The First Non-Nude ‘Playboy’ Cover Plays on Snapchat

In October, Playboy announced it would no longer publish photos of full-frontal nudity (the collective cry of the handful of people who had yet to discover the Internet’s massive porn hub couldn’t be heard). The change, which launched on Thursday with the March issue, is just the publication’s latest step away from overt salaciousness (full undress was banned from Playboy.com, making it SFW in 2014) and a weak attempt to attract a younger audience.


The first cover featuring the redesign has “social media model” (whatever that means) Sarah Rose McDaniel, who has different-colored eyes — a condition known as heterochromia iridum — wearing a white tank top with multiple buttons undone, showing off her cleavage. The shirt is rolled up to show her entire torso and her blue-and-white-striped underwear. She’s posing in a way that makes it seem like she’s taking a selfie and sending the image via Snapchat — with the caption “heyyy ;).” It’s raw and apparently unretouched (yet, unlike a photo shared via Snapchat, this image is forever). “The idea was to look at me from a boyfriend’s perspective,” she explained of the image taken by photographer Theo Wenner. 

But will the cheap trick work? Just because millennials and their younger counterparts from Gen-Z log hours on the social media platform doesn’t necessarily mean that playing to it will attract readers. 

“The political and sexual climate of 1953 … bears almost no resemblance to today,” said Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders. “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.”