Playboy throws in towel, ends nude photos
Playboy said Tuesday it will stop publishing nude photos in its iconic magazine for men, throwing in the towel in the face of rampant online pornography.
Playboy, which broke lifestyle taboos in the 1950s with bare-breasted pictures in a magazine for the mass market, said the publication will see “a top-to-bottom redesign” that will be unveiled with its March 2016 edition.
“The reimagined Playboy magazine will include a completely modern editorial and design approach, and, for the first time in its history, will no longer feature nudity in its pages,” said the statement from Playboy Enterprises.
SEDUCTIVE PICTORIALS
Playboy said it would include “sexy, seductive pictorials of the world’s most beautiful women” but without nudity, and that it would “remain committed to its award-winning mix of long-form journalism, interviews and fiction.”
The move marks a remarkable turnabout for a magazine that launched in 1953 with a sultry Marilyn Monroe on its cover, breaking the taboo of showing women au naturel.
“The political and sexual climate of 1953, the year Hugh Hefner introduced Playboy to the world, bears almost no resemblance to today,” said Playboy Enterprises chief executive Scott Flanders.
Flanders told The New York Times: “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so (nudity) is just passe at this juncture.”
He also said that people are “more free to express ourselves politically, sexually and culturally today, and that’s in large part thanks to Hef’s heroic mission to expand those freedoms.”
FEWER COPIES
With pornographic images now so readily available online, and accessible via a variety of connected devices, Playboy is selling fewer copies.
The magazine’s circulation peaked in 1972 at seven million, but has declined to about 800,000 now, the Times said, citing Alliance for Audited Media figures.
In order to be allowed on now-ubiquitous social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that drive Internet traffic, Playboy has already toned down some content.
Cory Jones, Playboy’s chief content officer, met with 89-year-old Hefner last month on the change in strategy. Jones told the Times that the magazine will still feature a Playmate of the Month, though the images will now be “PG-13.”
And it’s unclear whether or not the centerfold will survive the chopping block.
The Playboy brand, with its trademark tuxedo bow tie-wearing bunny silhouette logo, has had a major impact worldwide.
