Back in the 1950s, Playboy made waves by making nudity an integral part of their magazine to make a statement, along with making it a platform for journalism, interesting interviews, and stellar short fiction from some of literature and science fiction’s luminaries. In 2017, they’re doing it again.
A mere year after the announcement that Playboy was removing nudity, they’re announcing that the magazine’s print edition and digital channels were seeing a return of full nudity. The decision seems to be an acknowledgement that the policy hasn’t produced the turnaround they’d hoped for.
Cooper Hefner, son of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, announced the return of nudity along with a number of major changes to the magazine. He was announced as the Chief Operating Officer of Playboy Enterprises last October.
Although they had been coyly skirting around the “no nudity” rule with strategic covering, strict adherence to an apparent no-genitals rule, and such gimmicks employed by other publications as body paint, they’re celebrating a full return to nudity with a new campaign called, “Naked is Normal”, devoted to encouraging Americans to be less prudish and more welcoming toward human anatomy.
Along with bringing back the naked babes, Playboy is dropping their old tagline, “Entertainment for Men”, while bringing back updated versions of features such as “Party Jokes”. A new section called “Heritage” will be devoted to revisiting the magazine’s past stances and considering their meaning in the current cultural climate.
In announcing the move, the young Mr. Hefner, son of Hugh Hefner and 1989 Playmate Kimberly Conrad, admitted that the decision to drop nudity was well-intentioned but ultimately a mistake. Indeed, he has been consistently opposed to the decision.
While the nudity is returning, the newer photographic style and choice of models seems to be staying. And that’s a good thing. Back in the 1950s, aside from models like Marylin Monroe, most of the models looked like girls next door. In the 60s, they tended to look like glamor models; in the 70s, more of the same. By the 80s they were running pictorials of buxom babes who bore no resemblance to your next-door neighbor. An entire generation joked about how they used to think that women had staples in their stomach. Along with those staples came a near-total lack of features such as skin texture.
In the 90s and 2000s, the buxom babes gave way to young women largely devoid of hips, body fat, and pubic hair, favoring women who looked more like fitness models than nude glamor models, down to balloon-like breast implants, with these fitness models being put into lingerie and done up in glamor model makeup. Along with the change in body styles and body hair, the advent of Photoshop meant that their photo artists could more effectively reduce features such as rough skin, discoloration, stretch marks, and so on. Indeed, one of their recent Playboy Plus models, in a spread-eagle pose, had porcelain-smooth-looking skin everywhere except her nipples and pussy lips. Contrast this with Playboy’s many online competitors, where women now tend to have a diversity of body types, measurements, and photo editing that while it may not be 100% natural, at least looks more natural.
So Playboy, recognizing that not only had the Internet eaten the lunch of traditional print publications, is also looking to go for a more natural look in their models, along with a more natural look to the photography. Time will tell if it will be enough to save a print publication in an age where online is king.