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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.
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
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.