Playboy has finally remembered what men like – slim, beautiful women

Telegraph

03-03-2025

Erotica doesn't lend itself well to ideological agendas. The more you try to police sexual literature, art and fantasies, and impose your personal politics upon them, the less sexy they become. So, I'm not surprised to learn that the 'woke' version of Playboy – relaunched in 2019 with an eye on the MeToo movement – has bitten the dust.
The revamped zero-nudity version of the mag involved photospreads of plus-size singer Lizzo and gender non-conforming pop star Halsey, while Playboy bunnies were rechristened 'brand ambassadors'. They followed in the bunny-prints of the first transgender playmate, Ines Rau, who debuted in 2017 following Hugh Hefner's death. The progressive millennial editorial team, two women and one gay man, declared: 'Today, we strive to be more inclusive, stretching and redefining tired and frankly sexist definitions of beauty, arousal and eroticism.'
Intrepid but hubristic, when you consider the fact sexuality inevitably erupts volcanically from any form of suppression: religious, political, cultural or just the passing tyranny of the gender police. Consider the great mass of historical erotica, stretching from fertility symbols like the super-buxom Venus of Willendorf and well-endowed Adonis of Zschernitz, to the explicit brothel murals of Pompey, through to Thomas Rowlandson's bawdy etchings and onwards to the first Playboy, published in December 1953, with Marilyn Monroe on the cover. The remarkable thing is how consistent expressions of human lust tend to be.
This was brought home to me most vividly when I was editor of the Erotic Review magazine and had to host a London screening of short explicit movies from the start of the 20th century – released to cinemas as The Good Old Naughty Days (2002). The films' cast consisted of virile off-duty film crew and comely Parisian prostitutes, coupling in positions and scenarios that remained popular a century later. Never has the expression 'there's nothing new under the sun' seemed more apt.
The fact is most erotica involves an idealised view of the human figure. For all the recent cultural assertions of queer identity, gay male erotica (the second largest body of smut after the straight variety) remains remarkably consistent over centuries in its fetishisation of beautiful young bodies, defined musculature and prominent genitals. Many such images of St Sebastian in classical art still induce sharp intakes of breath, like Guido Reni's almost absurdly sensual version in Genoa (beloved by Oscar Wilde).
The same sexual conservatism can be observed in fantasies favoured by lesbians. I was interested to note, when piling through Gillian Anderson's recent compilation of women's sexual fantasies, Want, that a disproportionate number of gay and non-binary women confessed to being turned on by imagining themselves impregnated by straight men and then lactating (apparently this fetish is known as 'hucow', or human cow): a scenario straight out of The Handmaid's Tale.
Evolutionary biologists would say we are primed to respond to certain signifiers of health and fertility in our erotic daydreams, despite the moralisers scolding us for wrong think. Which is why perfectly rational women of my acquaintance, aged 50-70, openly lust after straight hunk Leo Woodall, 28-year-old star of the new Bridget Jones movie. It's also why straight women keep claiming they want potential love interests to be sensitive, feminist allies, then swoon all over SAS types instead.
It certainly explains why imposing modern, multi-gender identity politics on Playboy centrefolds didn't turn out to be an epic success story. Admitting defeat, the 2025 relaunch of Playboy aims itself squarely at the unreconstructed conservative male demographic, bringing back Barbie-proportioned figures and unabashed nudity in the form of cover girl Lori Harvey and Playmate of the year, model Gillian Nation (as naked centrefold). Nature is quoted as saying, 'I like a masculine guy. I'm very feminine, so I appreciate the contrast.' It's all straight from the Donald Trump play book.
I won't be part of the readership as my personal kink is imaginative, literary erotica involving intense flirtation, like an X-rated screwball comedy. But I wouldn't dream of imposing my taste on anyone else: there's nothing less sexy than tyranny.