No more nudes! Playboy magazine is undergoing a redesign — and will no longer publish pictures of nude women!
The decision, taken by Playboy founder and current editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner, 89, came during a meeting last month, and magazine execs have told the New York Times that the move will bring the publication more in line with modern thinking.
The mag, which first published in 1953, will still feature pictures of women in “provocative poses” but will abandon the publication of totally nude, pornographic images. Since the advent of the Internet, such photographs are no longer commercially viable.
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“You are now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passe at this juncture,” Playboy chief executive Scott Flanders told the New York Times.
There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be “PG-13,” the magazine’s content manager, Cory Jones, said, adding that the images will have an Instagram feel about them (“[They’ll be] a little more accessible, a little more intimate,” he said). It is not yet decided whether there will still be a centerfold.
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The magazine, which had a circulation of 5.6 million in the 1970s, has seen its figures drop to around 800,000 currently. Execs hope a move away from nudity will have the same effect on figures as it has had for the Playboy website, whose traffic has quadrupled since banning naked photos.
