By Dr Rahim Said
There was a time when owning a copy of Playboy required the courage of a bank robber and the planning of a military operation. This was the 1960s.
There was no Internet. No smartphones. No OnlyFans. No “private browsing mode.”
If a curious schoolboy wanted to catch a glimpse of a Playboy centrefold, he had to rely on rumours, older cousins, or the mysterious fellow whose uncle had just returned from America. One copy could entertain half the neighbourhood.
It would be wrapped in brown paper as though it contained state secrets. The magazine would be hidden under mattresses, inside geography textbooks, or sandwiched between old issues of Reader’s Digest — the last place any adult would think of looking.
Viewing it was an adventure. One boy stood guard outside. Another watched for approaching parents.
A third turned the pages with the solemnity of a museum curator handling priceless manuscripts. The greatest fear was not the headmaster. It was your mother.
Being caught with a Playboy in those days was treated as though you had been arrested for smuggling contraband into the country. The magazine would be confiscated, lectures delivered, ears twisted, and your moral future declared permanently damaged.
Ironically, many fathers knew exactly what Playboy looked like. They simply pretended not to. Fast forward sixty years.
The famous bunny logo is hopping back onto magazine racks, hoping to charm a generation raised on TikTok, Instagram and OnlyFans. The new management promises “prestige”, “storytelling” and celebrity interviews alongside tasteful nudity, arguing that Playboy can once again become a cultural magazine rather than merely a pin-up publication.
Good luck with that. Trying to sell Playboy today is rather like reopening a video rental shop after Netflix. Or proudly launching a fax machine in the age of WhatsApp.
Back then, Playboy wasn’t merely about the photographs. It had cachet. It published interviews with presidents, Nobel laureates, bestselling authors and Hollywood stars. Some readers genuinely claimed they bought it “for the articles.”
Whether their wives believed them was another matter.
Today’s youngsters can access more images in 10 seconds than Hugh Hefner could publish in 10 lifetimes. The forbidden fruit has become a supermarket fruit stall — open 24 hours, with home delivery. Scarcity created excitement. Abundance creates boredom.
Perhaps that is why Playboy now speaks of storytelling instead of shock value. It has been realised that nakedness is no longer a competitive advantage. The Internet won that battle years ago. Still, something is charming about its comeback.
For those of us who grew up in the 1960s, the bunny logo evokes memories not of scandal, but of adolescence — of whispered conversations, daring expeditions, and the nervous excitement of peeking at a magazine while someone stood outside shouting, “Quick! Your father is coming!”
The irony is better than sedap. In our youth, we risked getting caught by adults trying to look at Playboy. Today, many adults probably need reading glasses just to read the articles.
As for today’s teenagers? They would probably ask, “Playboy? Is that an app?”
WE