Sex sells, there's no denying it. This is one of the reasons that such a huge proportion of web traffic is accounted for by porn sites. Just as the internet has changed the face of music, television, movies, and radio, so it has changed the face of print media -- including porn mags.
Magazine and newspaper sales have plummeted, and those that do exist have had to change dramatically. Stalwart of the top shelves, Playboy, is not immune. In an interview with the New York Times, CEO Scott Flanders said that people are now "one click away from every sex act imaginable for free", going on to announce that the magazine will no longer feature images of fully naked women.
While Flanders admits that the "battle [with the internet] has been fought and won", Playboy will continue to feature models in "provocative poses" -- but now there will be a little more left to the imagination. Now selling fewer than 1 million copies, the paper-based version of Hugh Hefner's magazine has struggled to compete with the 'anything goes' extremity of the internet.
Starting in March next year, Playboy's photography will be PG-13 rated following a similar move with the website. It's a decision that is in stark contrast to other magazines which decided to up the ante in response to online porn, becoming ever more explicit. Playboy wanted to break into social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and this meant it had to tone things down a little.
In making the Playboy online more suitable for work, Flanders said that not only has the age demographic dropped, but traffic quadrupled. It remains to be seen whether the same magic can be worked on the print version.
Photo credit: Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock
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