[tigerrouge]

I buy Playboy every time it has an anniversary issue, just so I can get its run-down of all its previous covers, they usually have it in a gatefold format.

I wonder if the very old covers of Playboy benefited from an era when they weren't allowed to show women's bodies as starkly as today, and therefore had to be more suggestive (and inventive) with the visuals, which naturally adds a layer of mystique. The eroticism resides in the constraint.

Yes, even the era of supermodels using it as means to widen their audience have long gone, and I can't recall the last time I saw a cover with someone I actually knew on the front (apart from the recent Ana Nicole cash-in issue).

There are times I've bought this magazine and the women behind the counter have thrown the change down instead of giving it to my hand, and I think, woman, you have no idea what's out there, if you're offended by pictures of airbrushed American girls posing alone and pretending they all like kittens.