NEW YORK (AP) — Playboy is about to find out how many people really do read it for the articles.
The magazine that helped usher in the sexual revolution in the 1950s and '60s by bringing nudity into living rooms — or at least sock drawers — all over America announced Tuesday that it will no longer run photos of completely naked women.
Starting in March, it will still feature women in provocative poses, but they will no longer be fully nude.
In a way, Playboy may be a victim of some of the forces it helped unleash. Porn in full color and high definition is now widely available over the Internet.
"You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture," Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders told The New York Times.
The change represents a major shift for the magazine, which broke new ground when Hugh Hefner created it and featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953. It marks the latest step away from depictions of full nudity, which were banned from the magazine's website in August 2014.
The magazine claims it website audience soared with that move, averaging a 400 percent increase in monthly unique visitors.
"The political and sexual climate of 1953 ... bears almost no resemblance to today," Flanders said. "We are more free to express ourselves politically, sexually and culturally today, and that's in large part thanks to Hef's heroic mission to expand those freedoms."
Playboy editor Cory Jones recently contacted Hefner about dropping nude photos from the print edition and he agreed, the Times reported.
Playboy's print circulation, once measured in millions, is now about 800,000, according to Alliance for Audited Media, the newspaper reported.
The shift from nudity will be accompanied by other changes in the magazine, including a slightly larger size and a heavier, higher quality of paper meant to give the magazine a more collectible feel.