Hunk Week: Letters to Playgirl🌭

Note: difficult to explain to management.

Is anyone more committed to hunks than Playgirl? Yup. Playgirl puts words between dong spreads, while rivals choose purity of purpose. Half eschew logos for more dong. But Playgirl has history. It’s celebrated tips, triceps, and tequila since 1973, offering a Playboy alternative with mustaches and saner ownership. Probably. Maybe. Let me dream.

I mean that about the tequila, by the way. I’ve got a stack of seventies Playgirl on my shared kitchen table, and they’ve all got spreads for Montezuma tequila.

I assume the brand’s drifted. Playgirl targets tennis club hornballs, and that’s not Montezuma’s vibe. Today, Montezuma Gold comes with an invite to your intervention. Forget the car: it’s already totalled. Just call your parole officer for a ride. Their number’s on the invite.

There’s also a gentle connection to beauty brands. For example, the perfect beach makeup blend uses Coppertone, Coppertone, and a splash of Coppertone. Add a flask of Monty, and you’re ready to find disappointment by the shore.

While I’m an insult-comedy midcarder, I have to confess: these issues have style. Not “aside from the porn” or “only as porn.” There’s some genuine high-effort softcore. Look at these art school abs:

Granted, some find double exposure vulgar. Here’s more conventional boning.

The photo essay Fantasy mixes prom balloons with drugs and budget Halloween costumes. Nostalgic. Grad school’s great, even if you learn nothing. Though you can save three years with an edible and ball pit.

On the art-titillation scale, that’s half a Red Sonja. Dorm-worthy. Or a museum, these issues are ghosts. My best friends are eBay and Chinese torrents, and this is the first time Xi'An's failed me. I’m glad eBay lets you sidestep auctions, because I can’t outbid full-time hunkologists. Their love is stronger than my net worth.

Still, I’m as braindead as any other February survivor, so my mind wandered. I asked “How does one join hunkdom?” Then I air fried a burrito. Later, I thought “What’s hunk fan mail look like?” This second, attainable question led me to Playgirl reader mail. The fans had thoughts, and some were printable. Unless you’ve made some serious choices, these are the first thirst texts you’ve read with your grandmother’s diction and sense of humor.

Bob passed early, but clearly made it to hunk Valhalla.

Mediums and Democracy Index scores change, but people stay the same. Playgirl’s mailbag mixes Nintendo Power enthusiasm with ass. Along with our trademark clarity around sex. These are some contributors’ first sex talks, including the parents of four.

We have a few different piles: 70’s Playgirl splits letters into Readers Write, Voices, Personal Advice, and You and Your Sexuality. And probably a dozen other sub-brands, but vintage pinups cost money. It’s a seller’s market, like whatever pill keeps you alive. We’ll work with what we’ve got.

First, the general letters. In The Readers Write, hunk-worship is a trap door to deluxe human insanity. Familiar. It started out as Voices, but editorial craved something blander. Some New York magazines always put punchlines in the title, even when it ruins nevermind.

These start out as you’d imagine: marriage offers for the last issue’s centerfold. Simple synergy: Playgirl likes letters about how hot and good Playgirl is, and adult comment section participants need a soapbox somewhere to avoid writing inmates.

Some stick to the fundamentals:

Carla can smell her slang dying, and ignores it for hunkdom. The purest form of love, aside from Gunpla and children you remember to feed. Editorial keeps their bond strong:

Simple carrot-dick management. Support your hunk, get more hunk. Or maybe most customer interactions look like this without a VC firm up your ass.

Many admirers focus on details:

Reframing the mundane’s a joy of writing, and I’m a little jealous of Della’s lust. Nipple fixation’s simple, and probably basic, but writing it still sounds Martian. Editorial returns her energy:

Again, Playgirl rewards the faithful. After years covering Baptists, that’s a new one for me. Pastors should try it, user feedback’s strong. Thought that might hurt klan turnout.

That said, hunkologists tend to turn on each other. Foot fans get the typical lashing:

Right, I was born after we invented hiveminds and filled them with porn. Feet are so far down the fetish ladder they might as well be asses or not dying alone. Today, I need two exes calling my book “okay” to feel a twinge. Y.U. clearly enjoys inventing foot jokes, but she’d be better off uniting the other branches of Hunkology: some readers want to destroy hunk nudity (civilization) altogether.

Karen sees the big picture. Take nudes for granted, and you lose them. We have states where it takes two, maybe three additional seconds to find porn. Is that the future you want?

The bond between these readers and spray tan is lifting. There’s even clown-hunk crossover! I dream of these vaunted heights:

Becoming prime Robin Williams seems difficult, though selling my soul to multiple devils might work. Think Hellblazer, but for a cause bigger than survival or saving mankind. I’m trying to buy this issue, but my bank thinks I’ve been hacked by a retired lech. As an indigent lech, I’m honored.

Surprisingly, many letters are about the articles. Maybe honor roll types think their Playgirl use gets graded. Their open-book test answers are short mysteries, especially without the actual article. You get to take the aftermath and work backwards.

Natalie‘s copout could’ve spared us fifty years of fitness swordfights. And the fifty to come. We’ll still be making the same three videos after appetite becomes a dial on your elbow. HunkTip: it’s tempting to keep it at 0, but keep it on 4 or higher to avoid death.

Advice columns save countless readers from health and wealth. Playgirl joins the hustle with Personal Advice, where the effort matches the title. It still beats the Ethicist, but so do horoscopes and deadlines.

T.P. has, with innocent intent, committed a grave sin. Look at our back catalog. Earth is under siege by sex dictionaries calendars listicles wikihows jokebooks guides pun generators with no end in sight. These books will outlive me. They will outlive the LLMs scraping them for dickshots. And T.P. has directly asked a publishing entity for more.

The war rages on. I leave it to the clowns after us to fight on.

For today, let’s see how Playgirl responds.

The columnist, Shirley Zuckerman, seems fun. I’m biased toward advice columnists willing to ask “What the fuck are you talking about?” Granted, given the reading level of most letters, that can get one-note. But it keeps things honest. I’m not setting anything up, this is probably the last section. You know, the rule of twos.

For completionists: Shirley hits some real shit about boning while disabled or traumatized. Since we’re over the national cruelty quota, I’m skimming until I hit nonsense. Teenage Dennard–better known as “Thrawn_the_Second” or “BlackMencken1991”–is very disappointed. He’ll live, and start wearing primary colors.

The hunkless seek mercy. Does Shirley have any?

Absolutely not–Shirley goes full grandaunt. Which is an ambush in Playgirl, which runs guides to tagging hunks’ ears in the wild with titles like “Find Him Fast in the Classifieds.”

Okay, I was certain I made that up. But it’s in the same issue. Though mixed messaging’s publishing tradition. Stick to anything, and someone might unsubscribe. That’s why our next columnist avoids, when possible, saying anything at all.

Lolita Sapriel, M.S.W. runs Playgirl’s sex column. The other sections cover sex too, but work with me. Lolita has something they don’t: a name I wish was real. But you know how dreams go. She also has a softer line between fair question and bait.

Nice inkblot test. Did you decide this writer, Playgirl, or the boyfriend were full of shit? I’m on Team Four: ghosts are fucking in this apartment. Only the Vatican’s most sexless priests can save them now. Let’s see Lolita’s take.

A bit too genteel. The best case here’s a hunky poltergeist, and this isn’t that kind of skin mag. Every word Lolita’s typed is true, and not one morpheme addresses the blatant disaster. The essence of an advice column is communication, and Lolita’s letting a moron and/or liar walk right into a ghost orgy.

Let’s lower the stakes. You’ve found the alt-hunk of your dreams. But

Stop laughing. This is a serious emotional problem in a serious emotional column. Be like Lolita, and rattle off common knowledge like a substitute teacher with three minutes left on the clock.

Fair, plastic surgeons have a strong tradition in hunkology. I think we can all agree that mechanically augmented hunks are the future. But what about nanobots? Can hunk modification go…too far?

As soon as Hims cracks the code, Yetimaxxing is in.

I love this one, real or extra-real. “Dear Playgirl: My fiance’s perfect. Can I Gattaca him into a hunk? Then we can have sober sex in the light. I’d ask a doctor, but starting with the naked New Yorker felt right. Thanks!”

Let’s hear Lolita’s spin. Hopefully she doesn’t go on too many tangents.

Solid Borg answer. I’m sure Legal loved this, but Lolita missed a chance to show more personality. A personality. To prove that she’s not three editors peering down the barrel of a deadline.

A common problem in sex columns: “my fuckpower terrifies mortals, sending them screaming to their mud pits. How do I control this force? Can it be controlled?” Lolita lists more facts, which remains disappointing for the pen name “Controversy X. Mermaid.”

Of course, the narrator isn’t always the protagonist. Sometimes they merely observe fuckpower, until their favorite hunk gets shot by the pool.

For general sanity, I’ll assume teens write to Playgirl. I have a limited supply of child predation jokes, and my side gigs cover anime and politics.

There must be an age combo where I don’t have to deal with this. I’ll dig up my old graphing calculator if I have to. If it can run Tetris for two periods, it can handle this.

They’re still expanding today, long after the host’s death. The cockmass has inched, undeterred, toward Earth’s core. If you thought the planet was fucked before, brace for the cumquake. A salty new hell approaches. Think Waterworld, but viscous.

What a charming letter about two curious teens. According to my graphing calculator, they’re “Fatal Error” years old. I wonder if Lolita has any editorial thoughts.

Nailed it. No one wants fuzzy data about their hall monitor boyfriend.

Two hunks! A classic sitcom dilemma. What’s Lolita got?

An opinion! It’s a brave new world, with the old one’s tone.

While I’m not an expert in avoiding divorce court, I suspect simulated breakups aren’t elite strategy. That game still sucks with two or four players, and maybe even one. Lolita’s not on the reader’s side. I wish she’d live up to her name’s edge, but Lolita’s found Jesus in the margins of Playgirl. An anti-hunk. Anyone that keeps Paul around has a Roman avatar. Yes, even after they kill him.

Socially, I’m the type that says “optimal” out loud. But this seems like an optimal way to become single. Not monogamous: total party wipe. Though one can do worse than single.

Let alarmists drone on about grooming or genetic deformity. They’re great things to drone on about. Points to alarmists, they’ve got quality warnings for avoidable disasters. Mindgeek lied to you: whether Your Sexuality questions are fake or fake, avoid diving into shallow gene pools. Or at least don’t make a habit out of it.

Set authenticity aside. I can only pollute hunk week with so much incest, and I’ve sailed past 2000 words. Isn’t the density of madness impressive? The age bit sprinted past me the first time I read it, next to all the swamp action.

Lolita wanders a bit in her response.

What’s an 8? A honeymoon? Two hemophiliac kids? Alimony? This writer’s sprinting to Casterly Rock, and Lolita calls her inbreeding mid. Maybe she’d react if there were two brothers.

If this wasn’t as fictional as predatory, I’d ask for Lolita’s also-fictional badge. She’s corrupted our innocent hunk quest with brain needles. What kind of animal does that? The mind boggles.

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