Playboy Pinups On Meeting The Male Gaze -- The Cut

Issue no. 4 of Playboy magazine, published in March 1954, featured Dolores Del Monte, an aspiring actress from Spokane who agreed to do some “figure modeling” for a calendar. Somewhere between home and the photographer’s studio, she realized it probably meant sans clothing, but it was $50 for an hour of work, so she said all right. She was in relatively exclusive company, having followed Marilyn Monroe’s debut centerfold by only a few months, but Del Monte, who got married and had three children not long after her nude pictures were taken, didn’t realize they had ended up in Playboy. Years later, her college-age son happened to be perusing a 25th-anniversary retrospective issue of the magazine, featuring thumbnails of all the centerfolds to date. He called up and said, “Mom, I’ve got some news about your past.” Her reaction was equal parts embarrassment—he was her son, after all—and pride.

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