High Society (magazine)

Last updated
High Society
High Society (magazine).png
Categories Men's magazines
FrequencyMonthly
PublisherBlair Publishing Group [1]
First issueMay 1976;48 years ago (1976-05)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Website company.highsociety.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

High Society is an American pornographic magazine. In addition to hardcore pictorials of nude models, it also has feature articles and occasional celebrity pictorials.

Contents

History

High Society was first published in May 1976. Carl Ruderman hired the adult industry's first female men's magazine editor, Gloria Leonard, in 1977. [2]

Leonard, an adult film star, is credited with the use of "900" and "976 phone numbers" to advertise upcoming magazine issues. This evolved into the very first "phone sex" lines. [2]

In November 1981 a spin-off magazine, High Society Live!, debuted. Another venture was a celebrity focused publication, Celebrity Skin magazine, in 1986. The 10th Anniversary Issue of High Society, published May, 1986 featured Gail Thackray (Gail Harris) with a 10-page spread, Centerfold and Front cover. [3] Over its 25-year run Margot Kidder, Ann-Margret and Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully attempted to sue the magazine after it published nude photos of them. [4]

High Society has a pay-per-view TV channel. [5]

The magazine is published by the Magna Publishing Group, [1] which was acquired by 1-800-PHONESEX on December 22, 2015. [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Penthouse</i> (magazine) Erotic magazine

Penthouse is a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione and published by Los Angeles–based Penthouse World Media, LLC. It combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictures of women that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore pornographic pictures of women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloria Leonard</span> American pornographic actress, feminist (1940-2014)

Gloria Leonard was an American pornographic actress during the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) who later became the publisher of High Society magazine. As a board member of Adult Video Association and its successor the Free Speech Coalition, Leonard was an outspoken advocate for the adult film industry and free speech rights.

<i>Playgirl</i> American womens magazine

Playgirl was an American magazine that had historically featured pictorials of nude and semi-nude men alongside general interest, lifestyle, and celebrity journalism, as well as original fiction. For most of its history, the magazine printed monthly and was marketed mainly to women, though it quickly developed a significant gay male readership.

<i>Screw</i> (magazine) American pornographic magazine

Screw is a pornographic online magazine published in the United States aimed at heterosexual men; it was originally published as a weekly tabloid newspaper.

<i>Playboy</i> Playmate Female model featured in a centerfold of Playboy magazine

A Playmate is a female model featured in the centerfold/gatefold of Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month (PMOTM). The PMOTM's pictorial includes nude photographs and a centerfold poster, along with a pictorial biography and the "Playmate Data Sheet", which lists her birthdate, measurements, turn-ons, and turn-offs. At the end of the year, one of the 12 Playmates of the Month is named Playmate of the Year (PMOTY). Every Playmate of the Month is awarded a prize of US$25,000 and each Playmate of the Year receives an additional prize of US$100,000 plus a car and other discretionary gifts. In addition, Anniversary Playmates are usually chosen to celebrate a milestone year of the magazine. The use of the word "Playmate" in a sexual sense did not originate with Playboy, and was seen at least as early as 1950 in Vue magazine.

Désirée Cousteau is the stage name of a pornographic actress and striptease artist who was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She is best known for her role in the 1978 film Pretty Peaches.

<i>Playboy</i> (Brazil) Brazilian edition of the Playboy magazine

The Brazilian edition of Playboy was a local franchise of Playboy magazine. Established in 1975 by Editora Abril, it was only the fourth overall international version of the magazine, following Germany, Italy and France.

<i>Retro Gamer</i> UK video game magazine

Retro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Launched in January 2004 as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamer soon became a monthly. In 2005, a general decline in gaming and computer magazine readership led to the closure of its publishers, Live Publishing, and the rights to the magazine were later purchased by Imagine Publishing. It was taken over by Future plc on 21 October 2016, following Future's acquisition of Imagine Publishing.

<i>Barely Legal</i> (magazine) Pornographic magazine

Barely Legal is an adult magazine targeted primarily at heterosexual men.

<i>Club</i> (magazine) American pornographic magazine

Club is a monthly American pornographic magazine which is a spin-off publication of the United Kingdom's Club International. Club features sexually oriented articles, video reviews, and pictorials that include hardcore pornography, masturbation, dildo usage, and lesbian sex.

<i>Gallery</i> (magazine) Pornographic mens magazine

Gallery is an adult sex magazine published by Magna Publishing Group. It is one of the more popular "skin" magazines that arose on the Playboy magazine pattern in the 1970s.

<i>Swank</i> (magazine) American pornographic magazine

Swank is an adult or pornographic magazine published in the United States. The first incarnation was launched by Victor Fox of Fox Comics in 1941 as a men's lifestyle and pin-up magazine in the style of Esquire. Around 1954–1955, it was relaunched by Martin Goodman, the founder of Marvel Comics, and ran spicy adventure or suspense fiction by the likes of Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Norman Mailer and Arthur C. Clarke. Humorist Bruce Jay Friedman was an editor in the late 1950s.

<i>Celebrity Skin</i> (magazine) American pornographic magazine

Celebrity Skin is a pornographic magazine which specializes in showcasing images, either photographs or movie and TV screencaps, of nude or semi-nude celebrities. It is not to be confused with its rival Celebrity Sleuth. The magazine has ceased publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gail Harris</span> British model, actress, and entrepreneur

Gail Harris is a British model, actress, magazine publisher and industry entrepreneur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phone sex</span> Telephone conversation describing sex activities

Phone sex is a conversation between two or more people by means of the telephone which is sexually explicit and is intended to provoke sexual arousal in one or more participants. As a practice between individuals temporarily separated, it is as old as dial telephones, on which no operator could eavesdrop. In the later 20th century businesses emerged offering, for a fee, sexual conversations with a phone sex worker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imagery of nude celebrities</span> Topic of visual depiction of nude celebrities

There has been demand for imagery of nude celebrities for many decades. It is a lucrative business exploited by websites and magazines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern & Shell</span> British publishing and television group

Northern & Shell is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including Penthouse and Asian Babes, it published the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, and the magazines OK!, New! and Star until these were sold to Trinity Mirror in February 2018. Northern & Shell also owned three entertainment television channels: Channel 5, 5* and 5USA until 2015. It owned Portland TV, which operates pornographic TV channels including Television X and Red Hot TV; the company sold Portland in April 2016.

Magna Publishing Group, Inc. is an American publishing company headquartered in Paramus, New Jersey. Founded in 1975, the company publishes a number of magazine titles and is one of the largest publishers of pornographic magazines in the United States with titles such as Club, Swank, Genesis, Gallery, Gent, as well as "nearly 60 total adult titles". The Company has only 1 to 10 employees. On December 22, 2015, Magna Publishing Group was purchased by 1-800-PHONESEX for an undisclosed amount.

References

  1. 1 2 John Sanford, xbiz.com, iPadult.com Teams With Magna Publishing to Bring Magazines to iPad, August 30, 2012.
  2. 1 2 Kernes, Mark Sr. (March 2014). "The Industry Remembers Gloria Leonard". Adult Video News. Vol. 30, no. 3. pp. 22–23, 112. Archived from the original on 25 December 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2014.
  3. "High Society Busty Adult Magazine May 1986 10th Anniversary Collectors Issue!". amazon.com. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
  4. "Gloria Leonard". Feminists for Free Expression. Archived from the original on 18 April 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2009.
  5. Playgirl Dresses Up as PPV Channel
  6. "1-800-PHONESEX Acquires Leading New York-Based Adult Publisher". PR Newswire. Los Angeles. 29 December 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2015.