Before I proceed, I think I need to make an announcement. This, in all probability, will be the final time I crown a Playboy Playmate Of The Year. This follows a long slide into irrelevance for what was once the vanguard pornographic magazine in the world. But the advent of cheap and free porn on the Internet led to slumping advertiser dollars which forced The Bunny to make editorial cuts. To try and change the image in order to save it, they then switched over to non-nudity, which was a total mistake. They brought back breasts (though not necessarily pubic hair), but the issues each year were cut from 12 to 11 to six and, for 2019, four. It's now not even in print anymore; they discontinued hardcopy issues earlier this spring, although before the pandemic.
I would be sad, but I have disagreed with the changes for several years now. The cutting down on issues was the first truly disappointing sign, but the pivot to non-nudity damaged my image of Playboy beyond repair. I tried following along with pictorials on the website Vintage Erotica Forum, but I got the feeling so many former aficionados were so dismayed by its new direction that even they stopped caring enough to pilfer the images and put them on the website. So that made me care even less.
But it's time to put 2019 to bed, so I looked at what images I do see from VEF, and I'm finally making some decisions. Overall it is nowhere near the heyday of Playboy, which in my opinion was the late eighties, when I looked over my parents' Hong Kong editions of PB when I looked through them at The Store, to around 1998, when I graduated from college. (I know a lot of Playboy diehards think those halcyon days were much earlier.) Showing pubes makes a big difference, but near the tail end of the magazine they were going for much, well, artier photos when all I really wanted to see were tits, ass and pussy. Playboy always said they sought a higher-end depiction of female nudity, and they tried to distance themselves from Penthouse, its smuttier competitor, throughout its life. But I always thought that The Bunny always had the central intention of arousing carnal desires in the person looking at these spreads. I didn't feel that way about the mag in the last, oh, two or three years. Guess that's another reason why I'm not so heartbroken on the death of the print magazine.
With that being said, there are a few bomb-diggity photos that I like. What I was hoping for were so pussy shots, such as the single, solitary one from a Playmate in 2018, which is the only reason why I voted for Olga de Mar for 2018 PMOY. For example, Miss January, Vendela (her last name is Lindblom, but she doesn't go by that name in this pictorial) and Miss Septembe, Sophie O'Neil, are posed in such a way where you think you see their vajajays, but they've lifted up their left legs just enough whereby their thighs are sort-of-covering their triangles. Drat!
With that being said, Vendela has a couple peek-a-boo shots where her slim tits are poking out on the outsides of a singlet. Her whole boxing motif is a good one, and it harkens back to the days where Playboy had themes for their centerfolds. Miss March, Miki Hamano, has this one shot where she's wearing a black slingshot swimsuit, but either she's wearing it backwards or she's pulled out the straps that would cover her nipples so that the suit is not covering anything. Shots like that drive me wild. And I love that she was considered to be a model for Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue that came out over the summer. Going from nude to non-nude in a more "reputable" magazine is so subversive it gets me erect, to be honest.
Yoli Lara, Miss June, has got a banger of a body. The Puerto Rican is slim and tight and would fit with the vintage Playboy Playmates. She's got two fantastic shots. One of them is just a fabric wrapped around her breasts except that her left nipple is peeking out. The other is her wearing just a bikini bottom that sort-of evokes the American flag, holding a glass bottle that seems to be holding Coke (branded with The Bunny logo) and her throwing her head back so we can only see her chin. Man, her small tits in that shot, fuck. ...
So I gave you roughly my fourth through second picks. My pick for top model, however, has to go to Miss April, Fo Porter. I'll be honest, y'all: Her pictorial doesn't do much for me. But if you were a fan of America's Next Top Model, you'll remember Fo as a contestant on Cycle 12 of ANTM, which aired the spring of 2009. She finished fifth, and although I remember dutifully watching most episodes of that season, I don't remember much of her. Still, like Eugena from Cycle 7, she took off her clothes (well, at least showed her breasts), and got recognition from me. And in Fo's case, that recognition is best Playboy Playmate of 2019 from yours truly.
OK, so my reasons for crowning her may be cheap and inauthentic. But, honestly, so was the magazine around this time. Maybe it's fitting.
By the way, Playboy is still publishing Playmates online, I think. I have not gone to their website. Neither has anybody on Vintage Erotica Forum, nor has anyone on Wikipedia updated their list of Playmates. We all stopped caring.
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