Playboy revealed last month that they will no longer be publishing photos of nude women, as of March 2016. The iconic men’s magazine has been revolutionary in developing the sex industry since its debut in 1953.
Founder Hugh Hefner envisioned the magazine as an outlet for men to satisfy their sexual desires with nude photos of women. Also wanting to satisfy Playboy readers intellectually, Hefner filled more than half of the magazines with news articles and scientific journals.
Playboy attempted to liberate women sexually and represent them as something beautiful to admire.
Despite its good intentions, the magazine’s structure implied that men were intellectual superiors who had earned the right to objectify women.
Playboy’s decision is a step in the right direction for equality and supporting feminism.
The models who pose for Playboy do it by choice, but it isn’t the best thing for our society.
Removing nude photos from the magazine is a big change, especially considering the nude centrefolds that were a large contributing factor to the magazine’s success. But even the photos of clothed women still promote them as objects and support a false male gender role. The magazine itself is called “entertainment for men.”
Playboy is taking a step in the right direction, but to really achieve a positive outcome, it is imperative that women are no longer objectified for the pleasure of men. There needs to be a magazine that eliminates these underlying ideas and instead appreciates all bodies without portraying a more dominant gender. Nudity does not mean objectification and neither does embracing it, but creating this to satisfy only one gender does.
We need to celebrate the human body. We need to create a norm that all bodies are beautiful regardless of size, shape, or construct. It is time to take back the sex industry and recreate it. Sex is not the only thing that sells.
