The tuxedo-clad bunny is set to become SFW and “We buy Playboy for the articles,” might actually become reality.
The U.S. publishing giant, known for its adult content and centrefold nudes, has decided to disperse with the nudity, according to report by the New York Times.
There will still be enough provocative poses to keep teenagers (and, well, the rest of the male population) awake in the wee hours as they have been doing since the magazine’s inception in 1953, but just no nudity. The fans are heartbroken.
>#playboy>pic.twitter.com/lwTdmkzHLH
— Michael Vandenbosch (@adbieraal) >October 13, 2015
The magazine’s debut featured American screen icon Marilyn Monroe, both on the cover and the centrefold. It has since then featured a number of actors, models, TV stars and sportspersons on its cover including Drew Barrymore, Denise Richards, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Moss among others. India’s Sherlyn Chopra has also posed for the magazine’s centrefold in 2012.
The silk-pyjama clad founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine, Hugh Hefner, has reportedly signed off on the move, after it was suggested by one of the top editors of the magazine, according to NYT.
“You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture,” the company’s chief executive Scott Flanders was quoted as saying.
This was bound to happen though. With the advent of countless social media platforms, most of which have strict community guidelines about age-appropriate content, nudity and pornography, magazines like Playboy have been struggling to keep up. In fact, the magazine had already taken nudity off sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to drive web traffic.
“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,” reported NYT.
In its ‘for the articles’ defence, the magazine has regularly featured in-depth interviews with historic figures such as Fidel Castro, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and John Lennon. Top writers like Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin and Alex Haley among others have also been quoted as saying that they did not buy the magazine just for the pictures.
The magazine has been banned in India but there was news back in 2012 that there might be a Playboy Club, focusing on “lifestyle, aspiration and glamour,” launched on Candolim Beach, Goa. It eventually ended up being launched in Hyderabad in 2014, complete with customised ‘bunny’ uniforms, after the then Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parikkar refused to consider the proposal.
(with inputs from Agencies)
