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Playboy Drops Nudity As Internet Fills Demand
HughPickens.com writes: Ravi Somaiya reports in the NY Times that as part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy Magazine will still feature women in provocative poses but they will no longer be fully nude. "That battle has been fought and won," says CEO Scott Flanders. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture." According to Somaiya, for a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead. Pornographic magazines, even those as storied as Playboy, have lost their shock value, their commercial value and their cultural relevance. The magazine will adopt a cleaner, more modern style. There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be "PG-13" and less produced — more like the racier sections of Instagram. "A little more accessible, a little more intimate," says Flancers. It is not yet decided whether there will still be a centerfold.
So after 60+ years Playboy is going to make themselves completely irrelevant? I mean, who is actually going to buy it now?
Sure, the internet is full of smut, but Playboy was always a little classier.
Now they're, what exactly? I just don't see people wanting to buy Playboy with no nudity. At that point, get a Victoria's Secret catalog.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
;P~
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Now you really will be reading it for the articles!
They always stated that it was about the women, but really it was the fantasies they sold it. The one thing they have missed out on for years is the lingerie.
This is an opportunity for them to work with lingerie companies. At least this way "reader" will know what each model/actress is wearing and by that for their partners.
The problem is that due to the new Puritan SJW "all male sex is bad"
All-male sex IS bad! If you're straight...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
stock prices for implant manufacturers dropped 50% today.
Playboy in Brazil is mostly models, sub-celebrities and even tv stars to its pages, so at least it has that incentive to keep selling magazines. Sure there is tons of porn and nudes on the internet, but not from these women we fantasize.
So after 60+ years Playboy is going to make themselves completely irrelevant?
As per the article, the Playboy website ditched nudity a while ago. The traffic to the site increased fourfold...
The key to understanding what they are doing is that they were always a lifestyle brand, nudity not even being the primary reason why people paid attention to them. That was just one aspect of forward thinking based around personal freedom they embraced.
Playboy is shedding nudity to reach a broader audience and it's plainly working. Too many these days want to shun expression of sexuality altogether, and Playboy is perfectly positioned to rebel against this prudish movement (currently led by feminists).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hugh Hefner handed top control spot of the company to his daughter Christie in 1988. She resigned on the 2008/2009 new year boundary.
The magazine's market performance has apparently been gradually declining since then, starting by dropping back to 11 issues per year in 2009. (What mix, if any, of Chistie leaving because the writing was already on the wall, the third generation's changes resulting in a slide, and/or other factors may be a good subject for a post-mortem analysis and publication, some time in the future.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The SI swimsuit edition is always a blockbuster, even though there's no actual nudity (though lately it's become pretty darn close.)
So there's still a huge market of guys [I assume it's 99.99% guys] who pathetically pay to ogle sexy women in magazines, even if the women are partly clad.
Esquire was more racey pre Playboy. In response to Playboy, Esquire tuned down it prurient appeal and survived. Nothing new here just the usual course of the revolutionary becoming established and being displaced by the new revolution. Playboy may or may not survive but it is wise to try to adapt.
Hugh Hefner based Playboy on the idea of revealing the sexy side of "the girl next door." It was an innocent notion, part fantasy, part reality, presented with taste and class over several interesting decades of changing social values.
Well done, Hef. The internet has made you obsolete, but will never replace you.
She resigned on the 2008/2009 new year boundary.
Correction: Jan 31 2009
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Playboy without nudes would be like Sports Illustrated without swimsuits. Wait, maybe I need to rephrase that.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As a former Playboy photographer, I can attest to the change in Playboy in the past 20 years. It went from being a magazine that provided some of the most stunning figure photography of the most stunning females to average photography of mostly average females. I was once told by a snot nosed twenty-something photo editor that the image editing department could make a Polaroid photo look like it was shot by Pompeo Posar. So much for the hours spent getting perfect lighting, flawless makeup, and just the right poses. A bevy of Mac computers and Photoshop were the end of it. I can remember one centerfold that mysteriously lacked a navel, and another that had five fingers and a thumb, thanks to the Photoshop geniuses.
I can honestly say that I have never looked at an issue since quitting Playboy more than twenty years ago.