PLAYBOY

heyyy ;)

Mr Hugh Hefner, the octogenarian publisher, businessman and Word War II veteran, has taken the radical decision to release the first "non-nude" issue of Playboy since 1972. No longer a "top shelf" publication, this month's edition will take it's place beside the likes of Esquire and GQ. The new cover features Sarah McDaniel, a Snapchat and Instagram star, shooting a selfie. Yet this homage to the digital generation was carefully constructed by Theo Wenner, a talented professional photographer with a penchant for beautiful female models. 

Playboy has been in decline for decades, and it's new look is about connecting with a younger audience. Yet this blatant appropriation of youth is somewhat unsettling. Twenty-year old McDaniel has been made to look like a teenager taking sexy selfies in her bedroom. As The Telegraph points out, the final nude cover featuring Pamela Anderson is arguably less seedy, there being no mistaking that she's a fully grown woman. 

Mr Cory Jones, Chief Content Officer says "We're less interested in glossy images of surgically enhanced women. We prefer the kind of images women post of themselves on Instagram and Snapchat - women like our girlfriends. It's more authentic, so it resonates." Yet these fresh-faced girl-next-door selfie-styled photographs could be seen to sexualise young women. There is, after all, a certain voyeuristic element to social media which perpetuates our fascination with teen sexuality. 

Playboy sold 7.2m copies a month in 1972, today it's down to 800,000. Mr Jones hopes the new style will revamp its image and attract a new millennial readership. The Sunday Times reports photographs are no longer retouched and that the sex column will be written by a woman for the first time. However, will it be enough to save a magazine that critics say is anachronistic and outdated? Mr Scott Flanders, Chief Exeutive Officer, says the March edition is a return to "what Playboy stands for: progress, freedom and exploration." Only sales will tell...