Violence in Playboy magazine: a longitudinal analysis

This paper analyzes the amount of violence in cartoons and pictorials from January 1954, through December 1983 in Playboy magazine. Inasmuch as the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography and Obscenity has focused upon magazines such as Playboy as potentially harmful to society because of the violence merged with sex, such an analysis is appropriate at this time. Each cartoon and pictorial for each issue of Playboy for the 30-year-period was examined for violent depictions. The average number of violent cartoons for the 30-year-period was 6.92/year or 0.58/issue. The average number of violent pictorials was less with an average of 1.89/year or 0.16/issue. The ratio of violent cartoons or pictorials to the total number of cartoons or pictorials was small. The ratio of violent cartoons to all cartoons was 25.2/1000 and for violent pictorials to all pictorials it was 8.6/1000. Moreover, the ratio of violent cartoons to total pages was 2.86/1000 and for violent pictorials 0.78/1000 pages. Although the overall number and ratio of violent cartoons and pictorials in Playboy over the 30-year-period examined was rare, a major question addressed was whether the amount of violence was increasing. Rather than a linear relation, a curvilinear relationship was observed with the amount of violence on the decrease in recent years. Although the effects of violence in sexual material is still being debated, those who argue for greater censorship of magazines such as Playboy because of its depictions of violence need a new rationale to justify their position.