The year was 1976 and Americans were celebrating the Bicentennial with souvenir
coins, parades of tall ships and pageantry in the streets. Some of their elected
representatives, however, were doing their celebrating between the sheets. You
may remember Ohio Congressman Wayne Hays and his secretary, ElizaBeth Ray, but
who recalls Representative Robert L. Leggett, who that year admitted to two illegitimate
children and a sexual liaison with a Congressional aide? Nor did politics provide
the only fertile field for muckraking journalists, who duly reported the misbehavior
of men of the cloth, as well. The Reverend Billy James Hargis of the CruSade for
Christian Morality, for example, was accused of seducing both boy and girl students
at his American Christian College in Tulsa. Sizing up the situation, the editors
of Playboy decided it was time to add a new retrospective feature to the magazine.
After all, Playboy had long been chronicling developments in the fields of cinema
and music; why not an annual report on another of its areas of expertise, sex?
So was born The Year in Sex, which made its debut in the February 1977 issue with
a rundown of the events of 1976. We've been checking up on the world's sexual
temperature every year since in the pages of the magazine. Not until 1987, however,
did accounts of prurient pratfalls pile up to such an extent that we considered
devoting a special edition to the subject. And here they are, the clay-footed
politicos and evangelists, the see-you-incourt celebrities, the entrepreneurs
out to make a buck and, of course, the bimbos. We hope you enjoy this first Year in Sex, a Playboy Special Edition.
1987 Reviewed
Wild! Wacky! Wonderful!
Hitting Below the Bible Belt Jimmy Bakker, Tammy Faye Bakker, Jessica Hahn (nude).
Bodies Politic Gary Hart, Donna Rice (nude), Ilona Staller (nude), Monica Coghlan
(nude), Maria-whittaker-porn-star">Maria Whittaker
(nude), Bess Myerson (Miss America 1945), Jennifer
Wesner (nude), Pierrette Le Pen (nude).
Artists' License Thomas Hart Benton, Ontario's Petroglyphs Provincial Park, Chicago's
Sculpture Park, Doug Johns, Pablo Picasso.
