Men's Adventure Magazines

[MikeKardec]

In the case of Playboy, I don't know what teenage boys and young men are looking at (not necessarily reading) now instead of Playboy.

The scary answer: everything.

Playboy was actually one of the best fiction markets in the 60s and 70s. They didn't publish enough material so that an author really had a chance writing something for them but, if you had a short story and you were a major author or it was a great story, that was the place to be. The pay was excellent, often more than the advance on a novel.

I vaguely remember Ray Bradbury (he sold to PB often if I recall correctly) telling a story about being asked to write something for them and turning out a tale of a freshly built haunted house. It was a perfectly created house, the most modern purest architecture, most perfect engineering, most fabulous decorating ... but the new owners aren't "good enough" not pure enough or possibly moral enough for their perfect house and the house lets them know it. Again, hazy memory, but I believe that PB declined the story in Ray's mind this may have been because it was too moral for them. But I think they let him keep the money.

 

[MikeKardec]

Not having the safety mode on, the topic took on a very graphic
tone to say the least.

The real shocker in my experience was while researching Helmet & Dress or Heavy Gear diving I discovered that there is some tangential aspect of gay culture that seems to fetishize copper helmets and rubberized or oiled canvas diving suits. I hope there are recreational versions of this gear out there because the real get up weighs around 200 lbs. You suit up and are hoisted into the water where the air in the suit allows you to adjust your boyancy.

So if a guy tells you he has a Heavy Gear fetish ... do NOT laugh. It's a near guarantee he can bench press you! It ain't called Heavy Gear for nothing!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wonder what LizzieMaine would have to say about Playboy (not similar magazines--just Playboy).

I'm not a fan of Hefnerian hedonism, but there's no denying the magazine published some first class journalism, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s. It's a sad commentary on those times that such journalism needed to be wrapped in naked skin in order to sell.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What I was suggesting was the changes in the publishing business. There are still magazines being published, of course, not that I buy any, but it seems like the distribution channels have changed. The local drugstore doesn't seem to stock as many titles as they might have at one time. Yet a bookstore will have lots and lots and lots of titles, a lot more than there used to be. There are a lot of specialist hobby or special interest magazines, but not so many general interest magazines. For "adult" magazines you have to go somewhere else and if you want them, you already know where.

Magazine distribution up thru the 1950s used to be a business with a very strong organized-crime element -- it was often used as a means of money laundering, as well as a ready source of hard-to-trace operating capital. With that mob influence came the use of strong-arm thugs to ensure the distribution of favored publications -- it wasn't uncommon for a drugstore owner or a street-corner newsdealer to be given brisk physical persuasion to carry a particular line of magazines for which graft had been paid to ensure a favored position on the racks. Under those circumstances you could be sure that the magazine racks were given very careful attention by the retailer.

With the mob having moved on to other things, that strong-arm incentive is no longer there, and there just aren't that many outlets for magazines anymore. Comics, "fan" magazines, and confession magazines, which were among the mob-dominated distributors' favorite items, are now almost impossible to find on newsstands. Most magazines are now sold thru supermarket-checkout racks, with a whole different distribution system.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'm not a fan of Hefnerian hedonism, but there's no denying the magazine published some first class journalism, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s. It's a sad commentary on those times that such journalism needed to be wrapped in naked skin in order to sell.

I bought a Playboy for the centerfold once: Jake LaMotta's ex, Vikki, posed nude at age fifty one. I was in my 20's and remember thinking that I hoped that I would be preserved half as well as she was when I hit the half century mark. Even with airbrushing.

 

[2jakes]

Years ago, I was given a box with about 50-60 PBs from a guy at work
who either got tired of them or his wife told him to get rid of them.

He also threw in an old faded, Brooklyn Dodgers jacket as well.

The “airbrushed" images although good were boring. It would’ve been better
if there was something left to the imagination.
What I did find interesting were the articles or stories in these magazines.

I still have the jacket.

 

[BlueTrain]

There was actually very little airbrushing in the magazines, at least after the 1960s. Up until, oh, about 1968 or 1969, certain things could not be shown in magazines sold over the counter. Photos themselves might be touched up for problems in the printing, though. But the models themselves were heavily made-up. That's where all the skin imperfections were attended to, the same thing most women still do, only there was more work (because there was more exposed skin) involved. You might say there was a lot of art work involved. I might add that over the years, the models became more athletic-looking. That is, uh, so I've been told.

I think one feature Playboy did better than anyone else (not the only feature) was their interviews. But for serious articles, I always thought the New Yorker had the best. If nothing else, they were easily the longest. But the New Yorker is only a shadow of what it used to be.

 

[filfoster]

It's funny the line "I just read Playboy for the articles" was very often the better reason for time spent with the magazine. Not that many of us were unashamed to exploit the women who volunteered to be exploited and were probably unaware it was going on, by casting our prurient gaze on their unclothed anatomy, but the interviews, articles and even the ads were often very well done. I would suppose Mr. Heffner never intended to compete with the New Yorker, except in the matter of cartoons.

As we all appreciate, the internet left 'men's magazines' (my summer Highway Department co-workers had saltier terms) in the dust long ago.
Mr. Hefner, creepy parody of his younger self as his life now seems to be, from what I read, is a relic and museum piece of cultural and publishing history. Very sad in a way.

 

[filfoster]

The real shocker in my experience was while researching Helmet & Dress or Heavy Gear diving I discovered that there is some tangential aspect of gay culture that seems to fetishize copper helmets and rubberized or oiled canvas diving suits. I hope there are recreational versions of this gear out there because the real get up weighs around 200 lbs. You suit up and are hoisted into the water where the air in the suit allows you to adjust your boyancy.

So if a guy tells you he has a Heavy Gear fetish ... do NOT laugh. It's a near guarantee he can bench press you! It ain't called Heavy Gear for nothing!

This is what keeps an old guy going. Even though you know you really haven't seen or heard it all (see, e.g. 'plushies'), something new like this reaches your attention. This would be an expensive niche to indulge. A website would be a must to find the other folks who like this, surely.

 

[2jakes]

There was actually very little airbrushing in the magazines, at least after the 1960s. Up until, oh, about 1968 or 1969, certain things could not be shown in magazines sold over the counter. Photos themselves might be touched up for problems in the printing, though. But the models themselves were heavily made-up. That's where all the skin imperfections were attended to, the same thing most women still do, only there was more work (because there was more exposed skin) involved. You might say there was a lot of art work involved. I might add that over the years, the models became more athletic-looking. That is, uh, so I've been told.

I think one feature Playboy did better than anyone else (not the only feature) was their interviews. But for serious articles, I always thought the New Yorker had the best. If nothing else, they were easily the longest. But the New Yorker is only a shadow of what it used to be.

Was using “airbrushing” loosely on purpose.

I would agree New Yorker had better articles.
Except for it's center-folds.

(with) tongue in cheek !

 

[BlueTrain]

I tend to correct people when they say airbrushing. I worked in photofinishing for twenty years. However, that's not to say I work in photography. But it would be correct to think of them actually airbrushing the models.

Both magazines had wonderful cartoons, with Playboy of course having (mostly) the racier ones. But Playboy was never gross or "spicy," whatever else you might say about it.

 

[2jakes]

This thread & topic brings to mind when I was very young & these magazines held
a fascination for a growing curious kid. I never could afford or be of age to buy one.

With the exception of PB, it was mostly in barber shops that I peeked at some of them.
Confidential, Police Detective, were some examples.
Newspapers was taken for granted.

As a youngster, I thought Don Martin cartoons from Mad Magazine was the tops.



The barbershops of my youth...
Hot towel, warm lather shave around the ears & back of the neck (as a kid)
with a straight-edge razor.
The odor of hair tonics, talcum powder and the radio broadcast of a
major league baseball game.

 

[BlueTrain]

I never liked going to the barbershop and getting a haircut. I think it was the chair. It was too much like what the dentist used. The only difference was, the barber's chair had an ashtray in the right hand armrest and the dentist's didn't. So to this day I dread going to either the dentist (actually went this morning) or the barber (went last Saturday). And that's why I have bad teeth and bad haircuts.

 

[2jakes]

I loved my barbershop!
There was a board placed on the arm chair where I would sit so that the barber
could cut my hair comfortably. By the age of 9, I was tall & didn’t require
the board.

About the only thing I disliked was that no matter how much I tried to impress
on the man to trim just a little.

He always cut off too much!

And Hustler magazine was a bit on the rough side.

 

[filfoster]

'

I loved my barbershop!
There was a board placed on the arm chair where I would sit so that the barber
could cut my hair comfortably. By the age of 9, I was tall & didn’t require
the board.

About the only thing I disliked was that no matter how much I tried to impress
on the man to trim just a little.

He always cut off too much!

And Hustler magazine was a bit on the rough side.

All true. I'm pretty jaded but Hustler is offal, pun intended.

Until I was big enough to sit in the chair without the board across the arms, the barbershop was a terrifying experience. Mom took me to 'Studie' McCallum, named, I assume for a car he once owned, rather than any academic pretensions. 'Studie' was a nice man but old and portly, and wore, year-round a dark cardigan sweater, flannel shirt and a bow tie. He always nicked my ears with the scissors or those medieval looking hair trimmer things he still used. Surviving the procedure earned me a stick of Beeman's chewing gum, which to this day I associate with barbers.
After he retired, I took my small trade to 'Happy' McKeever, at the other end of Main Street. (Evidently, the barbering trade, at least in my little hometown of Williamsburg, Ohio, required the adoption of a nickname). The shop had two chairs but only one barber. The other chair was usually occupied by one of the older men who, all of them, seemed to orbit 'Happy's' and the Ashland gas station. My uncle described these older guys as the town's 'board of sidewalk supervisors'. They were harmless old duffers, filling time until they made their wives widows. Cigar and pipe smoke, the radio and those damned magazines found home here, along with these old men. You could buy hunting and fishing licenses and artificial bait at 'Happy's' too, but I never saw anyone do that.
'Happy' was cruelly nicknamed because after retirement, he blew his brains out with a handgun rather than go to Texas to stay with his daughter. Texas is a wonderful place so I blame the daughter.

 

[2jakes]

Magazine ads.

Had an uncle who went to barber school.
At home he used me for practice.
I still remember that awful smelly oily pinching device.

 

[filfoster]

OTE="2jakes, post: 2116617, member: 17666"]Magazine ads.

Had an uncle who went to barber school.
At home he used me for practice.
I still remember that awful smelly oily pinching device.[/QUOTE]

It took a fair amount of Googling but here it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_clipper

These have the disappointingly generic name of 'manual clippers' or 'machine shears'. They look like something employed by the Spanish Inquisition (insert here Terry Gilliam's classic "Nobody expects...") and to those of us who suffered them, they were indeed instruments of torture. At least they were in the unsteady hands of Studie McCallum.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Playboy was a fine magazine. Interviews, cartoons, humor pieces and essays, and the fiction --! George Langelaan's "The Fly" appeared there, as did stories by Larry Niven and John Varley. Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man was serialized (yes!) there in the early '70s,when a magazine could still do that.

I never said "I buy it only for the articles." But when I bought an issue, I read it cover to cover.

No idea have I where young men would go now for what used to be called "skin" magazines. There are no more newsstands in my area, and the local Barnes & Noble, while they carry Playboy and (I think) Penthouse, and a couple of the softcore "lads' mags" from Britain, all the others have vanished. I suppose with the rise of the Internet, it's rather moot.

 

[BlueTrain]

Oh, those magazines are still around and if you want them, you can find them. Looking at anything on the internet is not the same as looking at anything in print.

There were very similar magazines to Playboy before it started a long time ago and I'd say that Esquire was probably the inspiration for Hefner. The so called lad's magazines you mentioned (never heard the expression before) are different from the adventure magazines, as was Playboy. But I'm too old for them to have any appeal to me.

It is probably very difficult for any publication (or any company) to stay the same decade after decade. The readership changes, authors come and go, companies make mistakes and they face new competition. Just staying in business is an achievement.

 

[2jakes]

These magazines were more available for me as a kid.
Usually in old used book shops which are not around anymore.

I collected them mostly for the covers & were affordable.
I would use them as a guide to paint water colors.