BOB GARFIELD: So that's where we're going. Now a look back at where we've been. Half a century back to the Kinsey Report. The first part issued in 1948 dealt with sexuality in the human male; the second in 1953, with the human female. The two studies resounded like a thunderclap across America bringing sex education programs like these in its wake. [SOUND FROM SEX EDUCATION PROGRAM]

WOMAN: I think he's somehow gotten the idea that he's weak. He's been awfully worried lately, so my husband says, about his own-- um-- sex activity.

MAN: By which I suppose you mean either his dreams and emissions at night or his urge to stimulate himself?

WOMAN: It's both I guess. He, he seems to feel he's getting out of control or something. [MUSIC]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: It was 1953 when the 27 year old Hugh Marston Hefner produced the first issue of Playboy at his kitchen table. He even drew the cartoons himself. There was no cover date because he didn't know if there would be a second issue. No one had ever dared to challenge the anti-obscenity laws of the U.S. Post Office to distribute nude pictures through the mail as a commercial venture. But Hefner succeeded. That first issue sold 50,000 copies, not least because it contained the famous calendar pinup of Marilyn Monroe which he bought from a printer. So it was from humble beginnings that Playboy's opulence, Playboy's politics and eventually the Playboy philosophy took its place in America's consciousness.

BOB GARFIELD:In a pinched postwar America, Playboy celebrated spending. In an era of sexual repression, it made hedonism the "ism" of choice for the nation's elite. And by the way, it's still the leading men's magazine in the world. Coming up after the break, Hugh Hefner, Gay Talese and America after Playboy.