’t really a shower, more of a tub that exists in some sort of flattened, bizarro space where everything looks like a cardboard cutout. Oh, and there’s a showerhead, but it’s just kind of coming out of the ceiling like a chrome python. Also, we brought a towel, but for some reason there’s elastic in the middle of it, so it’ll just kind of hang off her waist like some sort of terrycloth tube. Make sure you get the garbage can in the photo as well. Oh man, this is going to be so hot.”
BETTY BLUE – POTM NOVEMBER 1956
“Look, Betty, I know you’re in the middle of that life drawing class where you have to pretend to be a classical Greek statue, but we’d really appreciate it if you just took up smoking, like, right this second.”
MARIANNE GABA – POTM SEPTEMBER 1959
“Look, just because we forgot the suitcase containing all the clothes, doesn’t mean we can’t just do the photo shoot anyway. I borrowed shirt this off the lady working in that Git n’ Go over there, so put it on and go stand by that tree.”
JEAN CANNON – POTM OCTOBER 1961
“Jean, I think it would be great if you went and posed by a tree where there are a bunch of love notes all carved in it, I feel like it’ll be that nice play on the whole hard/soft thing, where you’re naked and all ‘come hither’ while the tree behind you is full of youthful declarations of everlasting love. I think there’s one just over he-… Shit, it’s way up in the tree. No, wait, don’t climb up there! Jean, our insurance doesn’t cover naked women falling out of trees! It barely covers dental! Jea-… goddamnit, get down from there! Seriously, I can barely climb a tree normally, never mind while totally frickin’ nude. The stylist hasn’t even done your hair yet! For fuck’s sake, ok, whatever, just get the camera. We’re just going to shoot this and then I’m going to go back to my apartment and get loaded.”
ROBERTA LANE – POTM APRIL 1962
“Hello? Hey Diane, it’s me, Roberta. How’s it going? Oh, I’m good, I’m just hanging out in the basement near Bob’s hobby shop, going to be starting that Playboy photo shoot soon. Yeah, I know. I mean, I got my hair done today, but then I got hairspray all over it so now I’m just sitting in the basement shirtless. What? No, it’s not that cold. But I mean, I just had lunch so I’m feeling pretty bloated, let me just unzip my pants a bit… ahhh, there we go. Anyway, what are you up to today? Nah, I’m just going to kneel on the floor and drink ginger ale. I know the couch is behind me, I’m just going to kneel awkwardly. God, I am so bloated today, ugh.”
CARRIE ENWRIGHT – POTM JULY 1963
“My thoughts on this is that I’m on my way to a live-action game of Clue as Colonel Mustard. It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon in late May and, as I’m walking to my friend’s place in my costume, I realize that (in my haste to leave) I totally forgot to put on a pair of shoes! So I turn around and start cutting back through a field because there was a tailgate party in my neighbourhood and a bunch of bros just smashed empty stubbies all over the sidewalk. Anyway, as I head through, I come across a guy dressed as Mr. Peacock, who is also heading to the same event. We start chatting, but then all of a sudden, the tailgating bros show up and start chucking bottles at us! We start running for safety through backyards, finally ditching them. I’m so warm and uncomfortable in my Mustard costume that I strip off the top and realize that I ripped off the top button on my pants while I was running. My shirt is absolutely soaked in sweat because I didn’t wear my prescription-strength antiperspirant today, so I hang it on a tree. Mr Peacock is standing there, cobalt shirt partially open, salt and pepper hair mussed. I give him a look and say, ‘Mr. Peacock, with his pipe wrench, in me.’ I feel like that’s how we should approach this photo, frankly.”
MERCY ROONEY – DECEMBER 1972
“I got the brief here and it just says, ‘Lady on the top, labradoodle on the bottom’.”
*
images via
Ms. Cameron later went on to have a career in politics, and no one ever brought up that she had been in Playboy, because, let’s be honest, all anyone remembered from that picture was that bizarre green monstrosity of a wall.
(not actually a true story)
Is it velvet? Is it sponge painted? Is it ALIVE? So many questions.
I think it’s “alive” in a Hill House kind of way, where it will slowly drive people insane and never let them leave.
At first I thought you wrote “Hull House” and I was really excited that someone else ha seen the movie Night of the Demons 2, but that I realized it said Hill House, so I will continue to be alone in my love for NotD2 (incidentally, if you like wonderfully terrible horror movies, I recommend NotD2. It is BEYOND awful but I love it so, as shown by this incredibly stupid opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc5cSHRQfSM).
Okay, but were people really leaving Playboy magazines in stumps in the woods? I’ve heard it mentioned by multiple comedians but…that was really a thing?
As far as I can tell based on the tales of pre-internet dudes is that, yes, someone’s older brother or whatever would acquire one somewhere, somehow and then hide it in a “communal” place where no one’s mom would find it. If you lived near the woods or a park or something, then that was generally a good option.
Yes! In grade school we found this massive garbage bag full of mouldering copies in the woods and it was like rumspringa.
“It was like rumspringa”
I just laughed so hard tears came to my eyes.
*rump-springa
Yes! Big hollowed-out redwood stump that served as occasional fort in my childhood play area. I was pushed out but caught a glimpse of skin while the other kids were passing it around.
I found them in my dad’s nightstand, but we lived in the suburbs.
In suburban Phoenix, we didn’t have woods, exactly, but there sure were plenty of palo verde groves in the park near our school. You’d catch the occasional nudie magazine if you were looking. Which we always were.
It still happens in today’s modern era! Hiking with the dog just up behind my house, took a different route down, spied something in the grass, lo and behold: one beer can and a stack of weird little (1″X1″) origami houses. I unfolded one and it was a pornographic ad for some seriously sexy times.
I pocketed two. One to prove my story to the neighbours and one to work into a mixed media collage which you can see at [email protected]…it’s the one called “Summer Camp”.
Grabbed my computer to say: In college, around 2010, some friends walked out to the abandoned… water treatment facility? Electric plant? Outside of our very small town, because damn it, they needed to break into something. ANYWAY, when they were there, they found PILES and PILES of Star Trek pornography magazine, with semi-naked actor look-alikes lewdly posed in (or out of) costume.
It had not been there for long because when a few of us walked back up a few days later, there was more.
Domina! What was the title of that magazine? I just decided to take up a new collecting craze.
Oh, HELL yes! It was a glorious, and rare, find.
A stump! How absurd.
We found them in the crawl space under an abandoned house, or under bushes.. Sometimes you found a Penthouse or a Hustler and it was all just too much
i can’t imagine growing up in the city and never knowing what it’s like to discover some horny squirrel’s cache of woods porn, like Indiana Jones unearthing a golden idol with big honkers
Those of us whose suburbs lacked hollow stumps would gather in someone’s basement and pore over her dad’s (not-so-) secret stash. I don’t think any of us had any idea what to make of it, but I have very vivid memories of being really confused as to why that naked lady was caressing a python. We were 10.
Oh, in my neighborhood they were in the little feeder drainpipes that came down into the big drain pipe we used to hang out in.
I wonder if the labradoodle lady would let me pet her floofy pants if I asked nicely?
I scrolled through this with minor trepidation that that idea might be a reference to intimate grooming, and then completely died at the end of both laughter and relief.
Nope, just insane pants. I think I sent that photo to like, 14 people going, “LOOK AT THESE.” No wonder no one texts me back.
I too feared a pubal tragedy.
Ladies, ladies! These are wooly chaps, not pants. Meaning, they are backless. That makes using the photo taken from the front (where all you see is Labradoodle legs) an especially bold choice.
AHEM. I have some trousers like this. They are floofy both inside and out and superwarm for lounging round the house in winter.
SLIGHTLY DAMP RIMSHOT
I am, tragically, super busy today so don’t have time to give this article the attention it deserves. Very much looking forward to reading it again tonight.
I just keep hearing a “ba-dum SPLOOSH” noise.
Oh wow, saved the best one for last! Thanks for that. Also note that the chair behind her is 100% made of ?cow horns.
Yes, cow horns – incl the inevitable longhorn horns for the top rail of the back of the chair.
I mean, if you had to sit on a chair made of sharp horns, wouldn’t you prefer floofy pants, too?
Oh my GOD I HADN’T EVEN REALIZED, I was too caught up in the pants of it all.
THE PANTS OF IT ALL
Title of the Louise Rennison novel she never got to write, I’m assuming.
Okay but surely I’m not the only one who frequently wanders about doing household tasks topless, right? Like when you take your bra off in the living room and you were wearing a sweater and you COULD get up and find another shirt, or you could just not do that because you’re lazy and being topless is actually kinda fun? Or you get out of the shower and have an urgent email so you sit down to respond in just your towel and it slips so you end up responding to the email but also sitting there for another hour putzing around on Tumblr?
No? Just me? Alright then…
I mean, I’m a fan of the “I’m only wearing a hoodie because STUPID BRAS” while around the house, but it’s the combo of stiff jeans + white socks + super done-up hair + rec room? + phone that just makes me go WHY, WHY IS THIS THE SET UP.
I’ve got a super rad pair of jeans from the 80s that I wear and this ends up being me a lot for above listed reasons, but I see your point. Mostly I hate wearing bras and shirts because they’re SO CONFINING but I don’t have strong opinions about pants.
Full disclosure: I’m very much a pinup fan/dabbler so I am quite sure that much of my behavior is influenced by these very shots.
I just hope that you at least wear some sort of clothing while climbing trees. I am concerned for that lady because if she slips it’s going to be a nightmare.
I fell out of a tree one summer when I was a kid–well the branch I was standing on was rotten and broke–and I ended up sliding down the side of the tree. It was the 80s so I was wearing VEERRRY short shorts. I still have the scars. This poor woman is in trouble if she slips.
Oh, god, I hadn’t noticed the socks.
I mean I’m a guy so no one thinks it’s slightly weird for me to be doing just about anything topless but I have always assumed that it’s fairly normal for women too if maybe having a bit higher bar to clear re: privacy first.
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I wish I were warm-blooded enough for this. I’d need to keep my house at like 95 degrees to pull off sexxxxy ginger-ale floor phoning.
Yeah, I would need near sauna levels of heat to do that.
Oh no, not just you.
I rarely wear much of anything at home, especially in the summer. Underwear, probably.
Yeah, pretty much. I get home, pants come off, life is good.
I find myself marginally clothed or topless while doing random household things a lot. Because lazy and distracted and yay for free boobing.
My two year old is fascinated by my breasts and I can stop her mid temper tantrum just by taking off my shirt. The follow-up is a run-down of every body part she can identify plus she has to say hello to all of my tattoos that she has anthropomorphized. She then wants to be topless herslfand wants me to draw tattoos on her like mine. Which is all pretty okay with me. I try to use this power sparingly.
Wait that’s actually one of the cutest things I’ve ever heard. My mom was very much Team Naked (minus the tattoos) and I’m pretty sure that’s where I inherited my complete lack of shame about my body from.
That’s incredibly adorable. Does she craft stories about your tattoos having adventures together?
I used to, especially as I’m in a block of flats a couple of floors up so flashing the general public is less of a concern, but after a couple of unexpected window-cleaner incidents I tend more towards the clothed.
When I was a freshman in high school, my local library was selling a whole bunch of old donated books to raise money. I found several vintage Nancy Drews (the print after the soft blue covers) and bought them. I opened one up at home to look at it and a TON of old playboy pictures fell out.
It was a ‘calendar girls’ mini collection. It had like, a tear-away for each month with a different girl on it. It was absolutely glorious! I still have both the book and the nudes.
Nancy and the Case of the Smutty Photos
I don’t want to solve this mystery. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=278
I have always loved this!
There really is a Kate Beaton comic for everything.
Betty Blue is clearly having second thoughts about this.
My incessant giggle-snickering at this made my husband a little concerned (primarily about his ability to be gainfully employed while I’m in the same room, making noises at things on the internet.)
My favorite part of the first picture is how the tie draped on the mirror conveniently covers the reflection of her nipple. I’d like to imagine that the thought process there while setting up the mirror was something like, “Our contract says we can allow three boobs to be shown in some form, but NONE OF THEM can be completely exposed. Okay, we’ve got one side-boob, one cut off by the mirror, but dammit what are we going to do about that full reflection? Got it. Larry, give me your tie, we’re gonna pretend it matches the color scheme. Ugh, next time let’s just go with the three-boobed woman in the standard two-boob bikini.”
And like, WHY is there a tie there? Who just hangs a tie from a mirror? Is it the guy taking the photo? Is it hers? Is she like, a proto-Avril Lavigne circa 2002?
Maybe it’s just supposed to be a subtle reminder of the constant presence of masculinity.
“Not only are we making sure that we really drive home the ever-present male gaze, but we also want to make sure that we all know that men be leaving their shit everywhere AM I RIGHT hahaha, tip your waiter.” – The associate art director on this shoot
Along with the just-used shaving tackle!
She’s an adventurous gal, and that belongs to her most recent gentleman caller.
Roberta’s jeans are so painfully brand new, I can practically smell the residual dye on them, and it makes me wince for how unforgivingly stiff the crotch must be in her pantyless crouch.
Though maybe she used some spares from the bulk pack of white socks she’s wearing to cushion her nether regions
Yeah, that can’t be comfortable. Everything about that photo screams, “This is totally unnatural and also my knees are sore.”
I love the weird little temporal frisson I get from old pictures of new jeans. They haven’t changed for shit in 100 years and that gives them this odd anachronistic quality.
Okay, but can we talk about how these are REAL boobs? With real aureolas and sometimes even nipples that are larger than a thumbtack? This should be required reading for all straight middle school boys so they know what actual breasts look like when they are finally faced with them.
That was one interesting thing to see when going through all the old PotM pictures (believe me, I looked through every shoot from the very start. It was a very weird way to spend a morning). There was a lot more diversity when it came to breasts/nipples in the early stuff. I mean, not TONS because obviously they were going for a certain body type and it’s also only white ladies for the first decade (first Asian-American Playmate was in 1964, first African-American Playmate was in 1965), but the first Playmate to have breast implants was Sue Williams in 1965. There’s definitely a very visible change in the photos as well from the 60s into the 70s, when it got much more (for lack of a better word) hardcore, with the first full-frontal nude in 1972 and the first centrefold with full pubic hair (that was visible) in 1973. The photos are definitely much more overtly sexual in the 70s than in the 50s/60s and shift more towards full nudity and a much more “standardized” look in the women (again, there are outliers, but everyone starts to have very similar bodies).
The Labradoodle lady has the typical perky breasts with teeny nipples and it was kind of shocking scrolling down to see those after several “normal” sets of breasts. It’s also kind of interesting that erect nipples weren’t necessarily a thing. There’s probably a Ph.D dissertation in here somewhere.
And note that Miss Labradoodle’s picture is the most recent one.
So true story: through sheer genetic luck I have boobs like hers, except bigger. I even have those tiny nipples.
A lot of my friends have seen them. One acquaintance refused to believe they were real (I heard this secondhand).
I found a site that had all the centerfolds from the beginning and went through a lot of them. (It’s have gone through them all, because I very much appreciate sexy naked ladies, but my phone kept crashing like, “No, that’s too much nudity for one day.” My phone is puritan like my state is). I really liked to see the non – standard breasts from the earlier years.
YES. Also, while watching Boardwalk Empire recently with a dude-relative, he griped that too many of the women on the show “jiggle too much in the wrong places” and there was an audible record scratch in my head. Like, we’d only watched a few episodes and all the female nudity so far had been young, sexy ladies of the approved-for-HBO variety and I was just flabbergasted because I realized this dude doesn’t know that even fit, “conventionally attractive” female bodies jiggle (in places other than their boobs).
“Mr. Peacock, with his pipe-wrench, in me”
I’m stealing this line for undefined future use, I’ll report back and let you guys know how it goes.
I am fully onboard with this.
“Let’s just cover her bottom half with sheep carcasses, that’s totally hot.”
“I’m deeply aroused by shag carpeting.”
I could care less about porn as porn, but I find it oddly comforting to compare my body to theirs’… Ooh hey, maybe I don’t have to feel quite so self-conscious about my huge areolae that no one but me ever sees?
I think Miss Colonel Mustard has my body type (or maybe it’s just the horrible trousers making it look like she has my short legs).
Regardless, she’s cute.
That first photo: the actual bathroom fixtures in my house when we bought it. We still have that tub.
Once I bought a box of books at an auction, and in the box under the books were several years of 60s Playboys. The playmates were much more natural looking then.
I worked in my college library and our Special Collections had basically every Playboy published. My favorite part was that according to the library of congress categorization system, their call numbers all started with FAP (folio version of a periodical) and I giggled every time.
That is HILARIOUS.
My brain went “FAP 69 hahahaha” because I am clearly an adult.
That perm is even more fucking tragic than the lame-but-coy “maybe I’m masturbating you don’t know” pose.
I ran across a digital archive of vintage Playboy photos when I was in college, and they were a revelation. Natural breasts, soft tummies and thighs with shape to them, all shot lovingly and presented as desirable. All of a sudden my body didn’t seem as freakish as it had before…
Oddly proud to share a birth month with Miss September as she embodies exactly as much nudity as I can handle at one time (basically none but a lot of implied body), and I do confess to liking her weird Hot Dog on a Stick fashion aesthetic. Kind of freaked out that the fire department sirens aren’t audible in the background of Miss October’s shot because she is clearly in need of rescue.
Did women stop having breasts like Roberta and Carrie’s after the 1970s? I never see them except in pictures like this.
I mean, she's definitely pinching her nipple in her elbow there, right? Probably not super comfy.
I have that tub too! Classic.
I was a young Copy Priestess (not yet a Goddess) at Playboy in the 1980s. By that time, no natural breasts were featured in the magazine.
How did I miss this when it posted? This is amazing!