Douglas Lambert wanted to give Playboy a run for its money. It was 1971, and Hugh Hefner's magazine had created a new mainstream market for soft-core porn. Lambert, a nightclub owner in Garden Grove, California, decided to get in on the action.
Lambert's wife Jenny saw a bigger opportunity: a magazine with nude male centerfolds. Lambert wasn't sold. What woman wanted to ogle photos of nude men, much less buy a magazine full of them? But he slowly realized Jenny might be on to something. The sexual revolution was well under way, and Lambert "sensed the woman of the '70s was eager to become part" of it, as he'd eventually write in promo copy for his new magazine. So in the summer of 1971, Lambert, along with William Miles Jr., an experienced adman who served as Playgirl's executive vice president, invested $20,000 in the project and opened a swanky, 23rd-floor office in Los Angeles's Century City.
Two years later, in June 1973, Playgirl's first issue hit the newsstand, with a mission similar to its long-standing counterpart: to feature nude centerfolds alongside hard-hitting features by and for women. On the first cover, a nude man (credited as "Eldon") sat cross-legged, his modesty preserved by shadows, as an amorous woman (credited as "Lorelei") nuzzled him from behind. One of its cover lines: "Compulsions of the promiscuous woman." It sold out, moving six hundred thousand copies in four days. At its peak during the late seventies, each issue sold around 1.5 million copies.
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