"Nudity was never the problem because nudity isn't a problem."

February 14, 2017 9:22 AM

After a year, Playboy magazine has decided to bring naked women back to its pages.

Playboy.com saw a quadrupling of traffic after going no-nude in the summer of 2014, and starting with the March 2016 issue, then-CEO Scott Flanders changed the magazine to "PG-13". As of the March/April 2017 issue, the centerfold and other nude pictorials will return to the pages of the magazine, while . Chief Creative Officer Cooper Hefner (son of Playboy founder Hugh) announced via Twitter:

I'll be the first to admit that the way in which the magazine portrayed nudity was dated, but removing it entirely was a mistake. Nudity was never the problem because nudity isn't a problem. Today we're taking our identity back and reclaiming who we are.

He also posted on Playboy.com* about "a new Playboy philosophy":

Playboy will always be a lifestyle brand focused on men’s interests, but as gender roles continue to evolve in society, so will we.

* -- Link goes to a Washington Post story, not Playboy.com.

posted by Etrigan (72 comments total)

Pictures, or it didn't happen.
posted by Artful Codger at 9:27 AM on February 14, 2017 [32 favorites]

If you say 'nudity' enough times in a row it loses all meaning and just sounds silly: nudity nudity nudity nudity nudity.....

And who was the nutcase who thought taking the nekkid pictures out was a good business plan for a company founded on nekkid pictures?
posted by easily confused at 9:39 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

If you want to class up the magazine, you have to remove *all* pictures of women. Making it into this weird Maxim-with-better-articles is a bad idea, because the world doesn't need a new Maxim.

Remove the pictures entirely, and suddenly it gains a little respectability and you can read it in public without being embarrassed. They were too chicken to do that, so instead we slide backwards.
posted by graventy at 9:46 AM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

But I thought everybody only read it for the articles?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:46 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think the amount of nudity in Playboy has always varied. I read an issue from the late 70s and it had, maybe, a dozen photos of naked ladies and the rest of the relatively lengthy magazine was just journalism and New Yorker-grade cartoons about sex. Another issue from the mid-90s was much shorter, mostly nude photos and very little journalism and I don't remember there being cartoons at all. Then I think in the early 2000s it started competing with FHM/Maxim-type lad mags and became a totally different animal.

In conclusion, Playboy is a land of contrasts.
posted by griphus at 9:48 AM on February 14, 2017 [16 favorites]

Remove the pictures entirely, and suddenly it gains a little respectability and you can read it in public without being embarrassed. They were too chicken to do that, so instead we slide backwards.

I would imagine that the brand is strongly enough associated with pornography that you still can't read it in public, because the Venn diagram overlap between 'have heard of Playboy' and 'know that Playboy don't currently run nude images' is not high. That would be likely to be true even if it had no women in, and so you don't get a lot of sales increase. You are however likely to annoy some subscribers who like either women or women and articles.
posted by jaduncan at 9:49 AM on February 14, 2017 [17 favorites]

Goddamn Playboy, why don't you get out of the goddamn business of telling people what's "normal"?

You've screwed up the expectations of my partners, you've helped me to internalize the male gaze and misogyny, you've objectified women for the duration of your skin-mag tenure. Leave us alone. You're not even marketed to me.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 9:56 AM on February 14, 2017 [40 favorites]

I think jaduncan has it right. The website's been nudity-free for several years, but it still gets blocked by lots of web-content filtering systems, because, let's face it, "Playboy = nudity" is a pretty deeply-entrenched meme. The number of people who'd been wanting to subscribe to the paper magazine, but had been holding off because of nudity, doesn't seem to me to likely be a high number.
posted by foldedfish at 9:57 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I think either way this is relatively inside baseball, so to speak. My experience has been, for example, that many women aren't aware that, while "I just read it for the articles!" is a punchline, Playboy actually does have a lot of long-form articles historically (versus other well-known magazines that are more or less 100% nudity all the time). I seriously doubt anyone was enjoying some in-public Playboy-reading renaissance in the past year.
posted by tocts at 9:58 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

But I thought everybody only read it for the articles?

When I worked for Borders we carried Playboy in Russian, German, and some other language. I'd occasionally buy a copy, and a coworker would say, "You speak Russian?" and I'd reply, "Don't be silly. No one buys this thing for the articles."
posted by cjorgensen at 10:03 AM on February 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

Probably my favorite Playboy-related thing was a CD-ROM archive of their long-form interviews, released back in the 1990s. Hard to find now, but it was pretty darned fascinating.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 10:06 AM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

But I thought everybody only read it for the articles?


I grew up reading short story anthologies that years later I discovered were first published in Playboy.

They could have made money on those too, in other words.
posted by ocschwar at 10:10 AM on February 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

Got the "for the articles" comment in four. Nice work, MeFites!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:11 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you say 'nudity' enough times in a row it loses all meaning and just sounds silly: nudity nudity nudity nudity nudity.....

It morphs seamlessly into "new titty" which has a certain creepy appropriateness
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:31 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think writers used to like Playboy because Playboy paid well. That was its reputation about 25+ years ago when I started writing.

But if you want to look at pictures of naked ladies... those pictures are everywhere. If you want to read quality writing... there is quality writing available everywhere, for free.

I was never a Playboy fan, except perhaps 35 years ago, when, as a tween, the greatest thing was finding porn in the woods or nudie mags some friend's father had "hidden" someplace.

What is the purpose of Playboy? Who would buy such a product in this day and age?
posted by My Dad at 10:34 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

I was probably the only 13 year old ever who got bores with the naked pics 5 minutes after finding my granddad's stash and actually did read the articles. Thanks to that I had most issues from the early 70s to sometime in 1986.

If I wanted to look at naked women I'd get my hands on a Penthouse or Hustler, but it definitely made for good trading material. Got a lot of NES and SNES games (and more than a few Penthouse and Hustler) out of that collection.
posted by wierdo at 10:35 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Pretty much all downhill after Barbi Benton left.
posted by ridgerunner at 10:37 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

My brother works there. I'd like to think he had something to do with this.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 10:41 AM on February 14, 2017

But if you want to look at pictures of naked ladies... those pictures are everywhere. If you want to read quality writing... there is quality writing available everywhere, for free.

AHEM.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 10:44 AM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

Well, thank goodness! Wherever would we find naked ladies without them?
posted by jonmc at 10:50 AM on February 14, 2017

Pretty much all downhill after Barbi Benton Little Annie Fanny left.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:54 AM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

If you say 'nudity' enough times in a row it loses all meaning and just sounds silly: nudity nudity nudity...

Or like the sexiest Op Ivy tribute act ever.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:03 AM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

Typical move by a struggling company:

"We're struggling! We need to be more like Maxim and FHM!"

Not bothering to realize Maxim and FHM already exist. Maybe, MAYBE Playboy could have pulled off (heh) a reinvention as a hipster-retread-reboot appeal. Actually publish young, cool authors, good fiction, get more urban/artisanal, etc... make the centerfolds more inclusive, more real, a la "Suicide Girls"
posted by jeff-o-matic at 11:04 AM on February 14, 2017 [8 favorites]

Hef is 90, and his son is 25? Poor kid.

It disturbs me that I could have told them getting rid of nudity wouldn't work. Why can't they pay me for these insights?

What is the purpose of Playboy? Who would buy such a product in this day and age?

A case could be made that Playboy's particular brand of nudity, with all its retouching and artful poses, is a selling point. Like sure, I could buy a purple sweater anywhere, even make one myself, but I really like Calvin Klein's style and just the way his stuff looks on me, so I'm going to look for a Calvin Klein purple sweater in the store. But yeah, print is dying fast and if they don't figure out how to make money in a very crowded field, they're in deep doo-doo.

But I thought everybody only read it for the articles?

Boston Globe's headline this morning in the business section was "Playboy realizes that, no, people don't just read it for the articles" and I literally LOL'd and said OL to no one, "um, duh?"
posted by Melismata at 11:27 AM on February 14, 2017

more real

grimdark, gritty nudity

no more photo shoots at beach cabanas or lavishly decorated bedrooms -- backdrops are now a soul-crushing office cubicle, an abandoned Foster's Freeze, etc
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:28 AM on February 14, 2017 [24 favorites]

And no more phony Irish whiskey. No more jerky beef.
posted by Melismata at 11:29 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Playboy paid authors outrageously great back in the '60s-'70s, but it did have the somewhat justified reputation as publishing "the worst fiction by the best authors in America".
posted by Chitownfats at 11:30 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Our long national nightmare is over!
posted by spilon at 11:30 AM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Make (half of) America nude again!
posted by Chitownfats at 11:32 AM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

with all its retouching and artful poses

And its unrelenting sameness. By the 70s it was already obvious that America's diversity wasn't reflected in those pages, and that pattern persisted until the end. We'll see about what comes next I guess?
posted by 1adam12 at 11:50 AM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

I would imagine that the brand is strongly enough associated with pornography that you still can't read it in public, because the Venn diagram overlap between 'have heard of Playboy' and 'know that Playboy don't currently run nude images' is not high.

When was the last time you saw anybody read any magazine in public?
posted by srboisvert at 12:02 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Playboy also used to run some decent science fiction back in the day.
posted by Ber at 12:06 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

The magazine is kind of an afterthought by this point isn't it? Don't they make all their money on marketing the brand? Merchandise with the bunny logo on it. All the internet related stuff. The magazine is just there to give those things an excuse to exist. Without the nudity the brand turns into Harvey the Invisible Pooka and nobody gives a shit anymore.
posted by wabbittwax at 12:12 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Indeed. And the Playboy Clubs are coming back, too!
posted by Melismata at 12:14 PM on February 14, 2017

Now we're talking.
posted by porn in the woods at 12:15 PM on February 14, 2017 [5 favorites]

I'd just like Playboy After Dark to come back. That show was cool.
posted by srboisvert at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

grimdark, gritty nudity

My boss had his cigar magazine come to the office for a while and I was paging through it and one of the ads was a woman in baroque and downright complicated lingerie smoking a cigar in what looked to be a complete shithole of a dirty, cheap hotel room overlooking an industrial slum.

Still not entirely sure what was going on there but I have some theories.
posted by griphus at 12:35 PM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

If you want to read quality writing... there is quality writing available everywhere, for free.

There is a really specific niche that I don't think a magazine has quite filled. The best way I'd describe that niche is, "College-educated people who like dick jokes." Like, it seems like there are whole podcast companies targeted at that group, but no print publication of record for them.

If I were put in charge of Playboy for some reason, that's who I'd try to target. Get people like Kevin Smith and Eric Andre and the McElroy Brothers to write columns for it.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:43 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

(But I'm also certain that what I'm describing exists and I just don't know about it because I'm an old.)
posted by roll truck roll at 12:45 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

roll truck roll, you just described Cracked, which indeed does not have a print edition, but who cares.
posted by Melismata at 12:48 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ah. Yeah, that checks out.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:50 PM on February 14, 2017

OK, nudity wasn't the problem. What was the problem that they were trying to solve?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:52 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

you just described Cracked, which indeed does not have a print edition, but who cares.

Sylvester P. Smythe sheds a tear
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:53 PM on February 14, 2017 [9 favorites]

Seeing the hash tag NakedIsNormal, my immediate first mental image was Hugh Hefner in the nude.
posted by King Sky Prawn at 12:55 PM on February 14, 2017

Metafilter: I only read it for the articles.
posted by biogeo at 1:02 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

This whole discussion keeps making me think of that great scene in Sneakers where David Strathairn's blind character Mother busts out a copy of Playboy.

In Braille.
posted by Samizdata at 1:02 PM on February 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

at the titular helm?

I see what you did there.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:11 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Playboy does exist in braille, along with dozens of other magazines, paid for by your Library of Congress. (In the 1980s, they briefly stopped producing it because nudity, but various blindness organizations filed a lawsuit and won.) Back when I was a full-time braille transcriber, there was a possibility that my company would get the contract to produce it, and we joked about having to write picture descriptions. We didn't get the contract, ah well. 2006 Metafilter FPP
posted by Melismata at 1:20 PM on February 14, 2017 [15 favorites]

Melismata Yeah, I was thinking similar things when the no nudity bit was first announced. Playboy made a mark early on not just with nudity, but by being hip, with it, the place for young men who felt that they too wanted to be hip and with it to not just ogle women but also feel affluent and tuned in and sophisticated (for certain values of sophisticated).

Thus all the articles on HiFi stereo rigs and fast cars and expensive food and drink that most of its readership could never afford.

Thus, more important, the politics and the fiction and the interviews.

As Heffner aged so to did Playboy. At a time when hip is defined more by localvore stuff, the cult of authenticity, and so on Playboy is still plugging the old cigars and caviar routine. It is stuck in a sort of 1950's, Mad Men, style mentality. Which, given the whole "ogling pictures of airbrushed naked white blonde women" part makes a certain sense, but yeah that too would need to go if Playboy really wanted to update itself.

But that'd be taking a risk, and following the FHM/Maxim path would be doing something already proven, so they did that.

I'm not sure there really is a market for a print magazine like an updated, younger, hipper, Playboy. I'm not sure the market for print magazines of any sort really has a future. But I do know that Playboy is far too stodgy to ever try.

And the fact that people these days associate Playboy with stodgy, not edgy and hip and with it, is really all you need to know about Playboy.

It's biggest subscriber base is probably men over the age of 60 who imagine themselves to be with it, but haven't figured out how to operate that interwebs thing yet.
posted by sotonohito at 1:42 PM on February 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure there really is a market for a print magazine like an updated, younger, hipper, Playboy.

Thank god it's way, way too late to try to knock off early/mid-2000s Vice.
posted by griphus at 2:14 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Even as a kid the nude Playboy models were sometimes insufficiently nude for my requirements. I can't imagine being a kid today and picking up a copy - and dealing with the stigma of buying a nudie mag - and finding that the models are not nude at all.

Not that kids buy nudie mags these days so there isn't even any risk vs. reward thrill attached to it. Which is a shame, because at least with a nudie mag you can spend some time reading the dumb fucking articles, so it's good for literacy or whatever. Porn sites are just links to other porn sites, whereas Playboy helped you to learn about horse racing, vintage cars, and people with yachts.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:49 PM on February 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

What would be the point of the empire without the horny old dude at the titular helm?

Ack, it never even occurred to me that that old skeezebag was still going. I remember a good article about the Playboy Mansion from a while back - I forget where I found it or who it was written by - that talked about how godawful the mansion is, and how the carpets are threadbare and the whole place smells like dog shit.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:51 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

cough
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:59 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

turbid dahlia kind of like the magazine!
posted by sotonohito at 3:08 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

In order to irritate Trump, I just subscribed to Vanity Fair, and it reminds me of Playboy, only I'm "reading the articles" while avoiding the Gucci ads and the perfume samples.

My experience with Playboy was being a kid and finding a stash of them from the 1960s in a summer cottage. I remember reading an article on "the Playboy Philosophy" that was illustrated with a photograph of a bunch of celebrities who subscribed to that philosophy. What sticks in my mind was that the photo had Hugh Hefner, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby in it (the celebrities I recognized as a kid). I would love to know which other [now] sex offenders were in that picture. When I was 12 I recognized that the Playboy Philosophy was hypocritical. I doubt things have changed today. Would it lessen the objectification of women if the photos included nude men, too? I don't know.
posted by acrasis at 3:48 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

PBO, that must have been it! I don't believe I have ever read Holly Madison's biography (seemsl like I would remember this) but feel sure it was an article or review linked to its release.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:58 PM on February 14, 2017

Playboy is the lens flair of adult magazines. Seriously, if they are unable to publish nude models without making them look like CGI characters in anime then don't bother bringing them back at all.
posted by Beholder at 4:00 PM on February 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Which is a shame, because at least with a nudie mag you can spend some time reading the dumb fucking articles, so it's good for literacy or whatever.

Wait, isn't that what National Geographic was for?
posted by steady-state strawberry at 5:01 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I used to work in a store that had a bunch of old issues of Playboy sitting around. Their interview with Jimmy Hoffa is honestly one of the best things I've ever read (choice quote from memory: "just because that particular individual disagreed with some people, and just because he died in an explosion which nobody knows how it happened, doesn't mean anybody was up to no good").

But the whole concept of a magazine called "playboy," where the Modern man reads these sophisticated articles and, I don't know, takes in the beauty of the female form, or whatever you want to call objectification as a sophisticated modern man -- I mean, Hefner is a dinosaur and he has been for a long time. Playboy can join the dudebro frat party with Maxim and GQ and whoever else, but that's really their only option. They're not going to suddenly become some socially evolved institution, because it was never the depiction of nudity that was dated, it was the fundamental concept that was. So sure, they had some good articles, but I don't see the need for their "lifestyle brand" anymore. And good riddance. I'd love it if Maxim goes belly-up next, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:36 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

This whole discussion keeps making me think of that great scene in Sneakers where David Strathairn's blind character Mother busts out a copy of Playboy.

In Braille.

You know, you really haven't lived until you've live-described, to your blind significant other, the fisting/apples/fire extinguisher scene that neither of you was expecting to crop up in a VHS copy of one of the "Other Side of Aspen" series of adult films.

Feel free to (NSFW, duh) Google that.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Playboy hasn't had nudity in it for a year?

I had no idea... they were vaguely more progressive than I gave them credit for... last year.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:41 PM on February 14, 2017

David Strathairn's blind character Mother

Uh, point of order, Dan Aykroyd's character was Mother. David Strathairn's character was Whistler.
posted by Existential Dread at 7:15 PM on February 14, 2017 [8 favorites]

PBO, that must have been it! I don't believe I have ever read Holly Madison's biography (seemsl like I would remember this) but feel sure it was an article or review linked to its release.

I feel like there have been a few exposes but hers was the big one. Also a bunch of dudes got Legionaries' Disease from the pool in the "grotto." (My favorite part of that is that it was a conference for the "domain name industry.")
posted by atoxyl at 9:19 PM on February 14, 2017

There's nothing particularly "inclusive" or "real" about Suicide Girls - they've got a terrible reputation for not paying models, are transphobic, and it's pretty much Conventional Beauty with Tattoos and Dyed HAir.

I watched this documentary about Playboy a while back in flight and it was really interesting to see how it started off as a relatively more progressive magazine compared to its peers. And different regional Playboys are different: France's is very arty, while in either Lithuania or Latvia getting in the magazine is a huge honour.

As for Playboy ruining people's ideas of womanhood and sexuality: I've gotten more grief from people who claim that because they're all into hippie Neo Tantra that they know I'm a Kama Sutra expert. Or queer people who think I'm lying about being queer. Playboy fans tend to leave me alone for the most part.
posted by divabat at 9:31 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think the concept Hefner claims to be shooting for, giving him maximum benefit of the doubt, is a neat one -- high quality, longform articles, including fiction, by respected writers, tackling a range of cultural/social/political issues, combined with inclusive, sex-positive softcore porn -- but I can't really believe that he can say with a straight face that Playboy is ever going to be that magazine, or that he's capable, with his history and baggage, of running the organization that can execute on that concept.

He's not wrong that there's a niche there, though. I just don't see how they can stuff the Playboy bunny into it. If they were serious, they'd be better off buying Nerve from whoever owns it these days (the OKCupid people, I think? the hell are they doing with it?) and giving it an injection of cash to up its game. Let Playboy ride into the sunset.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:34 PM on February 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

A page from the ole' New Coke/Classic Coke playbook.
posted by user92371 at 11:16 PM on February 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

child of the 50's here. I remember my dad and mom were playboy club members. the magazines were on our coffee table. for a certain generation it was considered sophisticated.
posted by judson at 7:30 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sylvester P. Smythe sheds a tear

Gawd, this comment suddenly made me remember when Mad cartoonist Don Martin switched sides and started drawing for Cracked, which was, to my 11-year-old mind, a decidedly inferior product.
posted by My Dad at 8:10 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think the concept Hefner claims to be shooting for, giving him maximum benefit of the doubt, is a neat one -- high quality, longform articles, including fiction, by respected writers, tackling a range of cultural/social/political issues, combined with inclusive, sex-positive softcore porn -- but I can't really believe that he can say with a straight face that Playboy is ever going to be that magazine

That's (arguably) pretty much what Playboy was, in the first couple of decades of its life. Having "girls-next-door" essentially openly admitting they liked sex enough to enjoy posing nude, having columns about how to make sure that both parties enjoy sex, acknowledging that one-night stands or "friends with benefits" (not that they called it that) could be enjoyed and initiated by women as well as men - this was sex-positive and even mildly feminist in the 50's and 60's. The problem was that no-one, Hugh Hefner especially, ever figured out how to adapt that concept to our modern culture growing ever more aware of systemic sexism and the male gaze, assuming such a thing is even possible. What was progressive and sex positive 50 and 60 years ago is not necessarily progressive and sex positive today, but the mag never really changed with the times. I think it's certainly questionable whether any publication could really resolve the dissonance between high-quality articles and softcore porn, unless maybe they shot only couples softcore (including gay couples) and included solo nude male pictorials alongside the nude women.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:33 AM on February 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

except perhaps 35 years ago, when, as a tween, the greatest thing was finding porn in the woods or nudie mags some friend's father had "hidden" someplace.

The flip side of this: as a pre-teen girl, that would have freaked me out, given me nightmares, and kept me from ever enjoying wandering in the woods again. And accidentally stumbling on someone's porn stash would have forever branded him a creep in my eyes, someone to avoid being in the same room with.

But, hey, I'm just a stupid woman in Trump's America, so what I think doesn't really matter anymore.
posted by tully_monster at 8:50 AM on February 15, 2017 [4 favorites]

Yeah, it was an insensitive comment. I'm sorry about that.
posted by My Dad at 9:30 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

soundguy99 I'm not sure it's really possible to make porn that isn't objectifying at some essential level. I mean the whole point of porn is to look at a person for sexual reasons, not as a whole person.

That's not wholly bad, there is some feminist thinking arguing that there can be such a thing as feminist porn. Though separating porn from misogyny and rape culture is, at best, extremely difficult and some feminists would argue it's an impossible task. There is some porn out there that at least some feminists argue is feminist, other feminists disagree vociferously with that assessment.

If possible it certainly won't happen in Playboy. That organization is firmly rooted in the male gaze and the brand is so deeply wedded to the male gaze I'm not sure they could ever get out of that rut even if the people running it wanted to and had a good plan for doing so.
posted by sotonohito at 6:22 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]