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BBW in Playboy? Fat Chance!
🕑 Added 2023-03-06 17:48:11 +0000 UTCAs you know, we put the proceeds from our generous patrons towards improving our unique brand of fiction. In addition to providing motivation for 5 AM writing sessions, your patronage helps commission illustrations, hire voice actors, and purchase necessary equipment and software. From audio to AI, we're always on the lookout for ways to enhance our weight-gain content!
Recently, however, I put $8.56 towards the antithesis of BBW and weight gain: A Playboy magazine from 1984.
1984. The year of Jazzercize and Jane Fonda workout videos. It was an ugly time in our nation’s history. AIDS, Reaganomics, and Richard Simmons in a neon unitard.
Back then, pickings were slim for the burgeoning BBW enthusiast. Anorexic even. Forget about Playboy, the only way a plus-sized woman could appear in a fashionable magazine was if they were the “before” picture in a diet ad. I routinely scoured through my Mom’s Glamour, Redbook, and McCall’s for advertisements for Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Deal-A-Meal, or whatever the diet du jour was the same way a homeless man might rummage through a McDonald’s trash bin. Of course, those grainy "befores" were intended to be ugly and unflattering compared to the glam shot “afters,” but I didn’t care. Fat was fat and reversing the before-and-after images passed for weight gain in my BBW-starved brain.
Playboy magazine was even more frustrating. It was a "skin mag" that featured very little skin and a wasteland for waists larger than 24”. Of course, that didn’t keep me from sneaking peeks at my Dad's. Nudity was nudity, after all. Where else was a rural Oklahoma boy going to see it? Still, my expectations were as low as the model’s weights. If I was lucky, there might be a pudgy coed in the "campus cuties" section, or a vintage Alberto Vargas pin-up to remind me that stick-thin wasn't always in.
So imagine my shock when, after checking the mail ahead of my parent's arrival home from work, I slipped the latest copy from its brown paper band and glimpsed this subheading: Big Women (Beautiful Too), An Abundant Pictorial. Normally, I was careful not to leave behind any creases, folds, or fingerprints before slipping the skin mag back into its sheath. Not this time. Dad's magazine and several of the girls inside were violated that afternoon. Fortunately, he never said anything. Since the apple fell pretty far from the tree with regards to our preference for women, he may not have noticed my fingerprints on the fat girls as he hurriedly flipped past them en route to the centerfold.
After a month or two, the issue joined Dad’s box of retired Playboys in the hall closet. I spent a lot of time "in the closet" after that, exploring my pubescent perversions without fear of reprisal...until we eventually moved and the magazine was never seen again.
Much like a first crush; however, it was gone but not forgotten. The magazine was seminal (literally) in my sexual development, so when I saw a copy for sale on eBay a few weeks ago I took the plunge. When it arrived, and I eased it from its slipcase, I felt the same rush of excitement I had so many moons ago.
Unfortunately, the feeling was followed by the one I usually felt perusing Playboy: disappointment. What I remembered as a groundbreaking tribute to BBW, professionally photographed and lovingly presented, was really just a handful of blurry photos that look like they were taken with a Sony Mavica and a patronizing one-page article that seems to scream, "Let's throw the chubby-chasers a bone!"
And that's basically what they threw us. The girls featured may be beautiful, but they certainly aren't very big. One of the models is future Law and Order actress Kelle Kerr, who measures 5'9" and 150 pounds. Only in the pages of a mid-80s Playboy could that be considered plump. Other girls sport a bit more flesh, but the photography is so soft focus it's hard to spot a nipple much less a cellulite ripple. The article references Renaissance artist Peter Paul Rubens and his "Rubenesque" models, but the photos look composed by a French Impressionist with a bad case of cataracts.
It's not my scanner. The photos are really this bad!
Playboy was always a bit fat-phobic, especially in the 1980s. The cynic in me is convinced that the decision to make the pictures “painterly” (i.e., blurry) is less about evoking an Old Master feel and more about ensuring the only crease or fold you’ll find is the one down the magazine's center. The accompanying article, which I didn't pay much attention to back in the day and is chock-full of sophomoric asides and thinly-veiled derision, supports my assertion.
“We wondered if locating beautiful middleweights might be as difficult as signing a worthy opponent for Marvelous Marvin Hagler,” the nameless author wrote, referring to the current middleweight boxing champion and the challenging search for models both big AND beautiful. Later on, he adds this touching paeon to the Rubenesque: “From the prehistoric artist who made the Venus of Willendorf nearly round, to a contemporary skiing acquaintance of ours who measures his vacation conquests in tonnage, there have always been men who like their women to have a little heft from right to left.”
Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? As should the author’s response to the 300-pound spokeswoman from N.A.A.F.A. who is quoted as saying, “I like being a sex symbol!”:
“Her organization has yet to put out a line of posters so don’t worry about our nation’s forests.”
He’ll be here all week, ladies and gentlemen! Try the veal!
If only the models tried some. “My girls do not eat junk food,” plus-size model rep Mary Duffy of Big Beauties in New York is quoted as saying. “The difference is they’ll have salads with the dressing.” How liberating! As shitty as the 80s were for fat admiring men, it had to be that much worse for girls trying to adhere to its impossible beauty standards.
Some things are better left in the past, I suppose. Still, it was nice to revisit photos that had been etched in my brain for nearly forty years--especially the two of Maureen Roberts. With her alabaster skin and luscious red mane, she looks a little like Kate Winslet’s Rose from Titanic after a few more weeks of luxury cruising.
Much like the pages of my father's magazine, I find myself torn. I want to trash this 80s BBW tribute totally (as the Valley Girls used to say), but I can't. It was too impactful for me and, considering the cultural climate, I can see how groundbreaking it was at the time. Every journey begins with a single step, after all. Less than a decade later, Anna Nicole Smith, who weighed 160 pounds during her centerfold shoot--ten pounds more than "plus-sized" model Kelle Kerr--was featured in the magazine, and today genuine BBW like Molly Constable, Haley Hasselhoff, and Lizzo are appearing in its pages.
And for as much shit as I gave the author for the tone of the article, I do agree with his final sentiment:
“There’s no compelling reason models have to come from the same mold, as though the idea were to save wax. It’s exciting to see full figures squeezing into the picture again.”
What do you think? You can find a PDF copy of the entire spread below. Was it a worthwhile purchase? From a "time capsule" perspective if nothing else?
Maverick
Comments
Maverick and Riptoryx
Hey Matt! Maybe I should've just borrowed your copy ;). It's hard to believe the spread was such a landmark, especially when you consider that the models would have to pack on quite a few pounds to be considered plus-size today. (Not that that's an unpleasant consideration!)
Matt L.
I actually bought a copy when it was released, this particular issue was featured on the Phil Donhue show.
