Why Did Playgirl Not Succeed?

[slimgurl]

I just saw an article regarding Playgirl Magazine, which went out of print around 2016. The article mentioned that the magazine only had 3,000 subscribers. I guess that kind of surprises me. I for one enjoyed the periodical but I know not all women are visual. I occasionally picked one up at the adult store near me.

But there are other reasons. Any one else have thoughts on this? Are we too shy to purchase something of this nature?

I liked that the magazine featured mainly normal good looking guys, opposed to some of the gay mags that were out there. This one seemed genuinely geared toward us gals.

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

Too shy? Fuck no. I'm not too shy to buy anything. If I want it, I'm getting it. I don't give half a fuck what the cashier thinks. It's none of their damn business.

It's just not my style. If I wanna look at pics they aren't gonna be so boring. If I'm gonna read something there's probably no pics to look at anyway.

It's just not my thing, Playgirl is just boring to me.

 

[LaFemme]

I maybe saw one Playgirl in my life. Articles weren’t that good and I never felt the need to pay to see a man naked. I can see as many as I like for free in real life. It certainly has nothing to do with shyness.

Periodicals in generals are losing popularity. The digital age is killing any and all paper publications.

 

[MisterB]

According to Wiki, Playgirl started in 1973. Interesting how it was initially geared toward heterosexual women, but it was quickly realized they had a large gay male population of "readers".

And what's funny is several guys I'd see in Playgirl and portrayed as straight I'd also seen in Gay magazines. Usually with different names. That's doesn't mean that a lot of their models were not straight. But in my experience, more than a handful seemed to be playing for both teams.

I don't know I'd say they didn't succeed per se, because they were around 40+ years. I think like so much other print media, Playgirl's subscription and newstand sales started declining with the advent of the Internet. Who needs to spend $5 or whatever when you can get pretty much the same thing on-line for free?

Here's a link to Playgirl's Wiki page. Interesting read.

Playgirl - Wikipedia

 

[Tight_N_Juicy]

Really though, taking my personal tastes out of it all together I do think it's mostly just because print is on its way out anyway, and the webz is already plenty saturated with plenty of nudes and stuffs as it is.

It's happening with a lot of magazines, everything's just going digital.

The robots are taking our jobs! <<<Was said in my best South Park voice

 

[Scarletbegonia]

Every new publisher and holding company (spits on ground) lessened the feminist angle.
Some of that was pendulum swinging, some of that was to keep the growing all sexualities male audience. (Let’s face it, this site has taught us “straight” dudes want to see peen.)

Between credit card fraud, lessening of interesting non photo content, increased competition, and aging out of the women who supported such images, and print ad revenue plummeting industry wide, there was no hope for a visionless publication.

 

[EllieP]

Pictures of naked men never held my attention. Sorry. I remember someone sneaking a copy of the Burt Reynolds centerfold into the group once, and I'll I could say was "too much hair!"

Ironically, I could read the heck out of Playboy! And yes, I'm one of the few who can honestly said I look at it for the articles. My husband always bought the January edition that came out in December because it was the music issue. I always liked looking at the sculpted busts of musicians.

 

[918177]

Playgirl bored me stupid and the articles insulted my intelligence.

If I wanted to be simultaneously bored and insulted I could come here and not waste my money buying a magazine.

 

[950483]

I don't know. Because it was shit? I never encountered a copy of playgirl even once. Lots of magazines went out of print in the few years prior to that.

 

[693987]

Even from a younger age, my tastes have varied from more mainstream aesthetics. Playgirl was boring. I'm not shy. I've perused or bought fetish magazines, tattoo/body mod magazines where a lot of flesh is flashed, etc. Print is what has dwindled, I think. I don't think it has much if anything to do with "are we too shy" (and yay for gross generalizations).

Women I've known were more likely to look at FHM or the like than Playgirl.

 

[bwhip1011]

I have to agree with several others regarding the decline of print media overall. I'm surprised that people even subscribe to newspapers that we're now two decades into the 21st century. There are just so many other ways of obtaining fresher more up-to-date content at a much higher rate of speed. And if you don't care for that content then you're just a click away to some that you do.

P.S. I did scroll to the top this time to be certain that I AM in Women's Issues and not AaW.

 

[MickeyLee]

I was more of a Blue Blood, Body Play and On Our Backs type gal. I like queers, purple hair and body mods. Not very easy to find in play girl.

Oh, man, y'all remember Bizarre magazine? I had a subscription to that thing until it went under.

I do own a cope of the Peter Steele/Typo O Negative edition of PlayGirl.

 

[ronin001]

Really though, taking my personal tastes out of it all together I do think it's mostly just because print is on its way out anyway, and the webz is already plenty saturated with plenty of nudes and stuffs as it is.

It's happening with a lot of magazines, everything's just going digital.

The robots are taking our jobs! <<<Was said in my best South Park voice

You inspired me

 

[693987]

I was more of a Blue Blood, Body Play and On Our Backs type gal. I like queers, purple hair and body mods. Not very easy to find in play girl.

Oh, man, y'all remember Bizarre magazine? I had a subscription to that thing until it went under.

I do own a cope of the Peter Steele/Typo O Negative edition of PlayGirl.

Yeah buddy, Blue Blood! My memory for names is bad, but that's one I remember for sure

 

[MickeyLee]

Yeah buddy, Blue Blood! My memory for names is bad, but that's one I remember for sure

One of the perks of my former employer was the discount on my smut. And never missing an issue.

Collector nerd I am, it's almost certain I have several issues in a box somewhere

 

[willow78]

I wonder if there may have been a bit of a sexism angle to its closure. After the GFC hit (admittedly long before Playgirl folded), many publishers went into 'cost-cutting' mode and I noticed that it was mainly the women's/gay men's/persons of colour magazines (porn and non-porn) that took the hit. Despite all their talk of belt-tightening and economising, they still seemed to have plenty of money for the 'tits-n-clits' mags. God forbid straight white men miss out on their jollies! So I can only imagine if a men's magazine was facing the same struggles Playgirl did, would there have been a greater effort to save it?

On a personal note - I had a soft spot for Playgirl. I preferred it to the gay magazines that were (are) available to me. A more diverse range of men, rather than the smooth-white-twink-fest in gay magazines. Plus gay magazines now are mostly 'lifestyle' magazines - they'll put a hot guy on the cover, but that's it. On the rare occasions there's nudity, it's always 'tasteful'. BOOOOO! If I want 'tasteful' nudity, I'll go to an art gallery! LOL. There are probably still some gay-nudie-men magazines around...but they're hard to find, damn expensive and (still) mostly-white.

Sorry, I kinda went off-topic there.

 

[1139089]

There is no need to buy such magazines anymore. Like a friend said, after the internet you probably saw more naked men/women in the Internet than all your family, from your from your mother to Eve.

 

[halcyondays]

Ah another casualty of the Internet Age.

 

[NCbear]

:raises hand:

Um . . . I ended my subscription.

NCbear (who used to have subscriptions to multiple porn mags back in the day, when they were a thing)

 

[3151]

For the most part, males are more visually stimulated than women. Far fewer women bought "dirty mags" to see cock. Once porn went main stream, Playgirl's numbers fell... just as all skin mags.