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What Hefner was doing was trying to take porn mainstream. The jokes about "I only read Playboy for the articles" riffed off that; he was presenting an entire package for the sophisticated (or wannabe-sophisticate) man. This wasn't porn, it was erotica. You weren't reading Playboy to get your rocks off (was the pretence), the Playmates were part of the ensemble of what an intelligent, worldly-wise man experienced. That was also the point of the clubs, there were "gentleman's clubs", with keys for members, and the image again was of the worldly, sophisticated man - a roué perhaps, but not a guy in a raincoat in a seedy porn cinema jerking off. Selling the "James Bond" image, which is why the mansion and Hef in his smoking jacket was also an important part of the image: this was what ambitious young men in the 60s and 70s USA were aiming for, with the booming post-war economy and possibilities of all sorts opening up and the Sexual Revolution at hand, or could be persuaded into thinking they were all part of, as Playboy consumers: taste, wealth, an urbane lifestyle their parents didn't have, and hot young women willing to be friendly and sexually available but not as hookers or paid escorts. You were all liberated and rewriting the conventions of society.
Of course, the seedy porn cinemas had never gone away and the likes of Hustler came along with a completely different and more cynical, more pragmatic philosophy: no pretence about art or erotica, more graphic and hardcore, to eat Playboy's lunch, and nowadays you can get anything you want on the Internet.
But as you say, for a while there it was the point where fantasy was presented in an attainable form.
See that's where I think the framing confuses us, Hustler and Penthouse and Playboy fought wars over pubic hair and hardcore porn, but that didn't ultimately impact Playboy's empire overly much, because Playboy's real money came from the clubs and the casinos. The decline and fall of the brand had more to do with changing tastes in night clubs (I know almost no men my age who belong to private membership clubs with bars, that was far more common in the 60s), the failed Atlantic City Casino venture, and the nature of overexposing a brand by licensing your logo plastered on every shitty T shirt and cheap silver necklace for sale on any New Jersey boardwalk.
Playboy magazine was a modest business without the accoutrement that actually brought in revenue. Hustler and Penthouse never compared by that metric.
Yeah, the money-making empire was the brand but the magazine was what brought it to mainstream attention. Maybe you'd never be that guy going to a Playboy club or casino, but the magazine allowed you to participate in the dream. That's what porn is about - selling fantasy in a way that tries to persuade the consumer 'this is attainable for you'.
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It's rather amazing how successful Hef was at this. Even women that don't like their husbands' porn consumption find Playboy's brand tolerable, maybe even civilizing.
A GF bought me a subscription to Playboy for my birthday actually, back when it was a thing.
Because he made it into a brand that elevated it from "seedy porn" to something daring, sexy, naughty but in keeping with the spirit of the times, when Sexual Liberation was all the rage. Now women too could explore their sexuality openly! Being a Playboy bunny may seem ridiculous today, and it wasn't without criticism back then, but a lot of jobs for young women advertised an image of glamour and sexiness, e.g. airline attendants or trolly dollies, because air travel still had the air of being something luxurious and not commonplace.
These kinds of careers were presented as something more than the conventional "be a secretary or teacher and then get married and settle down to being a housewife" path for attractive young women. They did rely on sex appeal but there was a crucial distinction established between that and being the pole dancer or stripper or prostitute or porn actress: no expectation of having to have sex with the customers. The fantasy on both sides was: you are a hot young woman who, through working this job, may meet a desirable well-off man/you are a young man in a white collar job who can meet a glamourous girl not like the girls-next-door for mutual fun.
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My wife actually has more love for the Playboy mystique than I do. She grew up watching The Girls Next Door reality show, and being that hot, having one's breasts Certified, was a kind of mark of honor. Not one that she actually aspired to, but it had a certain cache to it.
I think most women consider the idea of various forms of sex work as a fantasy in much the same way that most men vaguely fantasize about violent crime, or of running off to work on an oil rig.
Whoa
Violent crime is one thing but who dreams of working on an oil rig? It's not even that outdoorsy, you're not in the forest or on the land.
Well paid labor job without any particular educational qualifications. You can sub in whatever similar job appeals to you personally, but the point is that I don't think there's any white collar professional in America who doesn't occasionally think about getting on the interstate and driving all night until you reach a country town in a state where no one knows you and get a simple labor job and start over.
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Lots of people dream of working an oil rig/alaskan crab boat/mining camp/whatever. It’s very well remunerated(sometimes more in fantasy than reality), it’s away from civilization, it’s physically difficult, etc.
Having a very high income while very young is a common young male fantasy for the same reason young women fantasize about becoming incredibly beautiful after some minor change.
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I imagine the fantasy is a job that's hard, but very rewarding, with a side of camaraderie.
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It's interesting how fully Playboy has shifted from "softcore porn for the discerning man" to "women's fashion and lifestyle brand." The only people I've ever met who have spent money on Playboy products are women. When was the last time the majority of their revenue was generated by male consumers?
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