High Society, Gallery, and Club: The Second Tier That Shaped the Market
Beyond the Big Two
The story of American adult magazines is usually told as a two-way rivalry: Playboy vs. Penthouse. But beneath those giants existed a thriving ecosystem of magazines that served millions of readers, employed thousands of photographers and writers, and collectively shaped the market in ways the big titles couldn't.
Magazines like High Society, Gallery, Club, Club International, Cheri, Swank, and Genesis each found distinct niches in a crowded marketplace. Together, they represented the vast middle market of adult publishing — too explicit for mainstream newsstands, not explicit enough for the hardcore market, and often more innovative than their better-known competitors.
Gallery Magazine
Gallery, launched in 1972, positioned itself as the "thinking man's" adult magazine — a phrase that would have made Hefner wince, since Playboy considered that its territory. But Gallery genuinely delivered on the promise, publishing fiction and journalism of surprising quality alongside its pictorials.
The magazine's most famous editorial feature was its annual fiction contest, which attracted submissions from thousands of aspiring writers. Several published novelists got their start in Gallery's pages. The magazine also published investigative journalism that mainstream publications avoided, including early coverage of government surveillance programs and corporate corruption.
High Society
High Society, launched in 1976 by Gloria Leonard (one of the few women to lead a major adult publication), was deliberately more explicit than Playboy or Penthouse. Leonard, who also worked as an adult film actress and director, brought an insider's perspective to the magazine that gave it an authenticity its competitors lacked.
Under Leonard's leadership, High Society was an early adopter of interactive technology. The magazine launched one of the first telephone sex lines in the early 1980s, pioneering a business model that would generate billions of dollars for the adult industry. Leonard was also a tireless advocate for First Amendment rights and industry legitimacy.
Club and Club International
Club magazine, published by Magna Publishing, maintained a consistent presence on newsstands from the mid-1970s through the 2000s. Its sister publication, Club International, offered a more European aesthetic that differentiated it from domestic competitors. Together, the Club titles built a loyal readership that valued consistency and quality.
The Club magazines were notable for their production values — high-quality printing, professional photography, and clean layouts that compared favorably with more expensive publications. For many readers, Club offered the best value proposition in the market: good content at a fair price.
The Economics of the Middle Market
The second-tier magazines operated in a challenging economic environment. They couldn't command Playboy's advertising rates or Penthouse's celebrity access, but they still had to meet the same production and distribution costs. Success depended on efficiency, reader loyalty, and finding content niches that the big magazines overlooked.
Many of these publishers survived by operating multiple titles simultaneously, sharing photographers, writers, and production infrastructure across their portfolios. A single publisher might produce four or five magazines with different names and editorial identities, all from the same office with many of the same staff.
The Archive Value
The archives of these second-tier magazines are historically valuable precisely because they were less self-conscious than Playboy or Penthouse. They weren't trying to be cultural institutions — they were trying to sell magazines to regular people. As a result, their content, advertising, and reader letters provide a more authentic picture of American popular culture than their prestige competitors.
The advertisements in particular tell stories that more upscale publications' ad pages don't. While Playboy carried luxury car and high-end liquor ads, the second-tier magazines advertised products and services aimed at working-class and middle-class men — a different and equally valuable window into American consumer culture.