This dissertation explores the ways in which Playboy magazine confronted—and contributed to—changing notions of gender and heterosexuality in the postwar years. This work reconsiders Playboy 's treatment of womanhood, feminism, monogamy and romance, and its idealization of straight masculinity through consumerism. While acknowledging the traditional feminist critique of the magazine, this dissertation argues that Playboy also served as a progressive vehicle for the re-negotiation of gender and sexuality amidst an era of tumultuous change. This work presents new material drawn from unprecedented access to the Playboy company archives, as well as oral histories conducted with Hugh Hefner, top Playboy editors and former Playmates.

Bachelors and Bunnies directly confronts the most blatantly sexist elements of the magazine, demonstrating that if one finds fault with Playboy's treatment of women, it should primarily be for some of its early text, rather than for its centerfolds. But in contrast, this work also shows that Playboy revealed a competing sexual morality system in its readers' letter columns, which promoted a consistently compassionate and equitable view of relationships, and insisted upon tolerance for difference—including homosexuality—and a rejection of the double standard. Beyond romance, this dissertation demonstrates that consumerism was crucial to Playboy 's construction of ideal masculinity. From its first issues, Playboy acted as a lifestyle guide for the modern male, focusing on fashion, cooking and decorating. To compliment the consuming bachelor, the centerfold Playmates, portrayed as average, all-American girls who enjoyed their sexuality, challenged the Madonna/whore dichotomy that reigned in American popular culture and thus expanded upon notions of acceptable female sexuality. Finally, Bachelors and Bunnies explores Hefner's relationship to the feminist movement of the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, and ultimately expands our understanding of pop culture and sexuality in the postwar years.