As of early this week, iconic men's magazine Playboy announced that it will no longer be printing nudes of women. According to the New York Times, chief executives met with 89-year-old founder Hugh Hefner to discuss the failing magazine. Circulation had dropped from 5.6 million in 1975 to 800,000, and although online attempts at capturing the politically correct conversations of the millennial liberals had worked (Playboy's “Cat Calling Sheet” went viral and pleased feminists), the decision to take a new direction had more to do with free online porn. In other words, Playboy has been overrun by the thing it helped pioneer.
“That battle has been fought and won,” Scott Flanders, Playboy's chief executive told the New York Times. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
The whole idea now is to focus towards lifestyle, politics and sex. Its sex columnist, chief content officer Cory Jones said, will be a “sex-positive female,” writing enthusiastically about dating and sex. They will fall back on the long form investigative journalism they once published. Remember when Playboy talked about current events and supported Camille Paglia's work? Apparently, the new Playboy will provide all the things to millennials that Vice cannot (because, as Flaunders said, "the difference between [Playboy] and Vice is that we're going after the guy with a job.") They will still do a Playmate of the Month photo except it will be PG-13. This is the magazine for men who work 9-5, fuck via Tinder, sport fedoras and turn their nose up at alpha males.
Dear people who are sexually attracted to females: do you remember when you first saw a Playboy? Do you remember getting a glimpse at Pamela Anderson's creamy, cartoon body and then having the page slammed shut by one of your friends who ripped it over into his own hands? Remember how you had to savor that image of Pamela all day, until you got home, maybe even to the next, because that was the most access to a hot nude woman you were ever going to get? Remember when masturbating was imaginative? When you had to remember a woman and not just click on a little button to see a 3D dog pile of anal sex?
I sound like an old fart. I don't care. Wasn't Playboy rather tame, classy and dapper to begin with? Hustler was the "smut" magazine, no? Penthouse tried to compete with the increase of free sex online by upping the raunch in their magazine and it failed miserably. Playboy has to revamp to save jobs, to save it's iconic trademark, and this means creating content that provokes the increasingly PC culture as well as realizing that nudity is not special and given away for free everywhere from RedTube to Chaturbate.comto some young girl's Instagram feed.
It just seems ironic that two completely opposing forces (free hardcore pornography available at the click of a button and hyper-politically correct millennial scholars who are offended by everything) are causing a modest, iconoclastic business that celebrates the beauty of the female body to kick the thing it's most famous for.
How ridiculously porn-ified is our society if Playboy can’t compete?
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