Norman Mailer: Works and Days

Playboy

American men's magazine founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner. Mailer's debut here is the July 1961 symposium contribution 'Sex and Censorship in Literature and the Arts' (61.8), a substantial early statement of his views on obscenity, censorship, and the writer's privileges; later reprinted, in part, as 'Petty Notes on Some Sex in America' (66.11, 68.11). Mailer would return often through the 1960s and 1970s — most famously in the January 1968 Brower interview.

Mailer’s first Playboy appearance is “Sex and Censorship in Literature and the Arts” (61.8, July 1961) — a symposium response running to seven non-continuous pages and laying out, in characteristically charged terms, the case against censorship as a form of “totalitarian” intrusion on art. The piece was reprinted, in part, as “Petty Notes on Some Sex in America” in Cannibals and Christians (66.11) and The Idol and the Octopus (68.11).

Stub; to be expanded as later appearances are added.

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Last updated: 2026-05-26