I’m still watching the Hugh Hefner Story (boy, is it in-depth!) The latest episode, dealing with the ‘Pubic War’ between Playboy and Penthouse magazines during the 1960s and 70s (and Playboy’s first full frontal nude centrefolds) got me thinking…

Seeing all that rampant pubic hair can be a bit confronting in these times of brazillian waxes and careful pubic grooming. How times have changed since that first risque centerfold in relation to pubic hair and our preferences.

As always, I had fun Googling this and found a fabulous article. Apparently there is a hardcover book with every one of the 734 centerfolds, and someone wrote about perusing them all in one sitting!

“The most obvious signifier of the passage of time, and the thing every person has asked about when I’ve mentioned this book, is pubic hair. For the first two decades of centerfolds, there was none at all because it was obscured by strategically placed pillows, undergarments, or even roomy-cut khakis. Bits of hair didn’t start peeking out until around 1972, but by the mid-’70s, bushy vulvas were showing up in almost every photo. A decade later, hairstylists started to groom the puffs, though it wasn’t until the mid-’90s that what’s now known as a “landing strip” hit the runway. The relative newness of the thing about 84 percent of women now do to their genitals was a life-affirming revelation for this millennial, who suffered puberty in the aughts, or as Maureen Gibbon’s essay in The Complete Centerfolds dubs it, “the decade of the smoothie.” After enduring the entirely bare, child-like crotches of the 2010s, flip back to July 1977, where one magnificent image of pubic hair straight-up poking out of a butt crack will restore your internal calm.

“But for all the differences that emerge while flipping through generations of nudies, the similarities stand out far more. After looking at 734 photos of naked women, one can’t help but conclude that the human body has some very strict limitations and the human mind lacks any substantial creativity when it comes to sexy poses. There are only so many ways to slightly part a set of lips, only so many ways to mimic the act of putting clothes on or taking them off, getting in or out of a body of water, and stepping onto or off of a surface that looks reasonably prepared to support sexual intercourse.”

I particularly loved this comment, which reflects the theme of most of my short stories:

“The effect is a creeping feeling that any place can be a sexual place, and any activity a woman does—even those performed in the course of her job—can be a sexual activity. Playing golf, taking your order at a diner, exercising on a Stairmaster, applying a lure to a fishing rod, cuddling with a kitten, delivering the nightly news at a TV station—if you look hard enough, with a few years of Playboy centerfolds filed away in your brain, these everyday pursuits are actually a kind of foreplay. That cyclist lady is naked underneath her flannel, you know.”

What I Learned By Looking at 734 Playboy Centerfolds in One Sitting
Christina Cauterucci