Playboy Magazine Will No Longer Publish Fully Nude Photos
'Playboy is Done With Nudes' reads like an Onion headline, but here we are. Apparently, the magazine that made its mark on our culture with millions of images of naked women is buttoning up: they're done printing fully nude photos. Why the sudden change? Are they on the wrong side of the #FreeTheNipple Instagram war, or is this just for the art of it all?
It would appear that it's the latter. According to the New York Times, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, met with Hugh Hefner last month at the Playboy Mansion to discuss a change in strategy. Jones proposed that the magazine stop publishing nude images, and Hefner, now 89, agreed.
Fret not, though, nude enthusiasts: Playboy will still feature women "in provocative poses." But they will no longer be fully nude. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive told the Times. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.” Playboy’s circulation has dropped from 5.6 million in 1975 to about 800,000 now, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
All of these changes seem to be being made in an effort to capture the millenial audience. As the Times reports, "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." Apparently, if you do away with the nudes, the millenials will come.
The target audience, Mr. Flanders said, is young men who live in cities. “The difference between us and Vice,” he said, “is that we’re going after the guy with a job.”
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