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Oui (magazine)

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Oui
OUI magazine first cover (October 1972) featuring Nadia Cassini
CategoriesPornographic magazine
Frequency12 / year
Founded1972
Final issue2007
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Oui was a men's adult pornographic magazine published in the United States and featuring explicit nude photographs of models, with full page pin-ups, centerfolds, interviews and other articles, and cartoons. Oui ceased publication in 2007. ("Oui" is French for "yes".)

Playboy years

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Oui was originally published in France under the name Lui by Daniel Filipacchi (first French issue November 1963), as a French equivalent of Playboy.[1][2] In 1972, Playboy Enterprises purchased the rights for a U.S. edition, changing the name to Oui, and the first issue was published in October of that year. Jon Carroll, formerly assistant editor at Rolling Stone magazine and editor of Rags and later editor of The Village Voice, was selected as the first editor.[3][4][5] Arthur Kretchmer, the editor of Playboy, however, had a role in ensuring that editorial choices would be in line with Hugh Hefner's vision.[6][7]

The intention was to differentiate the audience in mass-market men's magazines, in an attempt to answer the challenge brought by Penthouse and Hustler, with its more explicit photography, and therefore compete on multiple fronts.[1] At first Playboy considered a direct response by following Penthouse in a nudity escalation, but Playboy management was hesitant to alter the magazine's philosophy, based on a more 'mature' and 'sophisticated' audience (one-third of Playboy's readership at that time was estimated to be over 35).[8] Instead, a separate publication, Oui, was introduced in order to pursue a younger readership, offering a combination of a "rambunctious editorial slant with uninhibited nudes pictured in the Penthouse mood."[9]

Article content

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In the late seventies, Oui published some interesting articles, including "Is this the man who ate Michael Rockefeller?" (April 1977) by Lorne Blair (lately famous for the Ring of Fire documentaries), beginning with a photograph of a grinning New Guinea native, told by the intrepid anthropologist/reporter who journeyed to New Guinea, interviewed people who had known Michael Rockefeller, then ventured into the jungle and talked to members of the tribe from whom Rockefeller had bought native art artifacts, including totem poles. In the end, he found a man who claimed he had eaten the unfortunate collector.

Oui also hosted several reportages about Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activity, like the article "CIA vs. USA – The Agency's Plot to Take Over America" by Philip Agee, about an alleged Operation PBPrime, whose leaders were the top four men in the CIA and whose target was the control of the U.S. government.

In a more humorous vein, Oui also published the essay "The 3 Most Important Things in Life"[10] by Harlan Ellison in its November 1978 issue. The three things in question were sex, violence, and labor relations, each illustrated by anecdotes from Ellison's life. The sex anecdote involved a less-than-successful assignation with a young woman, the violence anecdote was about witnessing a murder in a movie theater during a screening of Save the Tiger, and the labor relations anecdote was Ellison's version of the story of his being fired after only one morning at The Walt Disney Company for jokingly suggesting the making of a pornographic cartoon using the primary Disney characters. The piece has since been republished in Ellison's Stalking the Nightmare and Edgeworks 1. Oui also published short fiction.

A 1977 interview by Peter Manso of the then 29-year-old emerging actor Arnold Schwarzenegger on issues like sex, drugs, bodybuilding, and homosexuality produced some embarrassment 25 years later to candidate Schwarzenegger in the 2003 California gubernatorial campaign.[11]

During the 1970s, Oui printed a copy of Shere Hite's questionnaire about female sexuality that was used as the basis of The Hite Report. Replies were received from 253 of the magazine's women readers.[12]

Post Playboy years

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Despite its popularity, Oui was unable to produce a profit. Furthermore, management realized that Oui was taking more readers from Playboy than from Penthouse.[13][14][15] So, in June 1981 Playboy Enterprises, based in Chicago,[16] ended its Oui experiment.[17] The magazine was sold to Laurant Publishing Ltd. in New York; its new president and chief operating officer was Irwin E. Billman, former executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Penthouse Group.[18]

During the 1980s the magazine maintained its distinction from Playboy by publishing graphic nude pictures like its rivals Penthouse and Hustler.[19] Initially, Laurant featured celebrity nudity in Oui, peaking in 1982 with pictorials of Phyllis Hyman,[20] Linda Blair,[21] Demi Moore, [22] and Pia Zadora.[23] In the same year the magazine bought the short story "Down Among the Dead Men" by science-fiction writers Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann.[24] The editorial plan was to return the magazine to the "younger Playboy image" that it previously had.[25]

The 1990s found the magazine focusing on pop culture and youth-centered topics, with rock musician interviews and an increasingly large comics section that included R-rated versions of the X-rated Carnal Comics: True Stories of Adult Film Stars line, Rip Off Press's Demi the Demoness (later the first adults-only comic character to be adapted as a live action film), and a serialized version of Jay Allen Sanford's illustrated book Triple-X Cinema: A Cartoon History.

The magazine subsequently experienced a significant decline in circulation. As had many of its competitors, Oui expanded its photo content to hardcore in the early 2000s, which included depictions of couples having sexual intercourse, including explicit penetration. Oui ceased publication in 2007.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Aaron Latham, "Rabbit, Run", New York, Nov 27, 1972, p.54
  2. ^ Stéphane Groueff, "My Odyssey", iUniverse, 2003, ISBN 0-595-25709-7, p. 574
  3. ^ Carroll, Jon: "Strange Days at The Playboy Mansion", San Francisco Chronicle, April 09, 1996
  4. ^ Carroll, Jon: "Strange Days at The Playboy Mansion (Part II)", San Francisco Chronicle, April 10, 1996
  5. ^ Carroll, Jon: "Sex and Magazines" JONCARROLLPROSE October 14, 2016
  6. ^ Carroll, Jon: "Windy City legend hangs up his cleats", San Francisco Chronicle, September 16, 2002
  7. ^ Carroll, Jon: "Arthur Kretchmer tried to warn me", San Francisco Chronicle, September 17, 2002
  8. ^ "Hefner's Grandchild" Time, August 28, 1972
  9. ^ "Adventures in the Skin Trade", Time, Jul. 30, 1973
  10. ^ "The 3 Most Important Things in Life" at harlanellison.com
  11. ^ "Schwarzenegger has 'no memory' of lewd 1977 interview - Candidate says he never lived 'to be a politician'". CNN. August 28, 2003.
  12. ^ Hite, Shere (2011). The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (reprint ed.). Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781609800352.
  13. ^ Steven Watts, Mr Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream, John Wiley and Sons, 2009
  14. ^ Susan Gunelius, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
  15. ^ Elizabeth Fraterrigo, Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America, Oxford University Press, 2011
  16. ^ "Oui Album 1". Abe Books. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  17. ^ Thomas, Sari (1986). "Gender and social-class coding in popular photographic erotica". Communication Quarterly. 34 (2): 103–114. doi:10.1080/01463378609369626.
  18. ^ Dougherty, Philip H. New York Times, June 12, 1981
  19. ^ McMillan, Joy Elaine (2011). Storms Never Last: Memoirs of a Playboy Bunny. Xlibris Corporation. p. 72. ISBN 9781465368898.
  20. ^ "Phyllis Hyman Bares Her Beautiful Body". Jet. Vol. 62, no. 17. Johnson Publishing Company. July 5, 1982. p. 56. ISSN 0021-5996.
  21. ^ "Actress sues magazine over nude photos". United Press International. December 31, 1985.
  22. ^ Gregory, Alex; Huyck, Peter. "The Bimbo Conspiracy". Spy. Vol. 9, no. 4. pp. 43 & 48.
  23. ^ Riefe, Jordan (May 20, 2015). "Pia Zadora Makes Her L.A. Debut in 'Pia Reloaded': Concert Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
  24. ^ Ashley, Mike (2020). Science-Fiction Rebels: the Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 To 1990. Vol. 4. Oxford University Press. p. 39. ISBN 9781789621716.
  25. ^ "Media Notes From All Over". New York Magazine. Vol. 15, no. 15. New York Media. April 12, 1982. p. 20. ISSN 0028-7369.
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