SHEIN's Playboy merch a time capsule of abuse of women and girls
Chinese e-commerce giant and serial corporate sexploitation offender SHEIN is selling global porn brand Playboy. SHEIN acquired an extensive range of Playboy merch following its buyout of collapsed UK fast fashion retailer Missguided – a long time Playboy collaborator.
SHEIN’s Playboy products include women’s t-shirts, hoodies, pyjamas and tennis-themed “sports wear” emblazoned with Playboy’s brand name, bunny head logo and porn themed images from Hugh Hefner’s magazine catalogue.
Playboy mag cover merch points to bottomless pit of commodified sexploitation
An investigation into the original mag covers was like opening a time capsule of Playboy's sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls. Here's what we found:
March 1978 Missguided X Playboy hoodie: Homage to child exploitation, rape and violence against women
Playboy's March 1978 issue featured a pictorial titled “Pretty Baby: 1978’s Naughtiest Film”. Pretty Baby featured then-11-year old child actor Brooke Shields as Violet, a 12 year old girl who is auctioned off in a New Orleans brothel to a man for sex.
The pictorial includes images of a nude Shields. In one, she is posed on a bed alongside actor Keith Carradine who plays Bellocq - a visiting photographer who has taken "artistic interest" in the brothel, and who ultimately becomes Violet's abuser (and husband).
Playboy characterised Shields’ role as of a “nymphet hooker” in line with the film's French director Louis Malle's portrayal of Violet as a sexual aggressor and a child wanting to be abused by a man. This is not surprising. Playboy had already published nude images of Brooke Shields taken at age 10. Hugh Hefner and his affiliates had a long history of publishing nudes of underage girls as men's masturbation material, and comic-style “funnies” portraying child sexual abuse as humorous.
Malle made several films depicting the sexual abuse of children (including incest abuse of a teenage boy by his mother). He joked in the Playboy article about a bestiality scene he directed which depicted a 15 year old girl with a snake (he wasn't sure how old the snake was but didn't think its age would "pass"), and mocked efforts of the day to tackle child sexual abuse (which would have potentially led to the banning of his film and the three preceeding it), labelling it "hysteria".
Pretty Baby issue: Minolta used images of a young girl in gymnastics poses to flog cameras to Playboy's readership. Who was Minolta pitching to?
Playboy normalised eroticisation of violence against women
In the same issue, Playboy published sex poll "results" which framed female degradation - conjured up by women themselves ('I told them I was their total slave') - as peak male sexual fantasy:
Without critique (or any mention of filing police reports), Playboy reported that seven in 100 men pegged commiting sexual violence against women (for at least one, his wife) as the pinnacle of sexual experience: 
April 1966 Playboy X Missguided tee pays props to Lolita author
In this collab product, Playboy and Missguided give a shoutout to Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita is the story of a paedophile's obsession with a 12 year old girl who becomes his step daughter. The novel gave rise to cultural spin-offs including two film adaptations (one was particularly criticised for its portrayal of a 14 year old Dolores Haze as a sexual agressor); Lolita-inspired fashion for teens; Lolita-esque paedophilic aesthetic in ads featuring young children; and a Japanese style of animation depicting childlike (most often female) characters in a sexualised fashion, known as 'lolicon'.
September 2013: Playboy's final issue with Manwin at helm
Pornhub's parent company Manwin had operated Playboy’s digital assets including playboy.com, playboyplus.com and playboytv.com since 2011. In October 2013 Manwin was purchased by Ferras Antoon and David Tassillo and rebranded MindGeek (and later, Aylo). The two Pornhub execs would later stand before Canadian Parliament, and face multiple lawsuits by dozens of victims, over rape and child abuse videos.
In 2014, Playboy Customer Support was rebranded from Manwin to MindGeek. The Aylo-Playboy partnership continued until early 2025 when Euro mega pimp and pornographer Docler Holding, through its subsidiary Byborg Enterprises, purchased a major stake in Playboy and took over management of its digital assets.
This September 1984 Playboy X Missguided hoodie memorialises Playboy's pornification of female college students:
"Girls of the Big Ten": a pornographic pictorial featuring naked female students from top US universities. Playboy emphasised to its readers that one was "Daddy's Little Girl".
As does this October 2014 mag cover tee:
Girls of the Atlantic Coast Conference: Playboy used pornified and objectifying portrayals of young female college students and their sexualised body parts to promote college men's sports.
Willy Rey, Miss February 1971: death by overdose
In August 1971, six months after appearing as Playboy's Miss February centerfold, 23 year old Dutch-Canadian Willy Rey died after overdosing on sleeping pills. Rey's nude likeness was used on the first-issue Playboy stock certificates when the company went public in November 1971.
In her 2024 report Porn stars who have died Rahmah Ghazali pointed to contemporary research showing that women in the sex industry experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at rates of nearly 70 per cent - equivalent to combat war veterans. Dr Gail Dines reported that most (female) porn performers suffer from PTSD because they are raped regularly on set.
It is heartwrenching yet unsurprising that many former Playboy "models" also died by drug abuse and suicide.
Star Stowe, Miss February 1977, murdered
SHEIN flogs merch plastered with Playboy's February 1977 cover using descriptors like 'Vintage', 'Retro', '90s Style' and 'Fashion Statement'. We're supposing they have no idea of the devestating story attached to this issue, and if they did, they wouldn't care.
The issue's centerfold was Star Stowe (born Ellen Lousie Price). Post-Playboy, Ms Stowe worked as a strip club dancer and selling sex. She was last seen alive stepping into a male sex buyer's vehicle. The following day, March 16, 1997, her semi-naked body was found dumped behind a pharmacy. She had been strangled.
(Apparently, Playboy doesn't care either. It used the pornographic February 1977 magazine image of Star Stowe to promote its subscription based porn site, Centerfold (now Playboy Club).)
Retailers have no excuse for selling commodified tributes to Playboy sexploitation of women and girls doubling as "fashion". SHEIN needs to dump all of its Playboy products immediately.
Add your comment