A weary giant has fallen.
Due to the blowing of certain financial winds, Playboy is not going to show nudity anymore.
The 14-year old in me just died a little.
Even at an early age, I felt that there was more than a little distinction between the near-penetration that magazines like Gent and Club trafficked in, and Playboy’s portayal of tasteful, singularly beautiful naked playmates. It was important in my fantasies that the women be fair, cheerful, voluptuous and inviting more than they were near-fucked in a competitor’s magazine.
Playboy knew how to pick their subjects, is all I am trying to say. They knew how to photograph a sexy woman in her birthday suit. And near-nudity does not bring out the magical god-given gorgeousness of many of their models. You may as well beat off to Maxim if you want this. But here’s the thinking of Playboy right now:
Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
He’s right on one point, wrong on another. It’s true that the easiest way to get porn today is to hit the Internet, and you don’t have to pay a nickel to find enough of it to get off. But it’s all anonymous. No brand. Playboy wanted you to come back to your favorites, the type of woman you’d be agape over as a growing young man because you still hadn’t yet found a real girl to grab your thingy. I don’t know how it’s been since my perpetual masturbation days ended, but Playboy used to find the staggering ones, not the ones who were willing to be filmed with a dick an inch from their mouth. They didn’t need to fuck; they just needed to be. Now, admittedly, both turned me on-but I will always remember the Playmate type, and I was drawn to it.
Hef, I know it’s all about the bottom line. But you shouldn’t have let go so easily. You calculated that Playboy would go out of style. Maybe it has, given all the rank pornography you can get your hands on without having to hide a magazine under your pillow. The numbers obviously don’t lie. But you guys should have stood on principle. You were the firstest with the bestest.
End of an era. I don’t know why this bothers me, but it does. Just another sign of age. If you must reminisce or if you need a computer to see a naked body, go here.