Norman Mailer: Playboy Heavyweight

ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES PURCHASED BECAUSE OF A PLAYMATE'S ALLURE, most Playboy magazines get read cover-to-cover, confirming the quip "I buy it for the articles." Because less than ten percent of each issue contains nudity, the majority of monthly pages are well-known editorial features, such as the Playboy Advisor or the Playboy Interview, advice columns, cultural commentary, humor and literary selections. Hugh Hefner juxtaposed the nude pictorials with literature because he believed that, for proper stimulation, both the mind and body should be addressed. Playboy editors particularly sought out authors or fictional selections that would help them re-masculinize the act of reading in the midst of the Cold War gender debates. To fulfill this objective, editors first looked to Ernest Hemingway because the Hemingway code hero exemplifies the quintessential Playboy qualities--strong, adventuresome, educated, and womanizing. Then, after his death in 1961, Playboy used Hemingway's obvious successor--Norman Mailer.