Oh my fucking god 😭
The joke rubric is alleged by my mother to have been exceptional and funny and a great reason to buy playboy back then.
It wasn't just a porn magazine.
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
1131 points (99.4% liked)
196
7009 readers
3207 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, the joke back in the day was that guys would say they "read Playboy for the articles" as a cover story so they didn't have to say they were looking at porn. But at the same time, they did have really good articles. Funny, thought provoking, and surprisingly progressive.
They were also one of the first print magazines to embrace the internet. I remember them posting a really cool Hellboy motion comic on their website back in the 90s.
My favorite iteration of this joke is in the movie Smeakers, where Whistler, a blind character, is reading a braille edition of Playboy.
load more comments
(16 replies)
They had also great and deep articles from what I gather
There's one from 1970 that had a great interview with Stanley Kubrick that ended with a quote that has stuck with me:
No matter how vast the darkness, we must create our own light
The last question & answer was this, which is even better:
Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?
Kubrick: Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.
Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism—and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in faith and in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining.
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.
However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
Entire interview was text with original pages scanned: https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/playboy-interview-stanley-kubrick/
And incredibly popular writers would publish short stories and think-pieces in there. Playboy was genuinely quality content. The writing was arguably a higher bar than the photography.
Those were writers like Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer, and Kurt Vonnegut. ‘Popular’ is an understatement for guys like that.
I met the guy who invented the Reebok pumps technology, and successfully sued Reebok for stealing his invention. He also invented the football flack jacket. The November 1980 Playboy had the most in-depth article that also focused on the person behind the inventions.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Lmao that was a good one
How I wish the average person would realise that they can still make jokes about trans people as you can about any group of people, just make jokes (like this) where it's laughing with us, not at us. Where there's no maliciousness and we're all involved and laughing rather than being the butt of it.
Maybe someday we'll properly get to that point. Thanks for the giggle :3
The trans experience inherently has so many absurd, objectively funny aspects about it. We're really missing out on some really good comedy because of transphobia
Ooh I have a joke I picked up from an old bastard of a pastor years ago. For quick context I'm pretty sure the man was mildly insane but he hated prosperity preachers so take that as you will. So anyways here's the joke.
In many ways mankind is inferior to God but in many ways we have outstripped the creator. For example God created a woman from a man, but mankind can do that with but with scalpal and medicine we also didn't have to ask a man to marry an animal first we just asked the dude what he wanted. Turns out he is she.
Look I said the old bastard was mildly insane, a comedian he was not. Also I'm pretty sure I'm butchering the joke a bit. Regardless the but of the joke is clearly the god of the Bible, so you can only punch up.
Yeah unfortunately 😭 just gotta stock up on the jokes for the real ones - or until the topic climate hopefully eases up in the future. Have a good library of gold at the ready!
Ooo got any for the crowd?
Despite the understandable scorn Playboy and Hefner have earned, there was a period of time where there were really interesting articles and good journalism being published next to the tits
That was sort of the beauty of being independent and uncouth. They didn't have to worry about offending major brands/sponsorships because they weren't beholden to typical ad agencies to begin with.
load more comments
(1 replies)
While beeing Playboy of course, Playboy has always done many things right. Robert Anton Wilson and Hunter S. Thompson wrote some of their best pieces for it. And there are many more writers who wrote pieces jokes etc. That where ahead of their time, for Playboy.
Hef might've been a misogynistic lecher but Playboy was publishing progressive think-pieces a looonnng time before a lot of other more mainstream magazines.
Reminder Hefner reported Epstein to the FBI years before most others clocked him. He was a misogynistic lecher but he was one with standards.
It's a weird world when Hefner has more standards than pretty much all of the US political elite
Hefner and his ilk are to the modern degenerates what the old German nobility was to the Nazis, both an evolution of and a contrast. Though I wouldn't say Hefner was himself a direct cause to profligates like Epstein or Trump, he was just the last notable example of a more or less dead breed. I think I've seen the term paternalistic misogyny thrown around in reference to Hefner and his ilk, wherein the focus wasn't necessarily on hating women but moreso on securing or representing a paternalistic image.
Also I'm like 80 percent sure that modern misogynists legit hate women and aren't just demeaning and abusive ass wipes to them.
They had a shockingly respectful interview with Wendy Carlos right after she came out. They were generally a very socially liberal publication that used porn to fund the writing and the platforming of more controversial and radical topics. My mom was a subscriber despite not being attracted to women.
Because they understood that diminishing others doesn’t actually make you bigger.
The company and its founder are problematic, but not only have they had good journalism, Playboy has always skewed towards progressive socials issues from what I've seen. Their first trans centerfold (that they/we know of) was in 1991.
The first trans woman in playboy was in September 1991. The first trans centerfold was not until November 2017.
load more comments
(14 replies)
For any eggs out there, they do remove your testicles (bless), but the rest of it is much more like a magical girl transformation than a removal. All the blood vessels and nerves and skin gets preserved and it gets shuffled around into the positions your brain expects them to be in.
Yeah, but it still really hurts when they sever your "excess" wages
load more comments
(2 replies)
Getting bottom surgery in under a year? Good for her!
Yeah 😔
The only innacurate part is that it was "months" later, not years.
This was back in the days when a "common" way to transition was to travel to Thailand and do several major surgeries.
Which seems to stem from the idea that you transition only via surgery, not HRT. IDK if they even had HRT in the 80s, though.
They had HRT in the Weimar Republic, though the order of things was weird then.
load more comments
(1 replies)
This is why gender affirming care needs to be fully covered by the universal healthcare system.
view more: next ›