Oui (magazine)

Oui

OUI magazine first cover (October 1972)
Categories	Pornographic magazine
Frequency	12 / year
Year founded	1972
Final issue	2007
Country	United States
Language	English

Oui was a men's adult pornographic magazine published in the United States and featuring explicit nude photographs of models, with full page pin-ups, centerfolds, interviews and other articles, and cartoons. Oui ceased publication in 2007.

Oui was originally published in France under the name Lui by Daniel Filipacchi (first French issue November 1963), as a French equivalent of Playboy. In 1972, Playboy Enterprises purchased the rights for a U.S. edition, changing the name to Oui, and the first issue was published in October of that year. Jon Carroll, formerly assistant editor at Rolling Stone magazine and editor of Rags and later editor of The Village Voice, was selected as the first editor. Arthur Kretchmer, the editor of Playboy, however, had a role in assuring that editorial choices would be in line with Hugh Hefner's vision.

The intention was to differentiate the audience in mass-market men's magazines, in an attempt to answer the challenge brought by Penthouse, with its more explicit photography, and therefore compete on multiple fronts. At first Playboy considered a direct response by following Penthouse in a nudity escalation (Pubic Wars), but Playboy management was hesitant to alter the magazine's philosophy, based on a more 'mature' and 'sophisticated' audience (one-third of Playboy's readership at that time was estimated to be over 35 ). Instead a separate publication, Oui was introduced in order to pursue a younger readership, offering a combination of a "rambunctious editorial slant with uninhibited nudes pictured in the Penthouse mood."

In the late seventies, Oui published some interesting articles, including "Is this the man who ate Michael Rockefeller?" (April 1977) by Lorne Blair (lately famous for the Ring of Fire documentaries), beginning with a photograph of a grinning New Guinea native, told by the intrepid anthropologist/reporter who journeyed to New Guinea, interviewed people who had known Michael Rockefeller, then ventured into the jungle and talked to members of the tribe from whom Rockefeller had bought native art artifacts, including totem poles. In the end, he found a man who claimed he had eaten the unfortunate collector.