politics | cristian farias
Elise Foley
Playboy's First
Non-Nude Issue Is Here
And It's Totally SFW
"It's going to be sexy, but it's going to be safe for work."
The first issue of Playboy's non-nude era is here.
Playboy's March issue is the first to embrace a new look and a new mantra. There is now a commitment to "art, literature and long-form journalism," along with "an entirely contemporary take on photographing the beautiful women who have made the publication one of the most enduring and successful of all time," according to a press release.
Playboy bunnies and calendar girls attend the Playboy and Gramercy Pictures' Self/less party on day 2 of Comic-Con International on Friday, July 10, 2015, in San Diego.
Paul A. Hebert/ Invision/ AP
Instagram and Snapchat star Sarah McDaniel is the March cover girl whose social-media themed photo spread is meant to be from "a boyfriend's perspective."
Dree Hemingway, daughter of actress and author Mariel Hemingway, is the centerfold.
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“I know I speak for all involved when I say that creating this new Playboy magazine has been a labor of love for those fortunate enough to work on it,” Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders said in a press release. “We are exceptionally proud of the end result and are confident that everyone will enjoy reading it as much as we did creating it.”
In October, Playboy announced that the magazine would stop publishing nudes in its print magazine, citing competition from other publishers and ubiquitous porn on the Internet.
The announcement came after the company changed its website to a SFW version in August. The site saw a bump in unique users, while the print circulation was just 800,000 (a far cry from its 5.6 million subscriber base in 1975).
While there is no full-frontal nudity anymore, Playboy hasn't completely lost its essence.
"There's a lot that we're keeping of the DNA of the magazine, but there's a lot we're evolving, too," Chief Content Officer Cory Jones told CNN. "It's going to be sexy, but it's going to be safe for work."
Theo Wenner/ Playboy
Reza Gul, her brother-in-law, mother, and baby sister walk towards the plane that will transport them to Kabul on Thursday. It was their first time ever flying.
Sophia Jones/ The Worldpost
On Thursday, hours before the sun rose, Reza Gul, along with her brother-in-law, mother, and baby sister, was transported to Kabul for treatment. So far, the cash-strapped family have not had to pay for anything. A network of doctors, government officials and individuals paid for her transportation and planned treatment.
Bahar Sohaili, a Kabul-based women’s rights activist who volunteered to help the family, said Reza Gul will meet with surgeons in the Afghan capital. She said Reza Gul would only be sent abroad, to a country like Turkey, if reconstructive surgery was not possible in Afghanistan. But Reza insists she wants to leave the country for treatment.
“I am not afraid,” Reza Gul said before boarding the flight. It’s been a week of firsts – it was her first time flying in an airplane, her first time leaving her village where electricity and running water is scarce and her first time leaving her daughter, who is back home with Reza Gul's sister.
Sitting in business class aboard the airplane – flight attendants sat her there once they realized that she was the famous woman from the news – Reza Gul peered out of the window as the plane glided above the rain clouds towards the capital. As it flew over a seemingly endless horizon of snowy mountaintops, she pressed her forehead to the window in silence, exhausted.
Other passengers shook their heads in pity and disgust at the nightmare she endured.
For now, Reza Gul is free from torture. Free from the Taliban.
She doesn’t know what awaits her – a reconstructed nose, she hopes, and perhaps with it, a life she never imagined was possible.
Naiemullah Sangen contributed reporting from Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul.
Theo Wenner/ Playboy