Bye Bye, Bunnies

Back in 2011, a well-known tabloid in Mumbai, Mid-Day, the first of its format in English in the city, decided to discontinue what had been one of its wildest successes. This section, titled the Mid-Day Mate, featured a large picture of a hot, near-naked model, with minimal or no caption, usually posing on a beach. Over the years, in perhaps more innocent times, adolescent boys and horny men were known to read the paper, not from Page 1 or the sports pages, but starting from the Mid-Day Mate. The editors of the tabloid claimed that the section was being discontinued because it wanted to cater to a ‘family’ readership. But the truth is that in a porn-saturated market, with easy access to the most risqué visuals and tastes, the picture of a hot, naked woman was no longer of much interest.

Now as the announcement comes, almost like an April Fool’s Prank, the magazine Playboy has declared it’s doing away with the real deal, its nude centrefolds, in effect ridding itself of its main event. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled in March next year, the magazine will continue to feature women in provocative poses, but these will be a ‘PG-13’ version. Explaining the logic behind the move, the company’s CEO Scott Flanders 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.” Sex, the very reason behind the magazine’s incredible success, ironically, had now killed its centrefold.

The magazine, of course, is not only about nudes. Some of the biggest names from Truman Capote and Allen Ginsberg to Margaret Atwood and Norman Mailer have contributed to the magazine. And Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs and Jimmy Carter have also been interviewed by it. But it was the nudes, especially of celebrities ranging from Madonna and Bo Derek to Kate Moss and Kim Kardashian, that made the magazine famous.

Hugh Hefner, the magazine’s founder, who had earlier worked with publications like Esquire, had initially, it is said, planned to call the magazine Stag Party. He changed the name to Playboy after a magazine named Stag threatened to sue Hefner for trademark infringement. The first issue, published in December 1953 —updated because Hefner, it is said, was unsure if there would be a second—carried a cover that promised nude photos of Marilyn Monroe in ‘full color.’ The pictures of Monroe however, had been originally taken for a calendar and not for Playboy.

In his first editor’s letter, Hefner described Playboy as a magazine for men fond of quiet discussions ‘on Picasso, Nietzche, jazz, (and) sex.’ In a Vanity Fair article, Hefner claimed he wanted the magazine to be “a projection of the wonderful world I dig.” Over the years, Playboy became an iconic part of American society, leading the revolution that took sex in the US, hidden in the shadows, to prominence. Hefner himself became a celebrated figure as the country’s notorious bachelor who hosted wild parties at his Playboy Mansion.

What Playboy is doing by discontinuing its nude centrefolds is trying to move beyond its salacious origins to become a profitable vehicle. The magazine has anyway allegedly been making losses. In the last few years it has been focusing on promoting and licensing its brand, selling products from clothes to jewellery under the Playboy label.

Last year, Playboy removed all explicit nudity from its website, and according to the NYT article, this led to its web traffic quadrupling and average age of readers falling from 47 to 30. The young, Playboy executives reasoned, weren’t interested in Playboy as a place to get porn, and the presence of nudity only made it awkward for people to share its articles online or read them whilst at work.

In The New York Times article, Cory Jones, an editor at the magazine, said, “Don’t get me wrong… 12-year-old me is very disappointed in current me. But it’s the right thing to do.”

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

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