A Letter from the Editors

“Absolutely.”

When we called Victoria Valentino, who first appeared in this magazine as a Playmate in September 1963, and asked if she would consider being in PLAYBOY again, at the age of 77, she didn’t hesitate. Like us, she recognizes that in 2020, fighting for equality means providing actual visibility. An activist against sexual assault, Valentino knows firsthand how speaking truth to power—she courageously spoke out against Bill Cosby in 2014—is a societal force for good. She also knows that beauty has no boundaries.

In this, our Equality Issue, you’ll meet people whose fearless work gives us hope that in this next decade we will all enjoy a more equitable society.

Christiane Amanpour, one of the most respected journalists of our time, is the subject of this issue’s Playboy Interview. Currently the host of an eponymous news show on CNN and PBS, Amanpour has interviewed dozens of world leaders, from Angela Merkel to Yasir Arafat to Bill Clinton. Here she appears as interviewee, discussing how she reports on topics including gender inequality, climate-change denial and the current threats to our democracy. She also talks sex—and trust us, it’s a page-turner.

For this issue’s Playboy Symposium, we partnered with Franklin Leonard and Kate Hagen, the Black List’s founder and director of community, respectively, to examine how well (if at all) Hollywood is keeping up with evolving attitudes on sex, sexuality and gender in cinematic representations. And across two music features, we profile the enigmatic country singer Orville Peck and the rising rap star Princess Nokia, two artists who are rethinking gender norms in their genres and in the industry at large.

For A Very Millennial Scandal, PLAYBOY features editor Anita Little interviewed former congresswoman Katie Hill in the days before and after her resignation. Hill, in the wake of a political scandal that brought about online debates on revenge porn and sexual misconduct at work, is forging ahead with a new mission to protect others from falling victim to internet-fueled sex shaming.

In The Other Plan B, gender studies professor Shira Tarrant argues that regressive reproductive-health laws represent a penalty against sex and that men benefit more from access to abortions than they realize. Here at PLAYBOY we are particularly proud to have supported the National Network of Abortion Funds last year, and in 2020 we will remain committed to advocacy in the face of state and federal legislative challenges.

As always, the arts will light the way, which is why it was paramount for us to present a group of artists who excel at creating spaces for conversation, connection and representation. Director and photographer Nadia Lee Cohen’s cover pictorial, Once a Playmate, Always a Playmate, features the perpetually magnetic Valentino, Candace Collins Jordan, Reneé Tenison, Brande Roderick and Raquel Pomplun. Elsewhere, we examine how art fosters equality through Hank Willis Thomas’s traveling retrospective (The Art of Attention), JR’s career-defining mural in New York (Portraits for the People) and Sterling K. Brown’s new production company in Los Angeles (Sterling for All). We are also thrilled to add Jim Carrey’s incomparable imagination to our pages; the actor-artist contributes For Goodness Sake, a visual tribute to the late civil rights leader Elijah Cummings.

And finally, our first Playmates and Playmate photographers of the new decade: Riley Ticotin, shot by Heather Hazzan; Chasity Samone, shot by Adrienne Raquel; and Anita Pathammavong, shot by Ali Mitton. Together, these women demonstrate the importance and beauty of individuality. As Pathammavong writes, “I believe that empathy is the first step toward equality. We simply cannot let discrimination be indulged and privilege weaponized to divide people. We need to take the time to listen and educate instead of coming from a place of pain and anger.”

So welcome to 2020. This is our vision for it.