It was rather shocking news to come out yesterday.....Playboy will end the centerfold and 'natural' displays in the near future.
It's hard to say who still reads Playboy. The last time I looked.....you could get a year's subscription for roughly twenty bucks.
Throughout my Air Force barracks period (78-84), probably five-percent of the guys bought monthly copies of it. What most would say is that they had interesting articles and gave a fair amount of advice on men's fashion and stereo equipment. It was a different crowd of readers when compared to the Hustler folks.
My humble guess is that they finally interviewed some guys and discovered that almost no one said anything much about the centerfold ladies or the pictures in the magazine. These are the guys who wanted to just resemble a playboy himself and dress or act that way.
Oddly, by taking this route.....they might actually attract more attention and become some type of magazine that teenage guys would pick up and read.
Did the centerfold attraction ever attract anyone? I have my doubts. All of the gals who appeared in Playboy were the type that were beyond ninety-percent of the guys out there. They'd always list their hobbies as swimming, walks on the beach, star-gazing, and resort travel. You never had realistic women who noted their hobbies of building fishing lures, mowing lawns, demolition derby, flea market sales, or making homemade jam. If you asked most guys, they always thought the wordy talk in Playboy by each model was all fraudulent in nature.
What does this change really say? Maybe Playboy never needed the models or the centerfolds to sell their magazine. And that would be a real shocker.
