‘Playboy’ To Stop Publishing Nude Images
‘Playboy’ To Stop Publishing Nude Images
By Marie Andrusewicz, NPR, October 13, 2015
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner poses for a photograph at his home in Beverly Hills in 2011. (Kristian Dowling/AP )
As part of a redesign to the magazine that will debut next March, Playboy will stop publishing photos of nude women. Its website stopped featuring nudity in August, and traffic has since increased from 4 million to 16 million users a month, according to Playboy executives.
The magazine has included photos of naked women since its debut in 1953, featuring Marilyn Monroe as the first centerfold. "If you're a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is meant for you," wrote founder Hugh Hefner in his first editor's letter.
The New York Times reports on the reason for the redesign:
"Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. 'That battle has been fought and won,' said Scott Flanders, the company's chief executive. 'You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture.' "
Cory Jones, an editor at the magazine, says Playboy will still feature racy photos, including a "Playmate of the Month," but that these images will be of a PG-13 variety.
Other content changes include expanded liquor coverage and more of the investigative journalism for which it was once known.
As The New York Times notes:
"A judge once ruled that denying blind people a Braille version of [ Playboy ] violated their First Amendment rights. It published stories by Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami among others, and its interviews have included Malcolm X, Vladimir Nabokov, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter, who admitted that he had lusted in his heart for women other than his wife. Madonna, Sharon Stone and Naomi Campbell posed for the magazine at the peak of their fame. Its best-selling issue, in November of 1972, sold more than seven million copies."
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Here's an interesting switch.
The internet made Playboy irrelevant.
Now they say they will go after a "younger" audience, under 30. So it will be all lifestyle articles and bikini models.
It's all over for Playboy, one of the cultural phenomenons of the last half of the 20th century.
This is a business model that I predict will be very handy for others as well. More isn't always better. I bet we start seeing more and more businesses catering to folks who want something beyond the hyper-sexualization that has run rampant through much of our culture.
They may become a solid niche lifestyle magazine, like dozens of others. Anything special about Playboy is in the history books.
By the way, I noticed this in the front page feeds. A few minutes later, it may have been gone from those feeds and went unnoticed the rest of the day.
There needs to be a function on the forums page that indicates when there are new threads.
Well, I guess we'll find out if "I only buy it for the articles" excuse is true!
I only read the articles. I never looked at the nudes. It's true, really it is.
Does anyone know why the default font size in the comments is so small ?
In other words, Hugh can't get it up anymore, so no more nudes.
The mighty ____ has fallen.