Ultimate victory for PC world – Playboy stops publishing pics of nude women

My friend and former colleague Charl Pretorius used to argue that editing Hustler Magazine was a contribution to democracy, a reflection of free speech. If so, the steady decline of girlie magazines into shadows of their former selves won’t please him – or others who have the same value systems. Unlike my younger self, I haven’t looked at a copy of Playboy for many years, so don’t know what I’ll be missing now that Hugh Hefner’s mag will no longer publish nudes. Maybe it’s progress? – Alec Hogg

By Alec Hogg

Every South African male of my generation will remember the dread of arriving home from overseas trips in the 1970s and 80s. For a very different reason to what you might imagine. In those dark years of blanket censorship, it was pretty much expected that somewhere hidden deeply inside your luggage would be at last one Playboy magazine to be shared with friends when you got home.

That made the walk through Customs a harrowing experience where you studiously avoided eye contact and walked as quickly as possible without attracting attention. I never did get stopped, so have no idea what the penalty would have been. But am grateful for missing that particular experience.

The days of the dreaded Customs walk ended with the arrival when the New South Africa arrived. Consistent with economic theory that tells us forbidden fruit loses its allure when it’s legalised, after an initial circulation spurt, the locally published Playboy and its heavy duty cousin Hustler soon petered out of existence here.

Seems the trend is global. The New York Times today reports that after more than 50 years of being in the business of leaving nothing of the female form to the imagination, Playboy will stop publishing images of naked women. A victim, apparently, of the Internet, where every possible fantasy is a click away.

It’s the last throw of the dice for a magazine whose global circulation has dropped from 5.6m in its 1975 heyday (helped along by those furtive imports to South Africa) to a seventh of that today.

Founder and still editor in chief of Playboy, Hugh Hefner (89), has long tried to position the mag as an intelligent read, publishing serious interviews with the likes of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Jimmy Carter. He will soon find out whether those interviews were actually being read by the 800 000 still loyal readers.

Dani Mathers, 28, the 2015 Playmate of the Year, holds a plaque with the cover of the Playboy June 2015 issue at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, California in this file photo taken May 14, 2015. Playboy has decided to stop publishing picture of nude women, according to an article in the New York Times. REUTERS/Kevork Djansezian/Files
Dani Mathers, 28, the 2015 Playmate of the Year, holds a plaque with the cover of the Playboy June 2015 issue at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, California in this file photo taken May 14, 2015. Playboy has decided to stop publishing picture of nude women, according to an article in the New York Times. REUTERS/Kevork Djansezian
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