The 7-11 chain pretty famously banned Playboy from its stores in the mid-1980s, hidden or not.
Playboy responded with a picture feature “The Women of 7-11” in the Dec. 1986 issue.
http://theplayboyguy.ecrater.com/p/6654984/playboy-magazine-december-1986-brooke-shields
I suppose it’s possible that it crept back into some stores. I know that I haven’
t seen it on sale at a 7-11 since.
But plenty of non 7-11 convenience stores have always carried it,
The issue is less about circulation than demographics. There are many very profitable magazines with less than a tenth of Playboy’s circulation. But they are golf, high fashion, etc. magazines with a very desirable readership.
Most advertisers don’t want to target Playboy’s readers. So their ad income is crummy.
So if their circulation goes up or down 200k doesn’t matter. What has to change is who buys it.
Note that there are already several “lads mags” out there and they are folding. Being a lad mag with a couple higher aspiration articles is a dumb mix and is not going to draw any new readers, let alone ones that advertisers want.
It’s a desperate Hail Mary attempt that will fail.
Taste change. I like tattoos and piercings (within limits) and shaved pubic areas. I agree with you on breast surgery, however. But my preference runs to smaller breasts than Playboy is interested in anyway.
You should’ve paid more attention to the pictures than to the articles – Playboy centerfolds aren’t, by and large, by and large. They tend to have modest-sized breasts. Have a look at last month’s last nude centerfold, for instance.
The first one is still my all time favorite. The woman just oozed sensuality.
And the best was the very first, Marilyn Monroe. It’s easy to see why so many in her generation considered her the perfect woman (and many still do).
According to this article at wired, Playboy’s website viewership went up by 400% when it became SFW. I doubt magazine sales will go up by that amount, but there’s no reason to think sales won’t go up in some fashion.
Q: Does this policy change extend to all the internationally franchised versions of Playboy? In all the discussions in all these months I’ve not seen that brought up.
I mentioned this in a thread on the subject several months ago that Playboy was moving toward GQ and Esquire rather than Maxim. Since then, however, I’ve noticed from its Facebook page and web site that Esquire seems to be going the opposite direction. They’ve been tagging their “Women We Love” pictorials and links with NSFW labels more frequently and a number of their photos would likely not be allowed in the new Playboy.
Losing the nekkid ladies is bad enough, but I hear that Playboy has notified its cartoonists that they will no longer be running any cartoons. How is this magazine even Playboy at all anymore? 
I have to admit I used to steal my brother’s copies as a kid in the 80’s and collected it myself in the 90’s and early 2000’s. And I actually did read it (but also looked at the pictures :))
My favorites at the time were Corina Harney and Amber Campisi.
Stay classy, bro.
I think they looked older for some reason, even when they were the same age. I mean an 18yo centrefold girl in 1960 looked a lot older than an 18yo centrefold girl in 2010. In general anything before 1970 looked nowhere as good as those from 1970 and up. And some of those in the 1970s looked disturbingly much like my mother, so I’m not going there.
It could be interesting with a survey that measured IQ vers. bush size, and if a link was down to correlation or causation.
I think this is Playboy’s theory but it’s not necessarily going to happen.
Have places like Walmart and 7-11 said they are going to carry the new non-nude version of Playboy? Their decision to not sell Playboy is based as much on its reputation as its content. The groups that are opposed to Playboy are also opposed to other magazines like Maxim.
Nudity has been the major point distinguishing Playboy from magazines like Maxim. Without that, it may find itself losing readers.
You predict a rise to 1,000,000 sales by next year. I think a drop to 600,000 is just as plausible.
Nice collection. It helped me verify that I began shoplifting Playboys around the age of 14, and continued my life of serial misdemeanors until I was 16. Rita Lee and Janis Schmitt still live on in my memories.
I didn’t look at all the photos but I looked at enough to say it seems like there was a very specific template of proper dimensions of nipples to the photographer because though they may differ in looks it seems like all these women have the exact same size nipples!
If Playboy does go out of business I’m sure that the Standard Nipple Templates[sup]TM[/sup] will be hotly-desired collector’s items.
Could be, of course. I’m impressed by the 400% increase for the non-nude online site. That’s what I wouldn’t have expected. With that as background a much smaller increase in print sales seems like a safe prediction.
They will have to boost the non-pictorial editorial matter to keep that increase. Esquire and GQ* both do that with heavy fashion emphasis to draw advertisers, along with longer articles on major topics. Bill Simmons interviewed Obama a couple of months ago. Playboy needs that level of brand name authors and subjects to compete. If not, then the pictorials are irrelevant to the long term.
*GQ has an editorial slant promoting strong women in and around the “let’s be real men” stuff. To me it looks incongruous, if not hypocritical, but I bet millennials simply accept it as natural.
Back in the 70s to early 80s, when I read Playboy, my impression was of a classy magazine with fashion and lifestyle advice combined with some very fine short stories and investigative articles.
And nekkid women.
I may have been young and impressionable but the general feeling was the if you dress this way, order these drinks, and tell these jokes then you will also have these women hanging around you.
When the girls didn’t materialize, the next issue would tell me that I should be wearing *these *clothes, ordering *these *drinks and telling *these *jokes, because the women aren’t going to be impressed by last month’s stuff.
(I just realized that it is over thirty years since I read a Playboy. What did I miss?)
So, so true although “my” era was more 1980-2000 and more specifically the 90s. I hear it’s pretty much a lost battle nowadays 
.
No idea about the IQs, though.