Why Playboy Has Banned Nudes

Playboy will no longer run nude pictures on the pages of the magazine, it has been confirmed. The publication, which launched in 1953 and had its heyday in the Sixties and Seventies, already made the move on its website earlier this year - resulting in a leap in traffic from four million to almost 16 million unique users a month - and now the print version will follow suit in the hopes of boosting sales.

The idea was conceived by one of Playboy's top editors, Cory Jones, and pitched to Hugh Hefner himself at the Playboy mansion. Hefner agreed, The New York Times  reports, and as a result next March will see the launch of a redesign that will still feature "women in provocative poses" but no full nudes.

"That battle has been fought and won," Scott Flanders, the company's chief executive, told The New York Times by way of explanation. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture."

The change will also be visible in the kind of shots used in the magazine, which are set to be "cleaner and more modern" using a more "intimate" and less produced style of shooting, akin to those seen on Instagram - and while there will still be a Playmate of the Month, it's unclear whether the centrefold will continue to appear.