Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your edification a photographic essay on the changing sexual preferences of the white, north-american male - every Playboy playmate of the month from December 1953 through July 2002. A visual document of the changing shape of popular womanhood over the last 50 years, this collection shows that many themes are constants - symmetry of features, good dentristry etc. - but that a remarkable variation of key features has occured over the years. I don't propose to be truly objective about this subject, but if Eric S. Raymond can wax lyrical about what makes good porn (Reprobates passim), I think I can spare a few lines to comment on my perceptions here.

Va-va-voom

The playmates of the 50's and early 60's had a certain something that seems to be missing from the latter-day women - curves. Compare, for example, miss December 1954 with miss June 1993, or miss July 1963 with miss January 1992. The earlier examples make more of a virtue of the gifts most naturally bestowed upon women, whereas our more recent tastes appear to lean more towards the lean. As we move through the years, we seem to more favour women who actively lessen some of the features of womanhood. There is a clear transition from the curvaceous to the athletic, from the oft-sculpted to the self-sculptured. Waists, hips and thighs have certainly come in for a bit of a bashing. Miss September 1956 shows an ample amount of flesh, but she is far from obese or even overweight. She is, however, a lifetime in the gym and under the knife away from miss September 2000. Waists, as such, appear to decline through the 60's (miss June 1967) and disappear in the 70's (miss September 1975) to be replaced by solid walls of gym-toned muscle (miss January 1997). Only extreme corsetry appears to hint at a waist (miss August 1996). Hips have moved from child-bearing (miss June 1956) to child-like (miss October 1995).

A bit of a boob

In terms of breast size, there is a huge variation within any given year (cf miss May 1956 vs miss November 1956, miss February 1996 vs miss March 1996), but overall the trend is towards the petite. For example compare miss December 1959 and miss April 2002 at the smaller end, miss February 1959 and miss May 2002 in the middle and miss October 1959 with miss March 2002 at the high-end of high-beams. The shape of breasts has also changed, from the pointed torpedoes and A-bombs of the 50's and early 60's (miss October 1957, miss March 1963) along with more matronly examples around the same time (miss October 1956, miss October 1964) through to the manufactured spheroids of today (miss October 2000, miss November 2000).

In between times there have been marked shifts, the mid-60's showing a tendency towards the small with only one or two truly buxom wenches a year, and these tended to be extreme (miss February 1966, miss March 1967, miss March 1968, miss December 1968, miss March 1969) as if only to throw the smaller breasts into sharp relief. Interestingly these show up mainly in the Spring. The 60's also brought us our first afro-carribean playmate, introducing another dimension (miss October 1969).

The first breast implants were made available in 1962, and by the 1970's were in full swing (miss November 1970, miss October 1972) although some larger, seemingly natural specimens were displayed if only for their curiosity value, the models having not much else of merit (miss May 1974, miss November 1975). Mostly the fashions of the 60's followed through, however.

The 1980's kicked off with some better examples of augmentation (miss January 1980) which continued to "improve" across the decade - indeed the 1980's were indeed a time of marked contrast, between the natural norm (miss July 1983, miss September 1986) and manufactured monsters (miss February 1984, miss November 1984).

The 1990's kicked off with another advert for the plastics industry (miss January 1990), but mainly continued the trends of the 1980's (miss September 1993 vs miss May 1992), perhaps widening the gap between the extremes (miss July 1997 vs miss November 1993). It's really to early to comment on the new millenium, but things don't look much like changing (miss January 2002 vs miss October 2000). In fact it's difficult to draw the line between woman and doll in some cases, some models look positively manufactured (miss April 2001, miss August 2001, miss May 2002).

A bit of fluff

Hairstyles have gone through some changes over the years, too. Pubic hair wasn't shown until 1972 (miss October 1972) so it's difficult to comment before then, but it seems to have been alive and well (miss August 1976, miss September 1983) right up until the early 90's when it started somewhat of a decline (miss September 1990) untill we reach the ridiculous Hitler moustaches of today (miss October 1999). Much of this may be down to the size of swimwear changing, but we were distracted from pubic region by outrageous hair in other regions during the late 80's (miss June 1986) and early 90's (miss August 1991).

Apparent age

Whilst there have been nods to youthfulness throughout (miss January 1963, miss January 1964), the maturity of 'look' the models have had has in general moved from womanly (miss January 1956, miss June 1959) through girlish (miss May 1972, miss February 1981), to a look I'll describe only as 'barely legal' (miss August 1994, miss April 2002, miss July 2002). This, of all the trends, is most disturbing.

Catching some rays

As mentioned before, swimwear has been getting considerably smaller since the 50's and although it's effects are sometimes still visible (miss January 1997), the norm nowadays is for an even tan. Not so in the 50's (miss January 1958), in fact tans were few and far between, but as we can see swimwear is shrinking by the mid-60's (miss November 1964, miss March 1966), has a bit of a resurgence in the 70's (miss August 1970) until it's practically nonexistent by the 80's (miss September 1982).

Conclusions

For my money, playmates have evolved into highly commoditised 'product' by the slow eradication of what fashion has declared imperfection. Far from producing perfection, however, what we have is a bland indisginguishable mass - the whole has been sacrificed for a combination of features. I'd much rather sleep with the women of the 50's and 60's, but my modern eye has been trained by advertising (and perhaps my hypothalamus) to only see flaws when these women are presented for my auto-erotic entertainment. When true sexual fantasy kicks in, however, the barbie-dolls of today pale in comparison to real women. Long live miss Marks'n'Sparks - long live woman!