4 Ways Your Grandparents' Dirty Movies Changed The World

That wasn't a fluke, either. Before The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola made a few other films almost as mortifying as Jack. Jonathan Demme, the guy who directed The Silence Of The Lambs and Philadelphia, kicked off his career with a lesbian exploitation film whose tagline read "Women's Prison U.S.A. -- Rape, Riot & Revenge! White Hot Desires Melting Cold Prison Steel!"

What we're saying, starry-eyed kids, is that porn is absolutely your launchpad to Hollywood.

The banking industry tried to roadblock the business model by charging higher fees for such transactions, but they soon found that no grip was too strong for the American penis. By the late '90s, Gordon's model had proven itself more than viable, and it bloomed into a web retailing service. They still sold smut like the Tommy Lee / Pamela Anderson sex tape, but then a little-known new e-retailer named Amazon appeared on the scene, took the idea, and ran with it.

Thanks to the market for discreet masturbation, you never have to go inside a physical store again. Unless, for some weird reason, you don't want to support an ominous megacorporation hellbent on world domination.

These weren't just trashy throwaways from a coincidentally exclusive pool of writers. Many of the stories had nothing to do with sex. One of the first printings of Fahrenheit 451 occurred in the pages of Playboy. Their sex advice columnist was a best-selling author, for crying out loud. It was a "gentlemen's magazine" without the air quotes, running features on arts and culture right next to the boobs.

And those boobs were photographed by only the best, including Annie Leibovitz, alongside art by Keith Haring and Patrick Nagel (the guy who illustrated the 1980s). Freaking Salvador Dali collaborated with Playboy.

The publication spent a lot of time trying to outdo 60 Minutes, securing sit-downs with a bevy of important figures like Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali (in a suspiciously forgotten article where he floated the idea that miscegenation should be punishable by death), Martin Luther King Jr. (the longest conversation he ever granted to any magazine), and Steve Jobs (before he was even famous!).

Playboy was the most trusted authority for all aspects of the upscale man's lifestyle -- what he should think, buy, read, watch, listen to, and even eat. Hefner's most trusted culinary aficionado, Thomas Mario, introduced horny readers to the idea of using applewood chips for flavoring meat, curried chicken livers, and how to prepare (and spell) lobster pate. In excruciating detail. Including a 500-page book. Yep, Playboy also invented food porn.