It certainly opens up the potential for significantly increased circulation numbers. As others have said, there are lots of stores that previously refused to sell it (like Walmart) or that put them in the back rack where nobody could see the cover content. And if they land a couple of splashy articles in the coming months I could see them bringing in a good number of new subscribers who previously would have been embarrassed to have Playboy laying around their home (or dentist’s waiting room). I imagine they’ll lose some subscribers, too, as there probably are some people who just buy it to see uncovered lady nipples, but I’ll bet they stand to gain a lot more than they stand to lose.
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I’d argue that what qualifies as racy or obscene is totally subjective and culture defines those things more or less arbitrarily. For example, there’s plenty of Renaissance art that could fall into either category…
…which isn’t to say that how the female body is depicted doesn’t influence and isn’t influenced by how much agency societies tend to permit women (thought the shape of the correlation isn’t uniform since plenty of prudish societies have denied women agency), but that is separate and distinct from what’s racy or obscene.
As for myself and my own male gaze, when I was a teenager and magazines targeting horny boys still interested me, I found Maxim far more “titillating” than Playboy. Where Playboy was vulgar and crass, I found Maxim left something to the imagination.
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Playboy had to compete with Internet porn, now it doesn’t. Problem solved. Interesting thing about the articles: I used to be surprised when a lot of authors I liked and respected got their start in Playboy. It’ll be interesting to see whether they decide to run with that.
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Actually, I would personally welcome someone reviving the genre of tasteful erotica (~= producing maximum titillation through minimal showing of skin). Tits n’ twats (and cocks, for those who prefer them, I suppose) have become so very boring through overexposure.
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I wonder if this is the right decision. Sure, people could whack off to Playboy, if they found a copy in the woods when they were 12, but I can’t believe anyone bought it in order to whack off to it in the last 40 years. You’d buy Penthouse for that. Playboy’s thing was always that it was a magazine so sophisticated, it was borderline illicit. If you read a Henry Kissinger interview in Playboy, you could be sure he wasn’t talking down to you like some dope who reads Newsweek; he knows you’re a mature, cultured guy who Gets It and can buy an adult magazine without embarrassment.
If 12-year-olds and Saudi citizens can’t officially get hold of the magazine, I’d have thought that was the whole appeal. It’s exclusive.
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As long as their are magazines that are not digitized that scholars need to read, microfilm will be a thing!
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The whole idea that you could charge a premium for content that includes nude women, it kind of relies om censorship to keep going. I’m hopeful that internet porn will eventually make public breastfeeding and nude bicycling a non-issue. Hopefully the burden of proof will be on the viewer rather than the model with the question," is it obscene?"
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And people will then take that to all manner of extremes.
Imagine the fun that bowel disorder types would have…
It may be that they are hoping to attract female readership and become a sort of ChataLaine for the 30+ aged girls.
I have no knowledge of the business case, but they have a pretty savvy history so I suppose they thought about that. We block so much stuff at work it’s crazy, so I get what you are saying. The site was in development over 5 years ago, so I was surprised to see this announcement - I assumed it had launched ages ago.
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Hearing “sex positive” encased in quotes makes me a bit worried.
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This is a smart move, and probably overdue. They should drop the smut altogether, though. 800k is nothing to sneeze at these days, and can likely be built on… there is indeed a strong reputation for supporting quality fiction and journalism to exploit and further. And journalism in print needs all the friends it can get these days.
I’d go so far as to say this could be a fine thing for democracy, particularly if the management wants to pursue maximum cred by hiring the likes of Glenn Greenwald.
Now there’s a losing strategy 
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Surely Omni is still in print?
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It won’t, at first. But it could later. Here’s how. The mag has been a loss leader for a long time. The new keyword is MERCH. Playboy sells north of a BILLION with a B bucks worth of Playboy bunny branded merchandise every year. So, rebranding the mag to be PG-13 rated instead of straight up R rated is probably a good business strategy to position their loss-leader more effectively, to sell more merchandise and try to recapture more of that shiq image-peddling they once monopolized.
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What if they actually reported on women’s issues? What if they wholly set aside the stupid “pet” thing that diminishes women and objectifies them, and instead they go full-steam feminist? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the crotch?
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I always found that Maxim’s douche-bro vibe always undermined my ability to find anything in it titillating.
Plus, the models were always posed in odd, awkward* poses that made me uncomfortable on their behalf, with weird facial expressions that made them look unlike themselves (as recognized from their TV shows, etc.) without any real payoff in increased sexiness.
So, I can’t really agree with any assertion that Maxim was ever any kind of classier option.
*Yes more awkward than most boob & junk-displaying poses found in the explicit stuff.
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LOL - When I was a kid (1980s), I used to read Playboy and Penthouse. Back then at least, they were decent magazines. I liked erotica also, but chose to source that from elsewhere. Cliché aside, I did read them for the articles. As well as the interviews and stories. I have no idea what Playboy has been doing for the past 25 years.
I kind of think that taking drastic steps to keep one’s brand relevant tends to be a sign of desperation. Branding tends to increase homogeneity, in my experience. Letting a company or brand die naturally and doing something new is a positive approach which is surprisingly rare.
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I suppose it actually makes sense.
With the proliferation of free porn online, nobody buys it for the pictures anymore, and I’d wager that a fair number of the people who would probably enjoy the writing are scared off by the nudes.
The writing, BTW, has always been excellent- Margaret Atwood, Ian Flemming, Ray Bradbury, Jack Kerouak, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike, Michael Chrichton, Hunter S Thompson, Russ Meyer, Annie Leibovitz… Hell, Fahrenheit 451 ran in it as a serial over several issues. Plus, the interviews. Legitimately some of the best interviews ever with some of the most important people of our time.
My guess is that with the removal of the nudity, they will absolutely dominate the GQ/Maxxim/FHM market.
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