1975
The year is 1975.
In the early '70s, Playboy was feeling pressure from Bob Guccione's Penthouse magazine and Hustler, Larry Flynt's pornographic spank rag that launched just a year earlier in July 1974. Hustler and Penthouse were quickly creeping on Playboy's dominant market-share of male readership for "one-handed magazines," to quote a term coined by Tom Wolfe. By November 1975, all three competitors were actively engaged in an editorial "Pubic War" that pushed the limits of how much pubic hair could be displayed on the cover models of each respectable magazine.
Playboy's November 1975 cover with Patricia Margot Mcclain visibly touching her genitalia was the high water mark of Playboy's engagement in the so-called "Pubic Wars." It's arguably the most risque photo every published on a Playboy cover. At the risk of losing readers, advertising dollars, and taking on the character of a smut magazine, Hefner committed to keeping Playboy a classy publication shortly after the November issue went to press.
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