It's interesting to make the comparison with the marketing of women's entry into the labour market which began around the same time

Another way to think about it is the general phenomenon of "bourgeoisfication" of working class men's atttitudes and spending habits. The "playboy" idea was practiced by upper class young men around the 1890s, before the invention of the "weekend" (a full two days off, with possibilities for leaving work a bit early on Friday). in "The Education of Rita" the man who plays' "Rita's" working class husband is frustrated that at age 26 she does not want to get pregnant. She moves into a slightly different category from most of her hairdresser friends. The "playboy" ideal has been expressed in literature for the exceptional man (Bond, James, shaken not stirred). But it was not common as an ideal for less exceptional men (who were supposed to graduate, get a job, get married, and raise children). A "playboy" is a "boy" who has not accepted responsibilities once associated with being a "man". The concept of a "playman" does not work since a "man" must work and not "play". With de-industrialization of the rust belt etc. that became less important.

The playboy idea goes back further than Hans Bakker notes (although the 1890's could be seen as the apex of "courtesan culture" in Europe....) However, rather than using that term, which was often reserved for the rich, the more common term was simply "bachelor." A bachelor hung out at the local "sporting house" --another term for brothel--where he could get a hot meal, read a paper, get a bath if needed, and also have a girl for the hour or the evening. The YMCA was created as a remedy to the "sporting house" for young men whose parents wanted to keep them on the straight and narrow. The invention of "romantic marriage" also came about in the 19th century. Marriages were often made for reasons of money, family status, etc, and not necessarily because two young people were "in love". The idea of romantic love became popular among women, many of whom also tolerated their husbands infidelities, esp. if he was a man with money. The bachelor was really what we'd now call a "bro"-- he preferred the company of other men for socializing and women were basically sex objects or ornaments. One really has to look at the evolution of the "sporting house" in 19th century industrialized America, the closing/outlawing of most brothels by 1917 (WWI and too many recruits with VD) and the changing mores of the U.S. after both wars to understand the idea of the playboy in general and then to understand how Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine brought back the idea of "courtesan culture" to the post WWII U.S. and how women's bodies were used as marketing tools. The playboy and bachelor concepts are really complicated and one has to understand how prevalent the dichotomy of wife/whore was rooted in the U.S. and Europe prior to the discovery of penicillin, which essentially cured both syphilis and gonorrhea and paved the way for "The Sexual Revolution". (I feel like I should have added footnotes to this post, as there are a number of excellent texts, which I've read, which explain a lot of this.)

And what about the playboy's counterpart, the "liberated" independent middle class single woman? She seems to have entered the mass market advertising world a few years later, along with her own magazines (e.g. Cosmo and Ms). And what about the young single men (and women) who really were homosexual? I have to wonder if the new (or revived) acceptability of urbane single adulthood presented new options for closeted lifestyles?

the blog post and possibly the book makes
a very misguided claim. Here is a popular song from the 1920-30s, from a different culture that only recently before that had started to modernise (40 years
earlier it was a "traditional" muslim society) and you can see the
"playboy lifestyle" is already something quite present in the big town
(read the lyrics under the video):
http://translate.google.bg/translate?hl=en&sl=bg...

Second, didnt "the problem" of homosexuality become prominent also
quite late? why one would suspect bachelors to be gay before gays became
recognised as something frequent??
More likely homosexuals pretended to be bachelor adventurers, when they didn't go for joining the ranks of monasteries.

Third, the playboy ad hints that such a group already existed that is being
targeted to the magazine's advantage. I'd say that this article shows
many of the issues with this type of historical cultural analysis not
being done with enough scientific integrity.

this is idiotic... what do you do with casanova and the rest... antiquity also had its share of playboys... you know the US are not the center of the world, don't you?