The Playboy Questionnaire

In the early seventies, the Playboy Foundation commissioned Morton Hunt and an independent research institute to conduct a nationwide study of the American way of sex. Our intention was to take the nation's sexual pulse a generation after the landmark research of Alfred Kinsey. The questions before us then were clear: Had there been a sexual revolution? How different were our sexual behavior and attitudes at the end of the turbulent Sixties from what they had been in the Forties? That Playboy/Hunt study--a landmark of its own--was published in a book titled Sexual Behavior in the 1970s. It charted a sea change in what Americans did in the bedroom and what they thought about what they were doing.

Recently, we have seen an increasing number of sex surveys. Just to name a few, Redbook and Cosmopolitan magazines have polled their female readers on the subject, and Shere Hite has done anthologies of questionnaires asked first of women, then of men. While those studies contain some useful information, we have the disturbing sense that they are talking about someone else, or someone else's friends.

To further cloud the issue, we have watched the leaders of the new right try to sell us on the idea of a moral majority--a creature of mythological proportions that, we are told, does not particularly enjoy sex and certainly doesn't want to talk about it. Yet we feel that the country is not undergoing a conservative backlash, that there are people whose sexual appetites remain healthy and whose sexual curiosity is in fact. Significant numbers of those people are likely to be Playboy readers. They are, in fact, likely to be you.

We know that our readers are vitally concerned with sexuality--and we have designed this questionnaire accordingly. There are questions about your behavior, your attitudes, your emotions. There are questions about communication with your partner and about the sort of lover you are. We ask about monogamy, about affairs and about what you think of your peers. There are questions that will allow you to compare yourselves with the men and women who answered the Kinsey and Hunt surveys. And there are questions that no one has thought to ask before.

The questionnaire has been prepared for this introductory installment of our seven-part series on men and women. What could be more natural than asking you, our readers, to help us reach state-of-the-art conclusions about the human condition? We encourage your participation--both the men and the women among you. This might be an appropriate place to point out that while Playboy's audience of nearly 20,000,000 is primarily male, more than 4,000,000 women read us each month. We cherish their attentions; they are our companions-in-arms and can provide a unique source of insight into the sexual equation. This is an equal-opportunity questionnaire--although there is an occasional question designed exclusively for men or for women, most of the questions apply to both sexes.

This series will be reporting on subjects ranging from the brain's role as a sex organ to the gender component of cultural evolution. At the conclusion of the series, we are going to deal with real life as we live it by reporting the findings of this survey. You tell us; we'll tell the rest of the world. Your responses to the questions go on the tear-out answer sheet (page 211).

This is a self-mailer. Fold this sheet, moisten here, seal and mail.

Answers

The Playboy Questionnaire gives us an opportunity to find out what you think, feel and do about sex and relationships. It is not a test. Take your time. If you want to compare notes with someone else, terrific. Invite your best friend over for some wine, intimacy and insight. We're interested in her or his response, too. Feel free to run off a second questionnaire to send in, but make the copy before you mark the original.

To use this answer sheet, tear along the perforation. Carefully circle your choice of letter or letters that apply to each question. Skip the ones that do not apply to you. If there are some that you prefer not to answer, simply skip them as well. The value of the questionnaire will depend on your candor. All replies are anonymous.

Please mail your answers to Playboy, 919 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611, before January 15, 1928. (This perforated sheet is self-addressed and stamped.) We will discuss the results of the survey in a future issue of Playboy at the conclusion of the Man and Woman series. Thank you for your cooperation and collaboration.