7 NOTES & BOLTS
11 SEX RATED
17 FANTASY TAPE
20 INTERVIEW: Russ Meyer
Maybe the happiest man in Hollywood by Paul Hirschorn & Lorne Fromer
23 CARMEN
Pictorial
Wet & Wild
31 SHAMELESS TALES
40 SUCH A LOVELY YOUNG COUPLE
Pity they were Satin's Slaves
Article by Peg Mims
43 THE GREAT CANADIAN BEAVER HUNT
A Visit to the Bedrooms of the Nation
48 JANET
Pictorial
A world-class jack-off expert
54 CRADLED IN ITS ARMS
She had the perfect lover—until the batteries died
Fiction by Aubrey Barber
57 GINNY
Pictorial
Do it NOW!
63 DIARY OF A VIRGIN
71 THE 3 MUFFKETEERS
Pictorial
Pamela, Wendy & Astrid— All for one and one for all
87 A NIGHT ON THE TOWN
Our heroic staff gets it on
91 MISS BENSON
Pictorial
No stranger to strangers
PUBLISHER'S PAGE
FORWARD INTO THE PAST Ronald Reagan has barely been president long enough to move his Geritol into the
Oval Office bathrooms and already the writing is on the wall. Fifties haircuts
are coming back in; relations with Egypt seem to be deteriorating; legislation
is in preparation to lower the minimum wage, increase the difficulty of obtaining
abortions and re-introduce prayers into public schools; social services are facing
the prospect of heavy cutbacks and the Black Caucus is issuing frightened-sounding
we-will-not-be-pushedaround statements.
You could call this a Swing to the Right and you'd be right, but it's more; it's
a Swing to Authoritarianism—something that can come from the Right or the
Left. Basically, it's a fear response. American economy and American energy are
going down the tubes and there seems to be a war on the horizon, so people want
strong leaders. You feel so much better knowing somebody's in control.
The thing about fear, though, is that it's a general feeling. It may spring from
specific causes, but once it's flowing, it soaks into every nook and cranny of
the soul.
That means you can look for more authoritarian leaders at every level of American
life. Potential little Hitlers have always been around, they just need the right
circumstances to surface and, under Reagan, surface they will. Look for new strength
in the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, even the Boy Scouts.
Look for a big rise in censorship, too. It's a field where Little Hitlers abound
and in an authoritarian era they get lots of support. Remember the 1920's? There
was no war brewing and everybody was getting rich. The Catholic Church tried to
mount a censorship of Hollywood campaign and got laughed out of town. A few years
later, in the '30's with the Depression in full swing and war looming in Europe,
they tried again and succeeded. Very quickly. With landslide support. Frightened
people like to be told what to do.
This is going to affect you and I, as reader and publisher of men's magazines.
As a reader, you're going to be faced with increasingly soft content and narrower
choice as the smaller magazines that depend on hard-core content to attract readers
die off.
In the long run, what's bad for you is bad for me. Though I'm up here in Canada,
out of the line of fire, it's common knowledge that this country always follows
the U.S.—even when there's no logical reason. It usually takes a few years
and in those years ELITE may find itself the hottest magazine on the continent—if
they keep on letting us into the States. But it won't last. As America goes, so
goes Canada and in the next few years, we're all going to lose.
