How womens voices are shifting Playboy from topless to thoughtful

When the radically transformed Playboy hits shelves next Friday — for the first time in decades without full nudity and outside its opaque plastic bag — the magazine will be missing a rallying cry that has graced the cover since its 1953 debut: “Entertainment for Men."

Instead, in a wink at the technology that has helped undermine it, the cover will feature an amateur Instagram model, shot in the style of a Snapchat selfie, over what in 2016 amounts to digital flirtation: the come-hither call-out, "heyyy ;)"

Playboy’s first non-nude issue, perhaps the magazine's biggest reimagining since Hugh Hefner debuted a centerfold of a naked Marilyn Monroe, marks a risky gamble for an American publishing empire overrun by the boundless sex and storytelling offered freely on the Web.

But instead of rebuking the digital age, the glossy icon has sought to emulate it: With social media-inspired photo shoots, explorations of topics such as birth control and immigration and a reinvigoration of the kinds of thoughtful journalism it published in the ‘60s — much of it now written by and reporting on women.

“Nudity’s not provocative anymore. It used to be progressive — Hef pushing the morals of America — but nudity doesn’t serve that purpose anymore,” said Cory Jones, the chief content officer at Playboy Enterprises’ headquarters in Beverly Hills.

Playboy has shown a preview of the first non-nude edition of the 62-year-old magazine. (Video: Reuters)

“People only related the magazine to nudity: Those 10 pages in the issue became the symbol of what it stood for. But it had always been very progressive … and we want to let that part shine through, while still being sexy and still having our edge.”

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The racy magazine, though Jones disagrees, will probably still not be “something you feel comfortable leaving on your coffee table.” Though there is no full-frontal nudity, pages are dotted with women in varying stages of undress, or in the buff but covered up by well-placed hands and fluttering sheets.

A gallery of centerfold Dree Hemingway, the daughter of Oscar-winning actress Mariel Hemingway and great-granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, is stylishly subdued, as if taken from a high-fashion magazine. “Put down your phone. Get back into reading. Feel something,” she says in an accompanying interview.

Stylish or not, the changes do too little to erase the magazine's "dehumanizing" effect on women, said Penny Gardner, an assistant professor at Michigan State University who was a Playboy Bunny in the ‘60s.

“It concerns me still that so many women are so sexualized,” Gardner said. “The selfies, the taking pictures for dating sites … It’s like we’re objectifying ourselves.”

But the editors hope the new emphasis is on the articles – the central reason for buying the magazine, if men of many generations are to be believed – which include nuanced interviews and deep reporting aimed at attracting any modern reader, regardless of gender.

Eight pages in the upcoming March issue are devoted to an interview with Rachel Maddow (captured in portraits by fashion photographer Amy Troost), whose staff of 20 is celebrated in the second sentence because women outnumber men.

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Erin Gloria Ryan, a former editor and writer at Gawker's feminist blog Jezebel, wrote a cheeky paean to her intrauterine device, or IUD, which she said "has the potential to lead women into the next sexual revolution" under the headline, "God Bless Birth Control."

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, who fulfill the grungiest of millennial stereotypes as two twenty-something New Yorkers on Comedy Central's "Broad City," sit for an interview in which they own up to being "totally up-front and proud feminists." ("'Diiiie, men.' If you play any Broad City episode backward, that’s all we’re saying," Glazer said.)

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Women’s voices will also form a regular foundation on which the new Playboy can push boundaries. A recurring feature, “No Filter,” is dedicated to “a woman who’s making waves in entertainment.” Playboy Advisor, the magazine’s long-running advice column, will now be led by Rachel Rabbit White, a candid journalist and blogger who went viral in 2011 when she declared Feb. 22 “Lady Porn Day.”

Women behind the camera have long played a key part in bringing Playboy to press. The magazine's first fold-out centerfold (Marian Stafford, Miss March 1956) was shot by Ruth Sondak, who took up photography as part of the Women's Army Corps during World War II.

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For its “guiding light,” the company says it has looked toward the Playboys of the postwar ‘50s and swinging ‘60s, when the magazine was known not just for centerfolds but its coverage of literature, art and music. (“Fahrenheit 451,” the dystopian classic on many high-school reading lists, was printed across three Playboys in 1954.)

Left unsaid in that grand vision, of course, is that the magazine will sprint away from the lurid reputation it gained in the decades since, as competition from more adventurous magazines like “Hustler” pushed Playboy to thin the features and fiction while piling on more flesh.

The shift is not persuasive to Jennifer Lena, an associate professor at Columbia University. “You don’t go to the hardware store to buy oranges. And nobody should be getting their feminism from Playboy,” Lena said. “I don’t mean there aren’t feminists writing for Playboy, or feminist issues discussed in Playboy. I just mean: If you want a how-to guide, that’s not the place to go.”

Editors see the authenticity of social media – where any man or woman can share themselves on a global, uncensored stage – as a cure for the scourge of late-age Playboy’s overly produced, airbrushed shoots. One six-page spread consists of mostly unedited selfies taken by artist and model Myla Dalbesio. The cover profile centers on Sarah McDaniel, a viral Snapchat-and-Instagram starlet known for her "campy mix of perfectly squared selfies and biting, salacious wit."

“Instagram has become the new girl next door,” Jones said. “It has taken that mantle of: These are women who are beautiful and healthy and having fun and owning the way they’re portrayed – but they’re also accessible. You can imagine running into these women at Starbucks.”

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Playboy’s staff has worked since last July to prepare the magazine for its newly covered-up run, including a confusing several months of double-duty finalizing the last fully nude issues. Editors negotiated with retailers so that the magazine will be pulled from its traditional cover-obscuring “polybag” and displayed for sale in Barnes & Noble, Hudson News and airport bookstores nationwide.

But buttoning up could prove to be good for business. When Playboy.com was relaunched last year as “safe for work,” traffic skyrocketed, from 4 million visits a month to 20 million a month, Jones said. The median viewer’s age also plunged, from 47 to 30. The magazine sold 800,000 issues last year, a small fraction of the 7 million it sold at its 1975 peak.

How well the magazine will sell in upcoming issues – and how long editors can commit to thoughtful writing when so much of it is already available on mobile phones – remains to be seen. But they’re optimistic that readers who see that first come-hither cover will give its old pages another read.

“You don’t get a second chance at a first impression,” Jones said. “It’s a connection, it’s inviting you in, but it’s also like, ‘Hey, Playboy’s here. We’re back. Give us a look.’”

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