as follows:

(1) We never align ou

chapter title "Pernoto
will not release any m
(2) We only allow up
v,:;l 11ni , c1! 1 \>O.~k. :;ot1! t
multiple images--photo
numbered 4 features fi
We do not
3
>ered 3, 5,
 PORNOTOPIA 217

From Griffin , Diane

s ent Wednesday, January 8, 2003 4:06 pm
To Brennan, AnnMarie
Subject Request to use PB images in the book "Cold War Hothouse"
re: Your request to reprint 17 Playboy images within the book "Cold War
Hothouse"

Dear Dr. Brennan:

A public space is nota space in itself but th . Company policy in regard to the release of our material to third parties is as follows:
e representation of a space. (1) We never align ourselves with the word "pornography." Unless the chapter title
- Vito Acconci "Pornotopia" and the references to pornography are removed , we will not release any
material.
(2) We only allow up to five images (art/photo/cartoons/text) for use in one volume of
In 1962, Hugh Hefner was photographed posing asan ar .
ly as Le Corbusier or Lud . M' chitect, exact- work. Note that sorne of the illustrations you selected feature multiple images--photos,
Wig ies van der Roh •
photographed earlier in th e m1ght have been t ext and art. For example, your illustration numbered 4 features five photos, one illus-
e century Indifferent t 0 th
avoiding any relationship t 0 th · e camera, tration and text.
e spectator his e .
leged connection to the a h't , yes estabhsh a privi- (3) We do not release any photos featuring nudity (your illustrations numbered 3, 5, 13, 16).
rc 1 ectural model tt
His body is turned towa d .t . nex o which he stands.
r 1 , and h1s hands ·
details of construction 'fh pomt reverently t o Let me know if you want to proceed with this request.
as l e were tied to the b ·1d·
bonds of creation The . . m mg through the
. re IS nothmg strange in Hef ,,
that he was not the bu 1.1d. , . ner s pose, except Sincerely,
mg s arch1tect but rath
Playboy, the first ma· t, er the creator of Diane Griffin
ms r eam pornographic . .
the mock-up a model f magazme m America; Rights and Permissions Records Manager
Angeles. , ora new Playboy Club Hotel to be built in Los Playboy Enterprises International, Inc.

Far from farcical , Hefner's osin .

very heart of the pr d t· P_ gas an arch1tect speaks to t he
o uc rnn of h1s so-called "PI b NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
first issue of Playbo . ay oy Empire." The Although originally planned asan illustrated piece , this article appears here unillustrated. Playboy Enterprises
Y magazme was produc d ·
table of Hefner's S th s· e m 1953 on the kitchen lntern ational, speaking through its Rights Manager, made as a condition of the release of any visual material
ou Ide apartment in Ch·1 under their copyright the removal of the word "pornography" from my text. Taking into account the aim of my
stands in Decembe Of th . cago . Hi tting· news-
r at Year 1t carried inqu iry-to investigate the relationship between architecture and pornography as a visual regime during the
publisher was not ' no cover date because its l 950s-l decided to preserve the integrity of the piece and publish it without images, rather than heed
sure when or if he would b
er. The issue sold e able to produce anoth- Playboy's recommendation. This was both a theoretical and political choice on my part. Somewhat paradoxically,
more than 50 000 co . the absence of images in this article confirms my thesis about the operation of pornography as a multimedia
and finance anoth , . ' pies-enough to cover its costs
er 1ssue. From that . t architecture, the power of which resides in its ability to redefine the limits of publicity and privacy and to control
POm on, Playboy magazine the processes through which spaces, images, words, and bodies are rendered visible ar invisible. - B.P.
218 PORNOTOPIA
PORNOTOPIA 219

took the form of an expansive enterprise, directed toward the con-

struction of the multi-media Playboy House. If Hefner enjoyed portraying himself as an architect, it is pre-
cisely beca use he perceived his role as creator of the Playboy Empire
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Hefner created sorne of the most
(ofwhich Playbo71 magazine was nothing but the paper organ) as part
famous interior spaces in America: first, his own house in Chicago,
of a larger discourse that promoted a new anti-domestic and yet
known as the Playboy House, and later, more than fifteen Playboy
interior regime, or even a form of non-domestic interiority. His
Clubs across the country. With regard to his seemingly domestic
project in Chicago, Hefner explained: enterprise could be described as a sort ofminor architectural project
that would enable him to produce "a world inside another world," to
I wanLed Lhe house to be a dream-house. A place where one could
develop a new, male, domestic interior where one could, according to
work ancl have fun withouL the trouble and confiicLs of Lhe ouL-
Hefner, enjoy the privileges of public space without being subjected
side world. Inside. a single man had absolute conLrol over bis
to i ts laws, and clangers.3
environment. I could change night in Lo day screening a film aL
The spatial economy describecl in Playbo71 magazine and
midnighL and ordering a dinner at noon. having appoinLmenLs
inscribed wi thin the Playboy House between 1953 and 1963 articula tes
in the middle of the nighLand romanLic encounLers in Lhe afLer-
itself around oppositions, such as inside/outsicle, private/public,
noon. IL was ahaven anda sancLuary .... (W]hile Lhe rest of the
work/leisure, dressed/undressed, one/many, dry/wet, human/animal,
world seemed to be ouL of control, everything inside the
con trolled/relaxed, fideli ty/promiscui ty, vertical/horizontal, and
Playboy House was perfect. That was my plan. Being brought
family/stranger.1 Reluctant to take a position among these radical
up in a very repressive and conformisL manner, I created a uni-
opposi tions, the Playboy appeared as a liminal subject whose final
verse of my own where I was free to live and !ove in a way that
most people can only dream about.l
decision was just to "play." This "play" materialized in the use of
what can be identify as dispositifs of rotation that stressed flexibil-
In Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: D ecolonization and the Reordering of
ity, reversibility, and circularity. These enabl ed the constant con-
French Culture, critic Kristin Ross calls "privatisation," the move-
ment inward that took place after World War II, version of one term of a given opposition into the other. The 1956
Playboy Penthous Apartment, as well as the 1959 Playboy House,
(the] wiLhdrawal of Lhe ncw middle classes to their comfort-
employed a certain number of objects, visual devices, and archi-
able domesLic inLeriors, Lo the elecLric kitchens, Lo Lhe enclo-
tect ural apparatuses to convert work into leisure, dressed into
sure of Lhe prívate auLomobiles, to Lhe interior of Lhe new
undressed, one into many, and so on, and vice versa.
vision of conjugaliLy and an ideology of happiness built
Three circumstances inscribed the "play" of these dispositifs .
around Lhe new unit of middle-class consumption, Lhe couple,
First, the actor- the only one entitled to play-is the male reader-
and to de-poli tization as a response Lo Lhe increase in bureau-
cratic control of daily Jife.2 clien t (and ultimately) TV-viewer for whom t h e seduction rhetoric
is constructed.s Second, it is basic to the functioning of these dis-
Although Playboy's efforts to reformulate interior space could be
Po si tifs that they be reversible, so that any ch anges are l ocal and
taken as part of this process of privatization, its aims a nd strategies
temporal rather than general and permanent. And third, this
paradoxically share little in common with this n otion of the pr ivate.
swi tching activity, this Fort-Da game, produces pleasure (fun,
The Playboy House represents instead an extreme al ternative to the
enter tainment, amusement, etc.), the highest form of wh ich was
single-family home of the 1950s, constructing a possibility for domes-
tic space to function as "public." sexua l pleasure, the "play" that gives the name to the magazine.
 221
pQRNOTOPIA

22 0 PORNOTOPIA

Hefner's familY
. as tlle youn g
·nted inside the magazine w
THE RISE OF MALE DOMESTIC AWARENESS AND THE SEARCH dl'ess pn
¡¡.d ·cile.10 . o Hugh Hefner at salon.com por-
FOR A " QUARTERS " OF ONE'S OWN do!lll tlle Web page dedlcated t ' contributions to the
In the recent book Inside the Playboy Mansion, commissionect by rrodaY, . . . n" as one of Playboy s
raYs t nis "intenonzat10_ in American culture:
Hugh .Hefner, journalist Gretchen Edgren reconstructs Hefner's
t "ioning of masculmitY d . t OK for boys to stay
biography and Playboy magazine's story through more than one refas" ·ndoors. It ma e 1 .
p¡ayboY brougbt men l , gazines-Argosy, field
thousand images of the interior of his houses: the Playboy House Wh ·e other men s ma
inside and play . er . d s' places in duck blinds
(1959) in Chicago and the Playboy Mansion West (1972) in Los ff' med the1r rea er .
& Stream, True-a ir . 'de to mix drinks, s1t
Angeles. The people that entered in, the games that were played Hef's took men 1ns1 .
nd trout streams, k itb a girlfnend.
inside, how the magazine was produced right from Hefner's famous a backgammon or neo w .
bY the fire and play . . collusion with fem1-
rotating bed, the TV programs shot there, the Jazz festivals and b ornean iromc
1n wbat would later ec •tic¡ued the staid
"staged" parties that were held inside: all are documented by Friedan, Playboy en .
nists such as Betty . . t and suburban famllY
Edgren. All told, after 1959 Hefner spent more than forty years with- . domest1c1 Y
insti tu tions of marnage, h . ce one decorated wi tb
out leaving home, wearing only his pyjamas and slippers.6 The book b od was a e o1 '
life . SuddenlY bachelor o e apartment tbat put
relies on a single narra ti ve that explains the emergence of the mag- . •-fis andan urban
intelligent dnnks, h1 h' t·cation had become a
azine as part of one and the same process of house construction. In to shame. SOP lS l
white picket fences niverse encouraged
fact, its rhetorical argument seems to suggest that Playboy maga- en· The PlaybOY u
viable option for m . . "-literature, a good pipe, a
zine contributed during the 195Os, through the promotion of various . f "the finer th1ngs . the
appreciat1on o America was seerng
penthouse ideals, to the emergence of what is paradoxically beautiful lady. .
casbmere pullover. a lest his subvers1ve
described as a political male domestic awareness. ·ngle male who,
advent of tbe urban s1 t homosexualitY, was
From 1953 to 1963, Playboy provided a new discourse for the pro- d mestic norms sugges 11
departure from O n everY month.
duction of the young American urban bachelor. The new unmarried t of nude wome W r II
now enjoying new pho os es of tlle pre-World a
male proved to be the central figure within the first successful d division of spac . mascu-
Against the rigid gen er . . nd political domams as
counter-narrative to the American dream. Against the "heaven of blic exterior,ª s as nat-
period tnat define d pu · 'ate mtenor,
. . and domestic space
cupa-
the heterosexual family house," Playboy argued for the construction
line battlefields and pnv ' moted the masculine oc .
of a parallel utopía, a "haven for the bachelor in town." 7 It is in t his
urally suited to women, p¡aybOY P::he first time that men init1atd-
spirit that in 1953, Hefner would define Playboy in the editorial of the This was no ldiers ha
tion of interior space. rlier American so
first issue as an "indoors magazine": . t ten years ea ' . d (in tlle
ed a homecoming; JUS . e dangers of the outs1 e
Most of today's 'magazines formen' spend ali their time out-
returned home after fightmg th and outside the countr_Y)-
of-doors thrashing thorny thickets or splashing about in fast
double sense of outside thedhto.:;:r masculine power fightmg
Dowing streams. We 'll be out there too, occasionally, but we . had prove . ltaneouslY
Wh ereas sold1ers theY had s1mu
don't mind telling you in advance-we plan on spending most h outside space, f the
against the dangers of t e f the home. The return o
of our time inside . We like our apartment.8 · us space o f m of
l ost control over the precio ted by Playboy as a or
In fact, Hefner launched the first number of Playboy magazine in s presen · ·ty
male to the interior space wa t·ng an excess of mascul1Ill
November 1953 from his own apartment with only the help of his sation, of supplemen l
active Compen
first wife Millie Williams and sorne friends.9 Moreover, the editorial
222
PORNOTOPIA
PORNOTOPIA 223

that would have led the traditional American male to ne

d e t ai·1 s of the mter10r. 1 . 1 of bachelorhood as a form "of male liberation from domestic
· ·
But this second homecoming was m g ect. the ~ logy " a cross-reading of Playboy 's texts and images mv1
. 't es us ~
. . ore hkea ¡deo , . .
movmg. the new male, at once unsuited for monogamous famil .
and scien · t·r·
1 ica 11 y aware of the radiating dangers on th Y hfe
. ¡nter Pr et the magazine 's project as much more paradox1cal m rela-
e exterior tion to domesticity.1 5
stepped back into the house as woman 's strongest rival-rath '
Beyond the search for a refuge for the beleaguered male, the
complementary partner-promoting a new gender segregat · er than .
. the domestic realm.12
m 1~~~ 1 boy Penthouse articles promoted a position forman within the
p"
domestic space traditionally ruled by women. With time, an d w1-~
As part of this "penetrating" agenda from 1953 onward
. . , am~
1 the pedagogic aid of Playboy magazine, he would learn to recon~uer
every Playboy issue mcluded an article on the reappropriation b t
bachel_or of interior, quasi-domestic space: the glamorous wee:e:: the space that had been expropriated from him by woman, wh~ blmd-
ed him with false ideals of marriage and family . Turning V1rg1ma
ho~se m the country, the priva te yacht, the studio, or simply the car.
Woolf's plea for "a room of one's own," and the female mdependence
Th1s program of recolonization reached its clímax in the reportage
that would come with it, on its ear, the editors of Playboy wrote,
about the Playboy Penthouse Apartment, published in September
A man yearns for a quarters of his own . More than a place to
and October 1956. The colored sketches of the penthouse design
hang his hat, a man dreams ofhis own domain, a place that is
were most likely inspired by the apartment of Víctor A. Lownes,
exclusively his . ... Playboy has designed , planned and deco-
Hefner's associate during the 1950s, but reflected Hefner 's desire to
rated, from the floor up, a penthouse apartment for the
escape his own family home as well.13 Hefner recalled that Lownes
urban bachelor-a man who enjoys good living, a sophisti-
"felt himself trapped by marriage and green-lawn suburbia":
cated connoisseur of the lively arts, of food and drink, and
He had everything a man could want-a beautiful , loving
congenia! companions of both sexes. 16
wife, two fine children, a magnificent home and a good job.
In t h e next issue, ctedicated to the bedroom and the bathroom, the
The problem was , he was bored beyond belief. He hated ten-
editors added,
nis club, the endless round of cocktail parties and barbecues,
A man's home is not only his castle, it is or should be, the
the small talk and the smug respectability of the middle-
outward reflection of his inner self-a comfortable, liveable,
class American dream. Extra-marital sex, he ruefully
and yet exciting expression of the person he is and the life he
reflected, represented his only prospect of excitement. One
leads. But the overwhelming percentage of homes was fur-
day in 1953, he simply walked out and never returnect.14
n ished by women. What of the bachelor and his need for a
Soon Lownes was installed in a new bachelor apartment: a single
place to call his own? 17
room , ideal for parties, in which the bedroom was located in a cur-
If the 1956 bachelor pad was provided with "the good things that
tained recess in one wall. The bachelor pad appeared as a refuge, where
come in leather cases: binoculars, stereo, and reflex cameras,
the recently-divorced male retreated in search of his lost freedom .
portable radio, and guns," 18 it was not only because the apartment
This was only the first in a long list of paradoxes involving the con-
was meant to be a reserve for visual fun and sexual hunting; it was
struction of an alterna ti ve male domestic space: only in the captiv-
also because it was conceived as a sort of safe and hidden observatory
ity of his apartment could the Playboy be really free. Whereas
where the male retreats from the dangers of the exterior environ-
Steven Cohan, in his article "So Functional for Its Purposes: Rock
ment. From the start, the shifting of gender oppositions within
Hudson 's Bachelor Apartment in Pillow Talk," understood Playboy's
American society that brought about the return of the male to the
224
PORNOTOPIA

PORNOTOPIA 22 5

interior space of the home translated into a re. . .

Playboy magazine of the political arena , ~ect10n m the Pages Of guy-breezy, sophisticated," displayed a rather nostalgic quality. 21
territory "W d ' , trad1 t10nal1y a ma1 In fact, the magazine 's original name, Stag Party, referred to a gath-
. . e on t expect to solve any world r ,, e-on1y
the flrst Playboy editorial "o, P oblems, declarect ering of men assembled far the purposed of watching a "stag film." 22
, 1 prove any gre t
are able to give the Am . a moral truths. If w produced from the beginning of the twentieth century by men far
. erican male a few t e
d1version from the anxieties of the At . ex ra laughs anda littJe rnale-only viewing, these were the first American hard-core porno-
tified our existence "19 I th omic Age, we 'll feel We've jus graphic films. In contrast to the color and sound films of the late
· n e cocoon of his ,· -
forgetful of the threat of w b . Pnvate pad, more or less 1950s and 1960s, watched in movie theatres, these black and white
ar ut st11l equ · d .
the last battle the Playbo 1 . Ippe w1th the weapons of silent films were viewed in prívate homes-a scenario that stressed
' Y cou d fmally f l d .
the simple joys of consum t· ree Y edicate his life to rnale social bonding and camaraderie. 23 The homoerotic structure of
P ion and sex.
But was this withdrawal from the oi-t · the stag party reinfarced the notion that not only did men not need
of public space? Was the P I ical an actual rejection women to have fun, but even more, they could have more fun with-
" . apparent return to the d . .
the womamzation" of th b omest1c a s1gn of out women. Inspired by these screening· parties, Hefner placed his
e achelor?20 Or . .
reaction to the movement f . was it mstead a strategic magazine within a particular tradition of "for-men-only" voyeurism.
0 women toward th b •
and after World War II? Wh e pu he arena during Al though first generated through the vehicle of the magazine
· at were the 1· ·
reversibility" of the Playboy? im1ts of the "gender (which presented nude women far the male gaze), this voyeurism
World War II had radically transfor . . was later encouraged throug·h the screening of Hollywood and
America. Whereas the "f. med the femm1st debate in pornographic films inside the Playboy House and through the host-
1rst wave" of f . .
equality in voting r1·ght . emm1sts, rallied aro und ing of playmate parties in which men were invited to collectively
s m the 1900s 1910
faithful to the idea of , s, and 1920s, remained enj oy "Hefner's girls." By virtually reproducing what could be called
so-called "se ,
naturally tied to mate 1 par ate spheres" (the femin ine, "stag space," Playboy projected amale retro-paradise into the future.
rna and domestic t k
of feminists were stron 1 . as s), subsequent waves The ambiguities in relation to both domesticity and gender
g Y mfl uenced by th
that releasecl women . , e outbreak of a war latent in the definition of the Playboy Penthouse Apartment are
in 1 ecord n um be .
public space. An invert d . rs mto the areas of work and manifest in the production of Playboy ' s Bunny logo, produced as a
e react10n to th t·
nism, Playboy's move t . es ill-unnamed new femi- result of a multi-stage metamorphosis of the "stag." In 1953, a few
oward mterior sp
attempt to reappropri t t . . ace could be read as an months before the inaugural issue of Playboy was published, Hefner
a e racti t1ona1Iy "f • . ,,
ly the same time whe eminine space, at exact- ch ose a "stag toy"-similar to "Esky," a small plasticine puppet that
n women had gain d f .
tory access to the publ. e or the flrst time in his- appeared regularly on the front page of Esquire magazine-to repre-
. re and professional realm
Wh1le this movement . . sent the magazine. The first drawing of the logo, by Arv Miller, por-
mward contrib t d
struction of bound ,· u e to the active decon- trayed amale deer wearing a dressing gown and slippers and smok-
anes that had nat , 1. . .
feminine and ext . Uia ized mterior space as ing a pipe. The sketch played with the double meaning of the word
erior space as mase 1·
revolutionary the 'd
, 1 ea1s of Playboy
ª
u me nd therefore appeared "stag" which signifies "the male of red deer" and "a man who attends
pre-modern distrib t· were actually supportive of a social gatherings unaccompanied by woman"-conflating the male
u ion of gendered sp w
course seemed to be t aces. hereas Playboy 's dis- hunter and hunted deer, outdoor hunting and indoor hunting·, into a
s ructured as a rad · 1 d
form of olcl masculi'n. t . . rea eparture from a certain single image. By transferring Hefner's signature robe and slippers to
l Y, l ts Ideal of the "
new bachelor," a "city-bred the animal , it also exhibited an unexpectedly domesticated touch.
226 PORNOTOPIA PORNOTOPIA 227

Befo re the name of the magazine was officially establ . d O ald Borsam, . would render possibl
Eero Saarinen, an sv ) women (as is deemed
Hefner learned that "stag" was already used by a field-and ISh!>(j ' ¡¡:aJ'l'les, . h se of (as many
magazine. After a brainstorming session, Hefner's friend -stl'e,
, rn ·ntroduction mLo the ou 1 desire These same fea-
tbe 1 b helor's sexua · .
nrthur sarY) to satisfy the ac 1 to protect the bachelor s
Paul suggested the name Playboy. Hefner was fascinatect b neces f the pen thouse interior would he P
name, but because he wanted to keep the image of the stag h Y the tures O · tion
ce from female domestica . ld be flippant about women,
posed a slight transformation of Miller's drawing: instead of aedeel'
Pro.
spa . the Playboy cou . t
For the first time, " d . s that mechanize fllr -
the magazine's logo would be a "cute, frisky and sexy rabbit in~ , "flip-flop evice
24 ks to the apartment s . b. t bar sliding screens,
tuxedo." By the time Paul finalized the design, the stag had become than . . a turmng ca me '
. Saarinen's TullP chairs, . ·t·¡.s of rotation that con-
a "Playboy Bunny"-an unaccompanied, childish male hunting the ing. b have as dzsposz z .
d translucent drapes e t ent to technically assist
female sex without leaving home. By January 1954, the male "bunny" an ace of the apar m .
had been transformed in to a female "bunny." 25 t lY restructure the sp 1 ·sitor's resistance to
stan . defeating the fema e vi
e bachelor's efforts m .
th t· le maintamed,
PENTHOUSE MADE PLAYBOY sex. The Playboy ar ic . . r tl1e hanging Knoll cabl-
e LerLamment, one o
Playboy magazine's most urgent mission was to take back the house, Spealdng o en ·it ·n bar This permits
h windows holds a bm -1 .
nets beneath L e . , whil mixing a
because only the interior space, as a gender performative machine, . Lo rema in m the I oom
the canny bachelor N chance o( missing Lhe
could effectuate the transformation of the man into the Playboy. · · tended quarry. 0
cool one Cor h1s m hance o( leaving her
The text that accompanied the drawings and photographs of furni- 1 ical moment-no e
proper psycho og ff and return-
ture in the 1956 article "Playboy Penthouse Apartment: A High n the couch with her shoes o
cozily curled up o . h nd and the young
Handsome Ha ven for the Bachelor in Town" presented a do uble nar- ing to find her mind change d , purse 1n a ,
ra ti ve to the male reader. First, the visitor's tour touted the advan- damn it. 26
lady ready to go home, . Womb chair could be
tages of the "new" management of space within the penthouse, . . room the Saarmen .
On one side of the llvmg ' . g a working area mto a
which would allow the bachelor to convert work space into leisure h 1 ft transformm
space, a prívate area into a party hall. Second, the user's guide moved to the right or to t e e ' . . izing the bachelor's wasLe
. ersa) and mimm
addressed the reader as a potential consumer of the new space and its cruising area (and vice v E es's intent to design "a com-
. n's and am
functional objects. The underlying seduction tale brought these two of time. Moreover, Saanne 1 siLting positions rather
. ld allow severa ,, . t
narratives together, introducing the middle-class, sexually unso- fortable chair, which wou mber ofloose cushions fl
d [incorporate] a nu "fl'
than one rigid one, an . " d f Playboy .27 The ip-
phisticated American male to the management of multiple sexual
perfectly within the wor
" ·k is 1e1sure agen 0 ª
. 1 for its ability to mechamze
.
encounters within a single apartment and presenting sex as the ul ti- . p¡ yboy art1c e
ma te object of consumption; the management of the interior space flop couch," raised m the . a 28 w ·th the D 70, and also the p 40
·•s Di van D 70. 1 • f
amounted to the management of the bachelor's sexual life. seduction, was Borsam . t . 1 design a rhetonc o
, . brought into mdus na ,
The penthouse's particular value was its ability to produce a chaise lounge, Borsam ld become central to
. . flexibilitY that wou .
gender economy different from that found in the single family home. mutation, mobillty' and t sversal steel mechamsm,
. Thanks to a ran . .
Playboy 's spat1al economy. . b d· "The rest of the 11 vmg
According to the article, only the "flexibility" of the apartment, the , formed rnto a e . .
"multiple functionality" of its open space, and the playful, "flip- the di van could be trans . f t e of t,he couch. It fllps,
T . a un1que ea ur
flop" character of its furniture, embodied in the designs of Charles room is best seen by uti izrng . d the back becomes siL and
literally: at the touch ofa knob at its en ,
 229
poRNOTOPIA

228 PORNOTOPIA

ntering each other within the space of

vice versa-and now we're facin,g the other way ."29 No need f female guests from encou . anting-to-be-a-wife
or con- tW0 . •t the "insid1ous w
vincing the guest; the flip-flop couch converts a casual talk a tne a,partment an~ proh1b1 lt ether For instance, the phone is
. rou~
the table rnto a romantic téte-a-t.éte in front of the fireplace. This dis- girl" from taking it over a og th~t the jangling bell or, what's
positif of rotation enabled the bachelor to transform his female v1s1- .. uipped with "on-off w1dgets ... so . ht befare won't shatter
e<l the date of the nig
tor, with charm and delicacy, from the vertical to the horizontal worse, a chatty call from about missing out on anY fun
. (Don't worry
position, from woman to bunny, from dressed to nude . With just one the spell bemg woven . ker hooked to the tape
. . there ' s a phone-message-ta
more flip-flop movement, the Playboy could take his guest/prey thlS way.
from di van to platform bed-the final trap. recorder .)"33 . . iven by Playboy: first, to get rid of
Now we've slipped the nocturnal d.ram and it is bedtime; hav-
The effective trammg g . . a third, to pre-
. to elimina te their traces, an .
ing said "night-night" (or "come along, now, dearest") to the wornen after sex, second, . ( ntil now their domest1c
k" back the k1tchen u
last guest; it's time to sink into the arms of Morpheus (ora vent women from ta mg h ·mage of the bachelor . The
. 11 transformed t e i
more comely substitute). Do we go through the house turning headquarters), radica Y h. ticated lover but rather
hildish or SOP lS
out the lights and locking u_p? No sir: flopping on the luxuri- p¡ayboY was no longer a e . that compulsivelY responded
• t d serial seducer
ous bed, we have within easy reach the multiple controls ofits the technicallY ass1s e tral character was para-
d f space whose cen
unique heaclboard. Here we have the silent mercury switches to the strict deman s o a d r-segregated. In fact, the
t sexual and gen e
and a rheostat that control every light in the place and can doxicallY at once he ero . . t· g the traces of the night-
t
Playboy, in constan nee
a of ellm1na 1n1 freak spy or meticulous
subtly dim the bedroom to just the romantic leve!. Here, too, d re like a contra - , '
are the switches, which control the circuits for front door and befare date, appeare mo flirtatious bachelor. 34
serial killer than as a spontaneous,
terrace window locks. Beside them are push buttons to draw
the continuous, heavy , pure-linen , lined draperies on sail
track. which can insure darkness at mo.rn- or no.30 THE KITCH E NL E SS KI T CHEN d the opposition male-
Articulating sexual difference aroun . e maintained that the
It is on this technical platform, closer to a militar-y observatory and ¡ Pl bOY magazm
control station than a common bed, that the bachelor finally exe- t echnical/woman- natura ' ay d ·th mechanical and elec-
. . ent saturate wi .
cutes his (who knows how technical) sexual performance. new domest1c env1ronm ' . f the machine-w1se
. the rightful dornam o .
The Playboy Penthouse funetions first asan office, or command trical appllances, was . d ade efforts to redefine
m al e. While the feminine press of the penohnm·an or manager of the
station, where the bachelor organizes his multiple sexual encoun- wife as a tec 1c1
ters, and second as a site far those encounters. Once the female guest the role of the modern house d t women trained profes-
. that menan no '
has entered the apartment, every furniture detail operates as a hid- home 35 Playboy would cla1m were most suited far
' d machine-operators,
den trap that helps the bachelor to get what Playboy magazine calls sionally as tool-makers an . t k The design of the so-
t ated domest1c as s.
"instant sex."31 Meehanical gadg·ets transform the old ways ofhunt- carrying out newly-au orn ' Penthouse Apartment,
. h " in Playboy s
ing the stag into new forms of sexual management proper to the called "kitchenless k1tc en . - d·t during the 1960s, sig-
. th agaz1ne's e i ors
Playboy.32 The activities of bringing in and eliminating women are evoked severa! times by e m f . ine space as masculine .
. . • f traditionallY emm
enabled precisely by various dispositifs of rotation, or flip-flop nalled this redefmit1on o a the rest of the penthouse- an
The kitchen is camouflaged from l screen Behind the
devices. According to Playboy magazine, in addition to assisting b fiberg ass ·
almost totallY open space- Y ª
with the management of time, these technical accessories prevent
230
PORNOTOPIA

PORNO'l'OPIA 231

screen th - .
' e mter10r can hardl
cooking and cleaning ap 1· Y be recognized as a kitch
. P 1ance has t k en E conquest at home, breakfast is prepared by the flick of a remote-
Penod observer) of a hi h . a en the form (at l . Very
g ly soph1sticated P. east to th controlled switch installed on the bachelor's bed panel. Playboy
The kitchen walls . Ieee of technolog e
cons1st of six J Y: a,dvised the bachelor:
screens Which . apanese-style Sh ..
' can shcte to comp1ete1 OJ1 Reaching lazily to the control panel, you press the buttons
open the kitchen F Y close or complete]
. rames are of elm . Y for the kitchen circuits and immediately the raw bacon,
cent fibergJass N , covenng its translu
. . . . ow let 's rol] back - eggs, bread and ground coffee you did the right things with
the kitchen. Your r· t those Shojis anct enter
. irs thought mi h the night befare ... start the metamorphosis into crisp
th1ng? It's al] th g t be, where is eve
ere, as You shall see bu . ry- bacon, eggs fried just right, and steaming-hot fresh java.39
anct designect for eff' . ' tal] is neatly stowect
JCiency with th In the kitchenless kitchen, women have been effectively replaced by
of fuss anct hausfrau lab e absolute minimization
or. For th· • mechanical appliances that are now under the control of men.
remember, and unle . is is a bachelor kitchen
. ss you re a ver , Technical appliances not only come to stand in for the figure of
lilcleect, YOu like t y Odd-ball bachelor
o cook anct whom u the housewife but also help the serial seducer eliminate all traces
ties to exactly the P P short-orcter special-
. same degree that . of t he women who visit the penthouse. Thus, the dishwasher is not
clJshwashing, marketin . You act1vely dislike
The surprised l . g anct t1dying up .36 only convenient because it is noiseless but also because it removes
exc amat1on O f "the imprints of the lipstick kiss" from the night before. 40 Like the
does n t the visi tor "Wh .
. o result from the technic l ' ere is everything?"
sliding screen of the kitchen, the bachelor's female guests operate
which was a constant in Americ a character of the appliance~
under the same visual law: Now you see it, now you don't.
the time.37 Rather, the word "e an ad~ertisements for the kitchen a t'
w1fe" · verythmg" , Playboy interpreted the process of transforming the private
m a Freudian slippag . I eplaces the word "h
ical "h e. Cleamng e . ouse- domestic space of the kitchen into a public showroom-a process
ausfrau manual labor" h ' ons1dered by Playboy as typ-
transforming the kitche . ' as been taken over by mach· generalized within America during the 195Os-as a direct effect of
n mto a l mes, transforming the kitchen into an exclusively male territory. The
seur of meat and Wi 38 P ayground for the You .
in t ne. All of the redefi . . ng conno1s- fallacious logic went that the kitchen was going public because it
. erms of technical efficienc mt10n of kitchen activities
was becoming a masculine space . With regard to the male user of
r1sk of feminizing or emasculaYt _a nd male Skill safely elimina te any
the " · mg the b h the "radiant broiler-roaster," Playboy wagered, "It is our bet that
ant1septic medica! look f ac elor. Rejecting at once
fem· . o so many d the manipulation of this broiler, and the sight through the dome of
mine character of kitch . mo ern kitchens" and the
making th t en apphances Pl b a sizzling steak, will prove for your guest a rival attraction to the
e echnical kitch ' ay oy succeeded in
com en a necessary best on TV. And you'll be the director of the show." 41 It is as if, for
ponent of the urban stag l 'f accessory, as important a
The technical kit h 1 estyle as the automobile Playboy, the transparent dome broiler-like the apartment itself,
"f . . ' e enless kitch . with its glass windows and undivided spaces-would imitate the
emmme" tasks of transformin d. e~ takes over the traditional
structure of the TV set or the show window. These mechanisms of
not through the efforts of th: irty m~o clean, raw into cooked,
display offered the desired object (the roasted meat, the pink flesh
through the aid of machines Th hkousew1fe's working hands but
Wh · h · e 1tch , of the Playmate) to the male eye in as fresh and real a manner as
ic uses inaudible hi-f1· s en s ultrasonic dishwasher
th ound to el · ' possible.
e need for manual dishwash. ean its contents, elimina tes
ing. The mornin f Finally, privacy-meaning total female exclusion-is preserved
ª
g ter a successful
within two enclosed spaces inside the bachelor apartment: the
232 PORNOTOPIA 233
PORNOTOPIA

study, a "sanctum sanctorum where women are seldom invited"· The rhetorical strategy of Playboy was to invert the very logic of
h ,and
t e lavatory, .~hich i~cludes "john, bidet, magazine rack, ash tray gender complementarity that ruled the narratives of the American
and telephone and wh1ch Playboy described as a "throne room"-the dream, according to which heterosexual and conjuga! love was
ult1mate retreat, where the bachelor-king "gets away from e defined by women who take care of the home and men who manage
th· "42 . . . very-
mg. Th1s urgent pr1vat1zation of intellect and intestine indi- the troubles of the externa! world. Together, they formed a unit of
cates the limits of the bodily construction of the Playboy: whereas reproduction and consumption that assured the economic growth
h1s eyes, hands, and penis are totally devoted to the maximization of of the postwar nation. Against this gendered division of territory,
sexual pleasure, his reasoning and anality are protected from the Playboy would claim the necessi ty for roen to regain the space of the
menaces of feminine dumbness and homosexuality. home. And against the romantic myth of the "loving couple," it
would redefine masculine charro in terms of maximizing sexual
TH E INVENTION OF " T H E GIRL - NE X T - DOOR " encounters with women.
In the November 1953 editorial of Playboy magazine, Hefner affirmed The Playboy's sexual success and his spatial conquest depended
"We want to make it very clear from the start, we aren't a famil; on the exclusion of three forros of femininity-the mother, the wife,
magazine. If you're somebody's sister, wife or mother-in-law and and the housewife-from his new domestic realm. But rather than
picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life depicting women as "bitches," as the Kansas housewife had suggested,
and get back to the Ladies Home Companion."43 Among middle-class Playboy relied on a spatial strategy to produce man's ideal sexual
American women, the editorial created a strong reaction. Playboy's companion. Placed right at the threshold of the bachelor's own
anti-family and anti-marriage discourse, together with its presenta- house, accessible and yet separate from his own domestic environ-
tion of the new bachelor as gender-flexible and as creator of a new ment, the "girl-next-door" was to become the new raw material from
type of domesticity, seemed to put into jeopardy the woman's status which to build the ideal Playmate. Years later, Hefner reflected on
as wife, mother, and housekeeper. In its January 1959 issue, Playboy the creation of this ideal, relating the emergence of the Playmate to
published a letter of complaint from Mrs. Rose Marie Shelley, of the feminist movement:
Emporia, Kansas: The playmate of the month was a political proclamation.
A woman who accepts her husband's celebrating the appeal of Playboy wanted to realise an American dream, inspired by

other women becomes, in reality, nothing more than his legal the pin-up illustrations and photographs of the thirties and
bitch; certainly nota real woman or wife-much Jess a moth- forties: the idea was to transform the next-door neighbour
er worth the title. The nation doesn't need more ··understand- girl into a sex symbol. And this implied a number of changes
ing women" but more men and women who make thei" mar- in relation to the issue of feminine sexuality, meaning that
riage vows on their wedding day and stick to them- without even the nice girls enjoyed sex. It was a very important mes-
45
exception .. .. Since when is it man's "prerogative" to practice sage. as important as ali the feminist disputes.
licentiousness, philandering, adultery, etc.? How can women If the P layboy is the central figure of an ongoing production of an
possibly give mena rank of superiority, when men don't have interior and yet not domestic space by roen, the Playmate is the
character or conscience? Your playboys wilJ have to earn anonymous agent of the resexualization of the every-day life. Hefner
women's respect before you ever establish your male called this in-your-neighborhood campaign of resexualization
supremacy! Show me the woman who doesn' t agree!44 "the-girl-next-door effec t. "46
234
PORNOTOPIA
PORNOTOPIA 235

We supposed it's natural to

think of the pulchritudinous
The Playboy Playmate was the pin-up girl come to life. Vargas,
Playrnates as existing in a world apart. Actually, potential
Playrnates are all around you · the as well as other pin-up painters such as Gil Elvgren and Earl
.. · new secretary at your
MacPherson, mastered the technique of transforming a scene of the
offlce, the doe-eyed beauty who sat opposite you at lunch
"every-day life" of an "American girl" into a carefully staged, color
yesterday, the girl who sells you shirts and tfos at your
favorite store. We found Miss Jul . . image, ready for mechanical reproduction and distribution. For its
Y rn our own c1rculation
departrnen t. 47 part, Playboy invested the image with performative power to make
The Playmate made her debut in the secon . "the Varga girl" actually real. 49 The magazine would soon provide its
zine in 1953, when Jane p·1 . d 1ssue of Playboy maga- photog-raphers with more than twenty real-life Playmates, who
1 gnm, Hefner's secret
appeared as Miss July. Omittin an . ary and lover, lived night and day inside the pseudo-domestic setting of the
boss, the magazine presented !-1 ~ ment10n ofher liaison with the
1 gr1m as a secretar h
Playboy House, from which to choose. In a sense, however, nothing
Hefner looking for an Add Y w o came to seemed to have chang·ed: the pin-up girl lying on a red modern arm-
ressograph machine in 1· ht
ing volume of subscriptions H f . 1g of an increas- chair by Lou Shabner was simply replaced by a Marilyn Monroe
. e ner said that he a d
one if she would pose nude 48 Th p·1 . gree to buy her look-alike on a red Saarinen armchair.
identify and improve the .. 1 e l gnm effect enabled Hefner to The realistic rhetoric of Playboy's photographic articles would
g1r -next-door formula
Rather than a natural being to be found r· . finally come to show American girls inside out. Elvgren pin-up draw-
as Hefner maintained the Pl lght around the corner, ings, in agreement with pornography and X-ray techniques of the
' aymate was the result f
representational strategies Th . o a number of 1950s, belong to the same technology of the production of the "true
Playboy belonged to th A . . e flrst photographs published by vision" that made possible the exteriorization of interiority and the
e menean tradition of i . .
Alberto Vargas one of th P n-up pamtmgs. public production of the priva te at work at the Playboy Mansion. 50
, e most glamorous pin u t·
od, worked exclusively for Pl b - Par 1sts of the peri- As the poster by Edward D'Ancona makes manifest, American
ay oy after 1957 By th h
for his aquarelles for the 1927 r 1·1 . . en, e was known pornography would ultimately el ose the circle of production of what
m Glorzfying the A ·
movie posters for Twent. th e merzcan Girl, for his Foucault called "the truth of sex," 51 started by European medical
le entury Fox and f h 1.
with the magazines E . ' or s collaboration science at the end of the eighteenth century; the Playmate-both
squzre and Men Only Th
brushed texture of V , . · e muted colors and air- pure representation and girl-next-door-is at once "the naked
argas s earller pa · t·
saturated colors and well d r· m mgs were replaced by the truth," the "bare facts," and "the body."52
- e med edges of photo , h .
the Playmate a qu 1. th . grap s, wh1ch gave Within the magazine, the Playmate was the result of the actual
as - ree-dlmensional h
For Playboy's first iss H ' yper-real appearance. visual transformation of the girl-next-door into the naked truth of
ue, efner wanted to publ.1 h
of Marilyn M , s nude photographs sex. The unfolding of the four-page centerfold assures the reversibility
onr oe as three-dimen · 1 .
aid of glasses but h b s10na 1mages to be seen with the effect. On the first page, the girl-next-door is represented in what
' e a andoned the p · t d
After the roJec ue to its high cost. Hefner called "her natural habitat," meaning, for the most part, her
success of Monroe's (tw d. .
lisher concluded th t th o- 1mens10nal) spread, the pub- house or the office where she works (usually as a secretary). 53 In this
velvet against what e contrast of colors and textures-of red image, she performs the role of a rather helpless and infantile girl.
l e flesh-produced . .
Pl a s1m1lar effect The The key to this representation of the Playmate, as a possibility
aymate would comb· th .
anonymous A . l~e e fleshy and childlike body of the already embedded in any girl-next-door, was to distinguish her not
menean pm-up and the l
poster girl with th . g amour of the Hollywood only from the "nasty girl" and the common prostitute but also from
e audac1ty of the pornographic painting.
the predatory woman. The attraction of the Playmate, explains
236 PORNOTOPIA
PORNOTOPIA 237

Russell Miller, "was the absence of Lhreat Playmat,es w .

. · ere nice depended on the same pornographic logic: excitement was direcUy
clean g1rls; Lhere was nothing to fear from seducing them_,,
54 proporLional to the degree of visibility of what was supposed to be
Unfolding the next, three-page, image , the same girl appears nude
priva te and concealed. Representations of the bachelor pad 1gnored
thanks once more to a dispositif of rotation similar to the fliP-no;
the structure of the building as well as its exterior appearance, pro-
~ouch. The male operation of turning the page transforms folded
viding exclusively and without exception a view of the interior
rnto opened, hidden into exposed, the next-door-neighbor into t he
space. The penthouse articles offered for the public gaze the private
Playmate, dressed into undressed, and finally, "peeping" into
scenarios in which multiple and endless seduction encounters could
"instant sex." And vice versa.
take place. For the first time, the apartment was not., used as a mere
Readers as different as John Berger or Laura Mulvey have
stage for pornographic pictures, and the presence of nude women was
observed in their analyses of the European tradition of r epresenting
not even required. The Playboy Penthouse Apartment had become
nudes that the real subject of pornographic representation is pre-
Playboy 's pornographic object par excellence.
cisely the male/eye that has been carefully excluded from the pic-
In fact.,, the idea of making public the interior of a bachelor's
ture.55 However, a sign of the sed u er, as a trace of his power to pro-
apartment preceded the publication of t.,he Playboy penthouse.
duce the image, completes the frame out of which he has wisely
Two years befare inaugurating Playboy magazine, Hefner had
stepped right befare the picture is taken. In the case of Playboy's
tried- unsuccessfully- to convince the Chicago Daily News to fea-
nudes, there is always a sign of the gazing eye in the picture. Every
ture his apartment in a two-page spread under the heading, "How
Playmate is represented, no matter how nude, in relation toan exte-
Does a Cartoonist Live?"59 Once Playboy was launched, he pursued
rior object, the most common of which during the 1950s and 1960s was
56 his idea through what could be called "surrogate houses": first,
the telephone. The object-a remainder of masculine technology
with a story about a visit to the fictional Playboy Penthouse
(telephone, hammer, car, etc.) ora clearly identifiable sign of mas-
Apartment; and later, in May 1959, with a photo-reportage shot
culine performance (pipe, tie, cigar, etc.)- unpacks the seduction
inside t.,he bachelor house of Harold Chaskin, Hefner 's friend, at
narrative behind the image. 57 There is a seducer behind every
Biscayne Bay in Mi ami. 60
Playmate; or, to be more precise, it is Lhe seducer's gaze t,hat trans-
The success of the Chaskin house piece showed Hefner that noth-
forms the ordinary girl-next-door int.,o a Playmate. At once the
ing was more convincing than using a "real" bachelor pad as the set-
seduced eye and constituting eye that enables the transformation
ting for PlaJ¡boy 's nude and sexual scenes. Nothing looked as inti-
of any woman into a real Playmate, the Playboy, at the very limit
mate and privat.,e asan authentic house. As Gret.,chen Edgren noted,
of representation, haunts the pin-up image.
Chaskin's interior swimming pool "invited wom n to pose nude," the
PIN - UP ARCHITECTURE
"subaquatic bar room" (a glass-walled room that enabled the visitar
to view the interior of the swimming pool) allowed dressed men to
How does one interpret the fact that the Playboy Penthouse
observe the "swimming beauties," and "the master bedroom which
Apartment articles became the most popular feature published by
overlooked the swimming pool ... included an over-dimension bath-
Playboy magazine at the time-as popular as the pin-up photographs
tub that could easily welcome half a dozen women." 61
of nude Playmates and the articles about their private lives?58 If the
Coming back from Miami , Hefner began developing a plan to
sketches of the Playboy penthouse achieved the same level of noto-
build a house that would combine characterist.,ics of the Chaskin
riety as the nude pict.,ures of Marilyn Monroe, it was because both
house with sorne inventions of his own.6 2 Soon aft.,er, he bought a plot
 PORNOTOPIA 239
238 PORNOTOPIA

of land at 28 East Bellevue in Chicago and commissioned Lhe archi- . he rofessional visit into Lhe sexual
into leisure, dressed mto nude, t P ¡,· s at once as the disposi-
tect R. Donald Jaye to designa multi-story house around an indoor h imming pool func ion
encounter. Here, t e sw e from the front of the
swimming· pool.6 3 Somehow, through the influence of either the bl the Playboy to mov
ti! of rotation that ena es . f t· , that separa tes two sepa-
Catholic city government, or the local Mafia, Hefner was denied per- d liqmd ron ier
house to the back an as a . congruous) actions take
mission to set his building among the old residences of East d'ff ent (and even m
Bellevue. 64 rate "stages," where 1 er the advertisement for the
place. The dual structure of the house, as ble life »66
Hefner achieved another hit by publishing the design of the fic- t
P orsche sugges s, "lets the playboy lead a dou .
tional Playboy Penthouse, with interior decoration by Jaye, in May
1962. The drawings showed the glassed facade, furnished section, and TI M E DIA P LAY BOY H OU SE
T HE M A K I N Go F T H E Mu L - b11· shed in 1962, Hefner
sorne inLerior details of the bachelor house. The three-sLory build- b Penthouse was pu
By the time the Play oy D ber l959 Hefner
ing wit,h sLrong modern allure literally appeared pasted in between . b house. In ecem ,
was living in h1s own Play oy b ·1t in 1899 at 1340 North
Lwo traditional Chicago houses dating from the turn of the century. . d tone townhouse U1
bought a regal bnck an s t not far from Lake
Whereas a single brownish color covers both the brick walls and the ch· go's Gold Coas ,
State Parkway on ica th house had been the
windows of the adjoining houses, underscoring the opaque charac- 1 t entieth cent,ury, e
Michigan. In the ear Y w . the Great Depression, it had
Ler of their facades, the penthouse is made out of a combination of . · 1 scene Dunng
center of an intense socia . h 1 s the second floor
white reinforced concrete walls and wide glass panels. Jutting out . tments· nevert e es ,
been converted mto apar . ' ·th its large marble fire-
from the roof, a small visor holds severa! lights that illuminate the f a publlc house, wi
retained the structure o . Th 6 600-square-foot house was
facade at night, rendering even more visible the spectacle inside. d hotel k1tchen. e ,
place, ballroom, an d . the media asan enormous
The second floor of the building, housing a living room with a spiral to be rebuilt by Hefner and represente m
staircase, is totally open to public view. The ground floor is also
"prívate" bachelor penthouse. Pl boy House greatly
exposed and shelters a bright blue Porsche. Among the furniture, . vements to the ay
The cost of the impro t· n while if not visi-
the piece that created Lhe greatest sensation among Playboy 's read- . ce The transforma 10 ,
surpassed its purchase pn . t . r r·acacle untouched),
ers was Lhe round, rotaLing·, and shaking bed, equipped, as was the . f left the ex eno
ble from the outs1de (He ner the s1·x-car garage in the
1956 penthouse, wiLh a control panel, telephone, radio, bar, and t· s of the house:
night Lable.65 affected the very founcla ion . . 1 ( ven though Hefner
·1t a sw1mmmg poo e
basement was rebu1 as . " a human- mostly
The sectional drawing reveals that the house is symmetrically . d "subaquat1c room,
could not sw1m) an a H f r had seen in the
divided by a large central open space, at the bottom of which is an • ·1 to the one e ne
female-aquarium s1m1 ar 1960 Hefner opened a
irregularly shaped swimming pool, or rather a cave, as if the house . M. · In February ,
Chaskin House m iam1. th house · bunnies who
had been constructed on the very edge of a water source. Although bl ks away from e '
Playboy Club sorne oc th lub lived in the Playboy
the rooms of the apartment seem rather repetitive, as if multiple • itresses at e c
worked as escort g1rls or wa H f r-as if he himself
and similar scenes could be happening in many places at the same · as complete, e ne
House. When the renovat10n w . h·cal novel-confessed
time (the same living room, with its Eames armchairs, is reproduced . t r of an autob1ograp 1
were the ma1n charac e . es to finallY become
three Limes), the sharp split created by the swimming pool between dditional accesson
that he only needed a few a . a smoking jack-
the front and back of the house opera tes asan exchange passage that . zine had created: a pipe,
the Playboy that h1s maga . 11 a total multi-
modifies Lhe nature of the space. In fact, this division reinforces the t da Mercedes Benz Cabriolet 3000SL. Fma y, . 67
duality of the Playboy 's life, articulating the transition from work e , an . d ready for act1on.
media architectonic scenano was set an
240 PORNOTOPIA PORNOTOPIA 241

THE INHABITANTS/ACT O RS
in exchange for fancy European fashion accessories. As Millar
lThe inhabitant of the Playboy Hou se is
. ... the Playboy H . explains, "The Bunny is the g·irl next door. She is the American
oose and fiancée free ," ª young smgle
. man , · . e is "foot- romanticized myth . . . beautiful, clesirable, and a nice, fun-loving
rejuvenated by the freedom of . o1 a middle-ag d man
. . a recent d1vorce who - . person. A Bunny is nota broad ora 'hippy.' She may be sexy, but it
as If it were leisure time 68 H . enJoys his job
· e Is able to reap the b is a fresh healthy sex-not cheap or lewd." 72 The Playboy should be
party hours sin ce he has perf tl enefi ts of his
ec Y understood that cautious not to become the victim of women who might resemble a
always business and involve any romance is
s sorne sort of spo 1·t· . Playmate but who could be dangerous to him, like the "gold digger" (a
Edgren writes, Ive activity. As
"girl who's got what it takes to take what you've got"), the "under-
He .can be a sharp mrn · d e d young business executive, a work- cover agent," and, especially, the "zombie," the nice unmarried girl
er rn the arts . a u mvers1ty
· . professor, an archiLecL, or engi- looking for a husband." 73 BrieDy put, she is any woman, except his
neer.
. He can
. be ma ny th·mgs. proviclecl he possesses a ce ,·Lain wife. A 1960 Playboy article concludes, "How then to recognize a
74
pomt ofvzew. He must see life t Playmate? ... Very simple, she is 'instanL sex.' You just add Scotch."
ah . no as a valley of Lears, buL as
'. appy
.
Lime; he must take joy in h 18
- work. wiLhouL regar<l
mgiLasLheendandallofliving_69 ·' -
ACTION
The Playboy is a "man-about-town" an On the second Door of Lhe Playboy House, Lhe windowless thirty-
the best tradition of E , urban bachelor, following
uropean maleness ke . . foot-wide hall with oak-panelled walls adorned with carved frescoes
animal side That is h h . , epmg m touch with his
· w Y e 1s a bullfighter d was transformed into a party and screening room. It was here that
seducer anda sophisticat d l an a hunter.70 He is a
e over, a man that " Hefner held his famous Friday night parties. He also staged his
known bra with one hand h ·1 could uncouple any
w I e expertly · · "Playboy·s Penthouse" television show, which began in October 1959,
other," leaving his part t m1xmg a martini with the
ner opless befare sh · here. 75 The broadcast concept for "Playboy's Penthouse" was creat-
he keeps his smoking J·ack t . e is able to react, while
e mtact He can ele tl ed by two independent producers in Chicago who approached Hefner
"lover's leap" when it . · gan Y practice the
is necessary to reach "th ct· with the idea of presenLing the Playboy lifestyle on television. The
twin beds. "71 He is th e 1stance between
e one and shall rem - . setting would be his bachelor pad, "the kind of paradise every guy is
one, defying the traps set f . h. am, without wife or family,
or im by women R t looking for, a place of parties, full of pretty girls and show business
and armecl with his TV _ · e reated to his toilet
camera he is the k. M celebrities."76 "Playboy's Penthouse" ran for twenty-six weeks but
qual him, but without ' . mg. any would try to
success. He is H.H. 1 was never picked up by a national network.
If the Playboy is defined by his sin ul . The TV show operated as what Michel Foucault would have
multiplicity ambig ·t . g anty,thePlaymateispure
' UI Y, and impermanenc F called an "inverted mirror,"77 proj cting into the domestic space of
secretary that takes c f _ e. or Playboy, she is the
are o the offIce and of h b television viewers the anti-domes tic interior of the Playboy House .
her home and her husb d S . _ er oss as if they were
an • he IS a pm-up gi 1 . The Latin sign on the front door announced, "Si non oscillas, nili
ready to get undressed . f r ' a n1ce young woman
m ront of a camera Sh . tintinare," ("If you don't swing, don't knock"). Nobody seemed to be
to wear little bikinis b h . . . e IS a bunny; she likes
oug t m Samt-Tropez t 0 excluded; the only requirement for entrance was to be ready to have
jacuzzi, and more th . , spend hours in the
an anythmg she en. fun. The same Chicago that praised the family, embraced
why, according to Pl b ' JOys sex-that is the reason
ay oy, even when she is ·ct f . " Prohibition, and promoted the racial segregaLion of spaces enjoyed
prostitute "althou h pai or It, she is nota
' g most of the time sh e l I'k es to do it for free, or the phantasmatic production of a televisual "deviant heterotopia,"
 PORNOTOPIA 243
242 PORNOTOPIA

ruled The abysmal character of the hole Lhroug·h which the guest liL-
. by. female nudit Y, po 1ygamy, sexual promiscuit
racial mdifference 78 In Foucault' t Y, and seeming erally "slipped in" and the interior watel'fall suggested that the
. · s erms, the Playboy H
t10ned effectively as a virtual "co t . " ouse func- innermost space of the house was its only and real opening.81 In fact,
t . " un er-s1te, a sort of "
u op1a or "heterotopia" that s1mu. 1taneously represe t d enacted the cave was the main stage for the phoLo-reportage that took place
ed, and in verted American sexualit Y d urmg
. the late 1950s
n e ' contest- in the house and was probably used as well as the setting for porno-
d
As Foucault foresaw, however: an 1960s. graphic movies.82 As Louis Marin has pointed out in his reading of
In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like
Thomas Moro's Utopía, it is a characteristic of utopian enclosures to
public place . ··· [T]he heterotopias that seem t o be pure anda be penetrated right at their center by an empty space, as if the very
.
simple openings, generally hide curious exclu s10ns.
. E veryone foundation of the ideal site were precisely a constitutive hole or nur-
.
can en ter mto these heLerotopic si tes, bu Lin fact i t is only an
turing non-space. The swimming pool in the Playboy House was like
illus10n: we think we enter whereas we are, b.v the very fact
a watery womb that simultaneously produced not only the water but
that we enter, excluded_79 also the women that inhabited the cave, and served as a cosmic drain
83
At the Playboy House, the possibilit . through which the water and the women flowed away.
priva te space was as in a good F Y _of v1sually penetrating the A series of pictures of the interior of the house show Lhe double
' oucauldianheteroto · fd .
justan illusion· the inte ,· pia o ev1ation, work of the "hole" as opening and discriminating gate. Only the
' nor space had been caref 11
minated, like a Hollywood t u Y staged and illu- select Playboy could descend to these (technically regulated) natu-
se , and every corner ·
closed-circuit television camera. Thus w was momtored by a ral si tes to enjoya group of nude women waiting just for him. One of
guest, feeling privileged for h . b , hen entenng the house, the the photographs published in Playboy magazine shows the less fortu-
vate ha ven, was actually steav::g . een a~mitted into Hefner's pri- nate visitors who remain on the first floor looking through the open-
The price paid by PP g mto v1rtually public territory . ing. They appear eager and frightened, as if the very foundations of
every guest for access to th.
inhabitation was th t is exceptional form of the house were in danger. Peeping at the Playmates lying in the cave,
e ac of becoming an a
ongoing movie A . nonymous actor in an they seem to be convinced that to fall into that "hole," to penetrate
flip-flop h. gam, the same logic of reversibility that ruled the
couc or the rotating b d t, that opening, is the very condition of possibility for masculine sexu-
actor hidden into d. 1 e ransformed the visitor into al enjoyment. In the rear of the basement, in the "subaquatic room,"
'
vice versa. isp ayed ' and ' of co urse, pnvate
• into public. And Hefner contemplated the cave party through a window, as if he were
Within this liminal and heter . . watching the next "Playboy's Penthouse" TV show.
reproduce and . . otopic space, It was necessary to
remscnbe endlessly new" • ,,
reserved for the h pnvate areas seemingly
of th appy few but always bº
su Ject to the surveillance THE ROTATING BED
e camera. A round hole in th f In this endless and reversible production of private/public space,
first story of th h e loor visually connected the Hefner's rotating bed was the most outstanding apparatus of all.
e ouse to the basement A ld . .
once to the h _ . . · go en pole, s1mllar at Rejecting the main sleeping configurations of the 1950s, the double
striptease b yper ~asculme flre brigade exit and to a female
bed and two twin beds, Hefner chose a bed larger than the double, yet
t ar'. prov1ded physical access. On one side of the base-
men was a sw1mmmg-pool and . . one that assured the independence and gender-segregation of the
tropical isla d . cave that im1tated the scenery of a twin.8 4 Eight and one half feet in diameter, the round bed had an
n ' w1th palms bambo d
water· on th th . ' o, an ª spring running with internal motor that allowed it to rotate (although not very smooth-
garag~ and t~e\e::·:~::.~:eparated by a large sliding door, were the ly) 360 degrees in either direction and to vibra te while ata standstill.
 PORNOTOPIA 245
244 PORNOTOPIA

The leather headboard provided both back support and a IIefner's refusal to leave his bed as pathological, part of a sexual
. control
panel from wh1ch to operate a radio ' television set ' film pr OJector
· handicap that reduced him to the horizontal position and took him
and various .t elephones. A television camera mounted on a t • ' away from the real world, "pampered and cocooned in his citadel of
' ripoct
and pointed directly at the playground of the bed , enabled H efner to sensualism. "9º
record his "priva te" business and sexual encounters. If, as Siegfried Gideon noticed andas Henri Lefebvre regretted,
. H~fner's exceptional everyday life was the result of a radical modern social relations are always mediated by objects, 91 this medi-
mvers10n of the metaphysical relationship between representation ation, in the case of Hefner's rotating bed, has been taken to an
and reality. Thus, the furniture of the Playboy House would mimet- extreme. As was already the case in the designs for the 1956 Playboy
ically reproduce every detail of the fictional drawings and stories P enthouse and Joyce's unbuilt 1959 Playboy House, in the master
previously published by the magazine. The rotating bed was an bedroom of the Playboy House the machine seems to have replaced
improved and hyperbolic version of the rectangular bed that the subject's will, prefiguring not only his movements and deeds but
appeared in Joyce's 1959 drawings for the urban Playhouse.as As part also his feelings and decisions. Thus, this living space is neither
of a total reciprocity between the prívate and the public, between inhabited nor visited but rather incorporated, the rotating bed serv-
the publisher's life and his magazine, Hefner's bed returned to t he ing as a prosthetic Playboy machine into which the bachelor is
pages of Playboy in April 1965 and soon after became the "most plugged, as if he were a pre-ambulatory infant ora wounded soldier
famous bed in America. »86 just back from war. It is this mediating connection that enables him
In his history of Playboy, Miller has sug·gested that the rotating to be in touch with the outside world while remaining profoundly
bed was one of the enigma tic features of Hefner's life: enclosed and that transforms his infantile passivity into sex and
Despite heroic efforts, Mr. Hefner was never really able to business. Rather than understanding Hefner's bed as pathology, it
satisfactorily explain why anyone would want a rotating seems more accurate to describe postwar American society as pro-
bed. He used to burble about "creating your different envi- gressively prosthetic, with the rotating bed, at the center of the
ronments" by facing himself in different directions at the Playboy House, functioning as its heterotopic site.
press of a button, but it was hard to understand why he could
not simply turn his head to achieve the same basic effect. THE HORIZONTAL WORKER
Such was the worldwide media interest in the bed, that a In January 1958, Playboy published the article "Hollywood
journalist once seriously asked where one bought sheets for Horizontal: Battle Cry of a Vertical Screenwriter. My Kingdom for a
an eight-and-a-half-foot diameter round bed. "I haven't the Couch." In this essay, the journalist Marion Hardgrove maked pub-
vaguest idea," Hefner answered.87 lic the (fictional) prívate letters exchanged between William T. Orr,
Within Miller's psychologizing argument, the bed was a symptom executive producer of Warner Brothers TV in Hollywood, and sever-
of "a man who refuses to grown up, who lives in a house full of toys. a! Hollywood writers. The ironic quarrel between the voices in favor
who devotes much of his energy to playing kids' games, who falls in of and against "verticality" used architectonic criteria to contrasta
and out of love like a teenager, and is cross when the gravy is new type of "horizontal worker," a successful urban writer and busi-
lumpy." 88 In fact, Hefner spent most of his time in bed, always nessman, with his "stiff," "vertical" counterpart. Under the command
wearing his pyjamas (even in front of guests), eating Butterfingers to "take joy in your work," horizontality was understood as the new
and candy apples, and drinking Pepsi-Colas.89 Miller described anti-Weberian ethic of capitalism, whereby work and sex constituted
 PORNOTOPIA 247
246 PORNOTOPIA

the two main variables in a single equation of male success • one of ofthe places for work and from the places for recreation, against the
the writers explains to Orr, rupture between professional and prívate environments. The rotat-
I have been grievously concerned by recent complaints that
ing bed was the master dispositif of rotation, transforming vertical
my writing is increasingly vertical. In the language of the
into horizontal, up into down, right into left, adult into child, one
layman, this means that it goes rigidly down toward the bot-
into many, dressed into nude, work into leisure, and prívate into
tom of the page without ever noticeably broadening out. I public. And vice versa.
am stunned by the charge but unhappily unable to refute it.
RO TATING THE PLAYMATE, OR HOW TO TRANSFORM VIKKI
Vertical writing is a serious matter with which we cannot
put up . It is a disease that must be treated as soon as it oU GAN INTO "THE BACK"

becomes apparent .... The bald fact, sir, is this: Horizontal

The Playboy's mechanical gadgets were not the only things to
writing cannot be achieved except by being horizontal on a
operate as rotating devices. The same dispositif of rotation that
desktop or on cold linoleum. Various secondary officials of
would enable Hefner's bed to turn 360 degrees was behind the pro-
our little organization have made conscientious and valiant
duction of one of the most famous Playmates of the 1950s, known as
efforts to stamp out creeping verticality by procuring for the
"The Back." In June 1957, Playboy published photographs taken by
wri ter that indispensable too! of his trade: the couch. 92
Sam Baker of Vikki Dugan's nude back. 95 One month la ter Playboy
The floor and not the couch had been the first working surface for dedicated a three-page story to the new Playmate sensation. The
Hefner. In his Hyde Park apartment, the undistinguished floor of the article read:
At the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's 1957 award
different rooms served simultaneously as table, where Hefner spread
banquet, Vikki turned up in a gown that was not only back-
out his pictures, andas playground. Hefner maintained, "I used the
less but virtually seatless too-cut down to reveal severa!
carpetas a giant desk. When I met artists, designers and writers we
startling inches of reverse cleavage. Masculine eyeballs
used to crawl while we looked at our work."93 The rotating bed ofthe
popped, as did the flashbulbs of the United Press, who caught
Playboy House represented a construction above the floor of a sec-
Vikki with her rearguard down and sent the wires a fascinat-
ond horizontal surface, which Hefner used in an identical manner: he
ing photo that has to be judiciously cropped for newspaper
would sit up against the leather back, wearing only his pyjamas,
talking on the phone and choosing the next "Playmate ofthe Month" publication. 96
from among the hundreds of slides. From time to time, and without In the article Dugan denounced the hypocrisy of what she called
interrupting his "work," he was visited by a select group of nude "people in glass dresses," a criticism of the models who posed in
bunnies who would become part of his expansive pornographic transparent tissue (the most common way of showing a female nude
video archive. in the classic pin-ups of the late 1940s and 1950s such as those by
The separation of the home from the workplace was the domi- Vargas). She argued for a different way of showing and concealing
nant feature of postwar American urban and suburban life, made the female body. She was portrayed wearing an opaque fabric dress
possible by the generalized use of the automobile.94 Hefner's rotat- that wildly exposed (to the male gaze) what Playboy had judged her
ing bed-used as work table, television stage, TV couch, sexual play- sexiest body part: her backside. Once the "best parts" of Dugan were
ground, orgy site, and sleeping platform-levelled a direct attack selected, photographed, and cropped, the metonymic process could
against this effective segregation of spaces, against this distancing take place: Dugan became "The Back."
 PORNOTOPIA 249
248 PORNOTOPIA

The possibility of "looking things from behind" was not only a Moreover, within this visual chessboard, Bardot herself becomes
consolation for women such as Vikki Dugan who "were not bustly": 97 merely a gracious combinatory formula of Gina Lollobrigida, Jayne
turning the bustless girl to discover the back of a Playmate was Mansfield, Anita Ekberg, and even the forthcoming Vanessa Paradis.
another rotation game through which Playboy inverted the laws of As the pairing of "The Back" and "The Bust" shows, the dispositif
the gaze. What was back became front, exactly in the same way that of rotation establishes a relationship between two objects or body
through the use of the TV camera, the "prívate" rooms Hefner'~ parts that do not necessarily belong to the same owner , exactly the
house became public and what was hidden became exposed. Like the same way that the pornographic montage cuts hands , mouths, and
cropping of Dugan's back, the vis.ibility of the Playboy House was genitals from different sources and pastes them together as part of
regulated through a very precise selection of images , staged for the a sexual narrative. The transformation of Dugan into "The Back"
public eye. In fact, Hefner used his television show as a way of"focus- exemplifies a strategy of multiple composition out of which not
ing in" and "opening" to the publ.ic eye sorne of the staged scenes only the Playmates but also their position in the Playboy House are
already published in the magazine, offering what he called (in a constructed.
phrase that underscored the production of the "priva te") a "behind- Just as, according to Foucault, "the heterotopia is capable of
the-scenes view of America's most sophisticated magazine."98 The juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that
Playboy House multi-media dispositif assured the interplay between are in themselves incompatible ," the Playboy House brought
the house, the magazine, and the 1rv show. together, through vertical and horizontal distribution, the bachelor
Like Hefner's bed, Playboy magazine itself can be understood as penthouse, the TV show stage, the nice little girls' boarding school,
a horizontal plane, an ideal grid upon which all of the fragmented and the brotheI.99 The casual appearance of "priva te" parties full of
body parts of the Playboy empire relate to each other, as in a girls, the "home-like" images of Hefner in the water cave, or the
Saussurean structural system. The bed was used literally as a board tableau vivant of women around the fireplace playing indoor games
u pon which Hefner played wi th the pie ces of the different pictures. It depended solely on the existence of a well-programmed space called
was within this plane that a particular cropped organ referred to the "Bunny Dorm." Located on the third floor of the Playboy House,
another, by homology or by diffe:rence: not only did Dugan's back right above Hefner's haven, the dorm aimed to deliver, with mathe-
establish a "flip-flop relationship" with the bust of another promi- matical precision, a certain number of well-disciplined bunnies to
nent Playmate June Wilkinson, but the blande hair and smiling face the floors below and, la ter, to the Playboy clubs.
of the as-yet-unknown girl-next-dloor Stella Stevens were analogi- Whereas the basement, first, and second floors of the house were
cally linked to those of Playmates. Marilyn Monroe and Kim N ovak. characterized by glamorous furniture, technical club-like acces-
The two-dimensional space of the photograph, which provides the sories (screening devices, stereo system, etc.), and large , undivided
possibility of cutting and combining different body parts endlessly, spaces for playing, dancing, and swimming, the third and fourth
was simultaneously the origin and the result of Playboy 's visual, floors were rarely opened to mal e visi tors. The door to the third floor
pornographic classification of women. This space extends itself represented the most radical gender seg-regation line and border of
without relief toward the past and the future equally, embracing "privacy" within the building. The floor was divided into several
every woman that ever existed or will ever exist. It is within this suites, all identified by the color of their décor (blue, red , golden,
plane of analogies that the girl-next-door, innocent as she might be, etc), where Hefner's female friends and associates could spend sorne
is already connected, even without knowing it, to Brigitte Bardot. time , and several single apartments rented to Hefner's favorite
250 PORNOTOPIA
.. PORNOTOPIA 251

bunnies. The fourth floor was occupied by large dormiLories , rooms There aren't any prosLituLes in Chicago for Lhe same reason

communal showers and toilets ' long that there aren'L any sLraw haLs aL Lhe NorLh Pole. They
· corridors with publi·c Ph ones '
and little mailboxes organized by the bunnies' names · As M·l would starve to deaLh .... Every fourLh female over 18 in the
1 ler'
notes, "In sLark contrast to the push-bottom extravagance below city of Chicago is very active sexually, either on a romantic

the furnishing of the dormitories abruptly takes on the aspect of ~ basis, or on a financia] one. Usually on both .... In addition

rather parsimonious girls' boarding school-thin cord carpet, bunk there must be at least 100 thousand girls living in the bachelor

beds, wooden lockers, and communal washrooms."100 The backstage quarters where they are able to entertain their bosses and

and storeroom of the Playboy House was a bunny boarding school, business associates. I have not ... heard of any male Chicagoan

where the girl-next-door was trained to be a Playmate. complaining abouL sex frustraLion. To the conLrary.lOZ

Upstairs, a strict, almost military, disciplinary reg"ime replaced What is praised in the article is the liberalization of the sexual mar-
Lhe relaxed atmosphere of Hefner's own quarters. Every bunny was ket; the sexual services previously provided by a small group of
recruited after a rigorous process of selection organized by Keith women who were considerecl prosLitutes have been "democratized,"
Hefner, Hugh's brother. U pon being hired, the girl was required to sign extended to the ensemble of the American female population.
a contract agreeing to keep her physical appearance and personal con- Playboy magazine's promotion of the Lransformation of work into

duct "beyond reproach" and, of course, to always be available inside leisure as the main lifestyle guideline for the new bachelor was cou-
the Playboy House . Once in the dorm, a bunny would pay $50 in rent pled by the ability of the Playmate to transform sexual labor into
per month and could eat in the bun:ny dining room for $1.50, so that entertainment.
leaving the house was rendered unnecessary, if not impossible.101 Together with this "liberalization," Playboy welcomed the sexu-
The bunnies were paid $50 a day for posing, "acting," or working alization of everyday places, in contrast to the concentration of the
at the club; the rest of their income carne from tips and clients' gifts. sexual market inside the brothel:
What looked like "a good salary" for a girl-next-door coming from The swanky cafés, full of ritzy-lool<ing callgirls, the hotel

the Midwestern countryside represented less than .05 percent of the suites reserved for ou t-of-Lown buyers of amour; Lhe back

profits that she produced for Hefner's business. The profitability of seat of the automobile, tho unLidy baohelor girl aparLments,

Lhe Playboy House, tentacularly self-reproducing through the the dimly lit booLhs in cheap eaLeries, Lhe friend's apartment

media vehicles of the magazine, the TV show, and Lhe Playboy clubs, borrowed for the evening wiLh Lhe phone ringing an unnerv-

surpassed that of Chicago's famous brothels. ing obligation- suoh and oounLless other improvised ren-
103
dezvous have displaced the old plush ancl crystal broLhels.

A ROOM FOR VICE But weren't those precisely the same everyclay, banal settings cho-
The author of the article "No Room for Vice," published in the sen as staged sites for Playboy's stories? Paracloxically, the maga-
January 1959 issue of Playboy, established a close relationshiP zine's discourse fought with equal force familiar domesticity ancl the
between architecture and sexuality , suggesting that the modern- traditional brothel. As a replacement for both, Hefner inventecl the
ization of America during the postwar years had successfully led to perfect sexual heterotopia, an exceptional folding-in of the outside
the replacement ofthe old-fashioned "red light district" and "old the- world into a public house, a prívate brothel, ancl a virtual form of
aters of vice" with the new "bachelor quarter." In a similar manner, sexual enjoyment without sex, all under one roof.
he opposed the old forms of "prostitut;ion" to a new form of "feminine The Playboy House shoulcl be placed insicle the genealogy of
sexual freedom": brothels, instead of being considered as a special and monumental
 PORNOTOPIA 253
252 PORNOTOPIA

designed as a 'room' in the mythical and fabulous bachelor pad-

example of the modern bachelor house. The distribution of public
there was a Playroom, a Penthouse , a Library, and a Living
and prívate spaces inside the house, and its curious conflation of
Room."107 The ticket to en ter the club was a bunny logo key, similar
work space and domicile, were in fact not very different from nine-
to the one that appeared in the 1956 Playboy Penthouse article, pur-
teenth- and early twentieth-century brothels.104 Hefner's success
chased by visitors for $5. Ruled by the same laws as the Playboy tele-
however, was to convert the early form of sexual consumption,'
visual brothel, visitors could look but never touch the more than
which took place inside the brothel, into pure representation and
thirty bunnies that served each floor of the club. Only privileged
visual consumption, multiplying the "value" of every one of "his"
clients, considered "special guests" rather than mere visitors, were
Playmate's sexual gestures and acts. The exceptional status of the
given a "Number 1 Key" authorizing them to entertain and touch
Playboy House was not the result of its being America's biggest
bunnies inside certain rooms. The club-as a reproduction of the
bachelor's apartment, as the press would put it, but rather, of its
Playboy House-operated as a surrogate domicile, a sort of anti-
being the first mass-media brothel. If pornography can be understood
domestic theme park, where the anonymous client paid to be able to
as any representation of sexuality, the aim of which is the manage-
perform the role of the ideal bachelor for a few hours. By 1963, there
ment of the sexual response of the observer, then the Playboy House
were Playboy clubs in New York, Miami , New Orleans, Saint Louis ,
was nothing other than a multi-media pornographic device.105
Los Angeles, and Baltimore. The conquest ofinterior space , promot-
In terms of its vertical distribution, the house's stairs organ-
ed by Playboy magazine beginning in 1953, was indeed taking hold.
ized the transition between the restricted space of the Bunny Dorm
upstairs, where visitors were not allowed, and the sexual freedom of
the floors below, where bunnies were required to always be available
to be photographed and filmed . In terms of media production and
distribution, the house, with its themed spaces (the tropical cave,
the colored suites, the living rooms), produced the flow of images
that appeared in Playboy magazine and on the "Playboy's
Penthouse" TV show.1°6 Whereas the images of the interior of the
house seemed to convey the intimacy ofHefner's priva te sanctuary,
every photograph was the result of careful staging. What was ren-
dered public was a particular representation of the interior as "pri-
va te. " This process of "the public" construction of the "prívate"
reached its climax with the creation of the Playboy Club-an imita-
tion of the interior of the house outside the house.

THE PLAYBOY CLUB

In February 1960, Hefner opened the first Playboy Club at 116 East
Walton Street in Chicago , justa few blocks away from the Playboy
House. The club was built as a "public" reproduction of the interior
of Hefner's Playboy House, the design following the distribution of
space on its first and second floors. "Each of the four floors was