I agree. I used to actually *read* the magazine. Now they have become entirely too left-wing for my tastes, particularly with their articles bashing gun owners.
Why does Playboy feel the need to pick on gun owners? They don't have a dog in that fight.
Furthermore, people can knock Larry Flynt around as much as they like, but give the man some credit. Flynt never condescends to his readers the way Hef does. Just look at Playboy's "fashion" section every month. Believe me, the "Man Who Reads Playboy" does not wear $500 t-shirts, $2400 jackets and $20,000 watches.
In doing this, Playboy makes it's readers feel inferior and missing something.
Finally, the girls. Playboy's models have become entirely too plastic, enhanced and airbrushed. They are precicely the type of girl who would never date the "Man Who Reads Playboy." Flynt, on the other hand has taken average looking college-aged girls with no makeup and no airbrushing and catapulted sales of his Barely Legal magazine through the roof with this concept.
Now there is Maxim which brilliantly adopted a no-nudity rule so that the magazine can be sold in grocery stores. Maxim also writes articles and has fashion spreads that do not make a man feel bad about himself. MAxim actually celebrates masculinity. Playboy condemns it. Is it any wonder Maxim is beating the hell out of Playboy?