Penthouse, Hustler & Playboy in South Africa’s neoliberal nineties

ABSTRACT

The nineties saw the lifting of sanctions in South Africa which implied an influx of brands that needed appropriate spaces to advertise their wares. For this reason, and the virtual end of censorship, this was the ideal context for international men’s magazines to enter the South African market. Hustler, Penthouse and Playboy all started South African editions as the country transitioned into democracy, manifestly contributing to a globalising of the local, sexual imaginary. The origin story of each publication is told here as a documentation of the “Americanisation” of sex in nineties South Africa, meaning, the way sexual representation was standardised via print capitalism and a postfeminist ethos. The article investigates the ways in which these publications engaged with psycho-affective discourses of progress in order to further and normalise a nationalism caught between the dream of decolonisation and the reality of globalisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Hustler
• Penthouse
• Playboy
• South Africa
• postfeminism
• pornography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jan-Ad Stemmet (2005a, 199) regards the moral conservatism of the Afrikaner as an essential component in its authoritarian wherewithal. Stemmet (2005a, 199) believes the apartheid government policed sex because of the religious conviction that they were the chosen nation of God, an “uitverkore volk.” Michael Drewett (2008, 289) refers to the “overzealous … Calvinist ideology” of the Afrikaners.

2 Drewett (2008, 290) explains that the “very rationale of the [cultural] boycott was to deprive South Africans of “normal” interactions with the outside world.” Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006, 19) defines a cosmopolitan world as a place interested in cultivating “habits of coexistence” or “conversation,” a shared language or culture, across geographic boundaries.

3 Authors like Yungchih Wang (2019) do not see globalization as threatening the sovereignty of nations. Likewise, Dosekun (2015) does not argue for a one-way flow or influence, but sees culture as multivocal and dialogic even where it promotes western identities and cultural expressions over more local ones.

4 I will occasionally refer to Penthouse, Hustler and Playboy as “pornography” because of their intention to stimulate sexually and to do so with an air of moral transgression. The Britannica Academic (2021) provides this definition of pornography but it is a much-contested phenomenon, most recently discussed in some detail by Amia Srinivasan in her book, The Right to Sex (2021).

5 Kopano Ratele (2020, 2) says a decolonial faculty is needed in South Africa to “surfac[e] the traces and impact of colonial/modern racist power.” Decolonial structures are needed to “subvert and interrupt the globally controlling logics of colonial/modern racist difference.”

6 Little is known about the readerships of Penthouse, Hustler and Playboy. The All Media and Products Survey (AMPS), which was the industry measurement survey in the 1990s never measured these titles.

7 The distinction between the New South Africa as a global “brand” and the reality of post-apartheid governance in South Africa may be comparable to other “global brands” such as “Incredible India,” another neoliberal project started in the early 2000s.

8 “Hard-core” was the term used to classify pornography which included explicit representations of sexual penetration.

9 Schneider (2018, 311) offers a useful explanation of the neoliberalism of the ANC failing because it had two profound consequences: “(i) an increase in financialization, accompanied by a lack of development, which resulted in poor income growth and high unemployment; and (ii) an increase in inequality, as well as the perpetuation of racial segregation and animosity.”

10 I would have liked to say more about the content of the South African issue of Playboy, but in truth it really mirrored the American version, which is well-documented and analysed (see Osgerby 2001). My focus here is on the consumerism promoted by Playboy, even in a country that is not as affluent as the US.

11 Hustler and Loslyf continued to exist in a printed form even into the 2010s. Between June and December 2014, the South African edition of Hustler had a readership of 167 000 while Loslyf had a readership of 31 000. But both print publications had shut down by 2015. Loslyf was initially edited by the literary figure, Ryk Hattingh, and was politically subversive and damn funny. After him the magazine became virtually indistinguishable from the other men”s magazines (see Kirsten 2016).

12 “Percentage of Individuals Using the Internet 2000–2017” (XLS). Geneva: International Telecommunications Union. 2017. Accessed 30 October 2018.

13 The Report entitled “Social and Behavioural Science Research Analysis” written by Edna Einsiedel for the Attorney General”s Commission on Pornography, provides an overview of American research that was focused on addressing the harmful effects of pornography (see Einsiedel 1986 and 1992). In terms of the South African context, see for instance, Stemmet (2005a, 2005b) and Van Marle (1994).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and Stellenbosch University.

Notes on contributors

Stella Viljoen

Stella Viljoen is associate professor in Visual Studies at Stellenbosch University. She has written widely on representational cultures and how these index gender norms and political aspirations. Her interest is in the capitalist imagination.