For example, the infamous 1976 Jimmy Carter interview where he admitted to many commissions of adultery "in his heart" many times. The last article Hunter S. Thompson ever wrote was published in Playboys Fiftieth Anniversary issue. Over the years a host of quite respectable authors and journalists have written for it, so there probably are a (very) few people who genuinely do READ it, solely for articles. They are not, of course, its target audience, just part of Hefs conceit that burial amid a mountain of print and the absence of sex ACTS somehow dignifies pornography.

The irony is the magazine probably could not survive without that supposed mystique, not because it grants immunity from criticism, but because Playboy has surprisingly few nude pictures for a porn mag. If the other 90% of it did not maintain some level of interest it could never compete with "unabashed" porn.