Playboy And Gramercy Pictures' Self/less Party During Comic-Con Weekend At Parq Restaurant & Nightclub (Photo : Getty Images)
An iconic magazine that has been the first teacher of young men when it comes to sex is making a major change. Playboy Chief Executive Scott Flanders announced on Monday that the 62-year-old publication will no longer have nude female images on its pages.
The last edition that would have nude women is February 2016. Flanders said that the 89-year-old founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner, agreed to the changes. By its March 2016 issue, the magazine - which still would feature a Playmate of the Month - would be rated PG-13, reports Guardian.
However, it would not turn into a religious magazine either because Playboy would still feature titillating images of women as part of the redesign, reports Mashable.
Part of the changes is because of the overall decline in orders for printed publications as people in search of nude images and videos could find it easily in the internet for free. Because of the availability of naked photos online, the rarity of undressed women that Playboy has become known for has been long gone, admits Flanders.
He points out, "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passe at this juncture," quotes the New York Times.
Now, the joke is that people read Playboy for its articles, not nude photos. As a result of the changing times, Flanders floated the idea of a nudity-free magazine in December 2014. "You could argue that nudity is a distraction for us and actually shrinks our audience rather than expands it," Entrepreneur quotes the Playboy chief executive.
Because of the implementation of the nudity-free policy on its website for a year now, its online edition has received 16 million unique hits monthly, quadruple the hits when it still had naked women.
The new policy, though, would dash the hopes of women like Kendall Jenner to have more followers by appearing naked on Playboy.
