Every boy’s birthday suit-clad, blonde bombshell fantasy is perhaps no more as America’s leading sex revolution icon, Playboy magazine, undergoes a radical change: Playboy magazine nudity is no more. Centerfolds will be leaving center stage. Or will they?
Far from having a change of heart, the nudie mag is getting dressed as a business decision. Last month Playboy editor Cory Jones suggested the idea to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner that the magazine should halt publishing naked women because the internet is doing a fine job of fulfilling the visual sex needs the magazine once provided.
According to MSN News, “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.’”
How ironic the sex beacon for boys should be bested by its own doing. Even more disheartening is that our sex saturated society no longer has to wait for a monthly dose of naughtiness – it’s available at the mere click of a button. Thanks to the surge of porn via the internet, Playboy magazine is taking a back seat.
Playboy is modernizing in order to reach its “coveted audience.” The magazine has already taken steps “to make content safe in order to be allowed on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” according to MSN. “And all the changes have been tested in focus groups with an eye toward attracting millennials — people between the ages of 18 and 30-something[.]”
MSN further noted, “[f]or 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.”
You know things have taken a turn for the worse when Playboy admits that its content no longer has shock value and relevance for readers. Since its peak in 1975, circulation has declined from 5.6 million readers to 800,000 readers, MSN reported. The decline unfortunately only comes with the modernization of the media market and social media platforms receiving vastly greater web traffic.
This observation came just over a year ago. “In August of last year, its website dispensed with nudity. As a result, Playboy executives said, the average age of its reader dropped from 47 to just over 30, and its web traffic jumped to about 16 million from about four million unique users per month[,]” Stated MSN.
So the question remains of the men’s magazine, “…taking the nudity out of Playboy is going to leave what?” Aside from something left for the imagination, Playboy magazine will be taking a more wholesome, PG-13 direction.
According to the New York Times:
The magazine will adopt a cleaner, more modern style, said Mr. Jones, who as chief content officer also oversees its website. 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,” he said. It is not yet decided whether there will still be a centerfold.
The magazine will continue interviews, investigative journalism, and fiction. Its sex columnist has even been updated as a “sex-positive female.”
The decision to cover up has caused some heartache though. “Don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Jones said of the decision to dispense with nudity, “12-year-old me is very disappointed in current me. But it’s the right thing to do.” Thanks, Playboy, but the damage is already done.
