没了裸女照的《花花公子》还剩下什么

Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

上月，《花花公子》(Playboy)杂志的顶级编辑科利·琼斯(Cory Jones)去花花公子大厦探望了杂志的创始人休·赫夫纳(Hugh Hefner)。

In a wood-paneled dining room, with Picasso and de Kooning prints on the wAlls, Mr. Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: the magazine, a leader of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women.

《花花公子》杂志曾在性解放运动中充当领军角色，从那以后，美国的性文化就从遮遮掩掩变为无处不在，然而，在花花公子大厦镶嵌木板，悬挂着毕加索(Picasso)与德·库宁(de Kooning)作品的餐厅里，琼斯却紧张地提出了一个激进的建议，这本杂志不应该再刊登裸体女郎的照片了。

Mr. Hefner, now 89, but still listed as editor in chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.

89岁的赫夫纳仍在杂志上被列为总编，他同意了这个建议。新设计将在明年三月曝光，届时纸质版的《花花公子》上仍将有摆出挑逗姿态的女郎，但她们不再是全裸的了。

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

杂志高管们承认，杂志已经被自己倡导的种种变革所压倒。“战斗已经打过，并且已经取胜了，”公司首席执行官斯科特·弗兰达斯(Scott Flanders)说。“现在你可以免费点击获取各种可以想到的性行为内容。所以在眼下，性内容已经成了落伍的东西。”

For a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead. Pornographic magazines, even those as storied as Playboy, have lost their shock value, their commercial value and their cultural relevance.

对于一代美国男人来说，阅读《花花公子》杂志是一种文化仪式，一种不正当的刺激，要打着手电看才行。如今所有男孩子都有了可以联网的手机。色情杂志已经失去了震撼性的价值、商业价值与文化影响，就连《花花公子》这样历史悠久的杂志也不例外。

Playboy’s circulation has dropped from 5.6 million in 1975 to about 800,000 now, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. Many of the magazines that followed it have disappeared. Though detailed figures are not kept for adult magazines, many of those that remain exist in severely diminished form, available mostly in specialist stores. Penthouse, perhaps the most famous Playboy competitor, responded to the threat from digital pornography by turning even more explicit. It never recovered.

根据审计媒体联盟( Alliance for Audited Media)统计，《花花公子》的发行量已经从1975年的560万册跌到如今的80万册。许多它的效仿者们更是已经消失不见。尽管关于男性杂志没有细节统计数字，但其中很多杂志的规模都已经大大缩减，主要只能在色情商店才能买到。《阁楼》(Penthouse)或许是《花花公子》最著名的竞争者，面对数字色情内容的威胁，它的对策就是内容更加露骨。它倒闭后再也没能复原。

Previous efforts to revamp Playboy, as recently as three years ago, have never quite stuck. And those who have accused it of exploiting women are unlikely to be assuaged by a modest cover-up. But, according to its own research, Playboy’s logo is one of the most recognizable in the world, along with those of Apple and Nike. This time, as the magazine seeks to compete with younger outlets like Vice, Mr. Flanders said, it sought to answer a key question: “if you take nudity out, what’s left?”

三年前，为了振兴《花花公子》采取的一系列举措均未能持续收到良好效果。那些指责它剥削利用女性的人们对杂志上出现的温和遮掩也并不满意。但是，根据杂志自己所做的研究，《花花公子》的logo仍然同苹果和耐克的商标一样，是世界上最易辨识的标识之一。这一次，弗兰德斯说，杂志希望同Vice等更年轻的传媒竞争，它希望能回答这样一个关键的问题：“如果把裸体撤掉，那么还剩下什么？”

It is difficult, in a media market that has been so fragmented by the web, to imagine the scope of Playboy’s influence at its peak. A judge once ruled that denying blind people a Braille version of it violated their First Amendment rights. It published stories by Margaret Atwood and Haruki Murakami among others, and its interviews have included Malcolm X, Vladimir Nabokov, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter, who admitted that he had lusted in his heart for women other than his wife. Madonna, Sharon Stone and Naomi Campbell posed for the magazine at the peak of their fame. Its best-selling issue, in November of 1972, sold more than seven million copies.

在媒体市场已经被互联网变得日益碎片化的当今，要想象《花花公子》当年的影响之广是很困难的。一个法官曾经判决杂志拒绝为盲人发行布莱叶盲文版是违反了宪法第一修正案赋予盲人的权利。它刊登过许多著名作家的小说，其中包括玛格丽特·阿特伍德(Margaret Atwood)与村上春树的作品，它曾经采访过马尔科姆·X(Malcolm X)、弗拉迪米尔·纳博科夫(Vladimir Nabokov)、小马丁·路德·金(Martin Luther King Jr.)和吉米·卡特(Jimmy Carter)，卡特承认自己在心里对别的女人比对妻子更有欲望。麦当娜(Madonna)、莎朗·斯通(Sharon Stone)与娜奥米·坎贝尔(Naomi Campbell)都曾在自己的全盛时期为它拍照。1972年11月刊是它最畅销的一期，共卖出了700万册。

Even those who disliked it cared enough to pay attention — Gloria Steinem, the pioneering feminist, went undercover as a waitress, or Playboy Bunny, in one of Mr. Hefner’s spinoff clubs to write an exposé for Show Magazine in 1963.

就连那些不喜欢它的人也不得不关注它。1963年，为了给《Show Magazine》杂志写一篇揭露文章，女权主义先驱格劳丽亚·斯泰纳姆(Gloria Steinem)甚至曾经去赫夫纳旗下的夜总会卧底，做起了花花公子兔女郎。

When Mr. Hefner created the magazine, which featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, he did so to please himself. “If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is meant for you,” he said in his first editor’s letter. “We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph, and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex ...” He did not put a date on the cover of the first issue, in case Playboy did not make it to a second.

1953年，赫夫纳创办了这本杂志，创刊号封面上是玛丽莲·梦露(Marilyn Monroe)的照片，他这么做是为了取悦自己。“《花花公子》适合所有18岁到80岁的男性，”他在第一篇总编发刊词中写道。“我们喜欢调鸡尾酒，吃一两道开胃小菜，在唱机上放点有情调的音乐，邀一位女性熟人来安静地聊一聊毕加索、尼采、爵士乐与性爱……”创刊号封面上没有写日期，因为他不知道《花花公子》还能不能出第二期。

Mr. Hefner “just revolutionized the whole direction of how we live, of our lifestyles and the kind of sex you might have in America,” said Dian Hanson, author of a six-volume history of men’s magazines and an editor for Taschen. “But taking the nudity out of Playboy is going to leave what?”

赫夫纳“彻底改变了我们生活的方向，我们的生活方式，以及美国的性爱方式，”迪安·汉森(Dian Hanson)说，他著有一部六卷本的男性杂志历史，是Taschen出版社的编辑。“但是把裸体照片从《花花公子》上拿掉，还会剩下什么呢？”

The latest redesign, 62 years later, is more pragmatic. The magazine had already made some content safe for work, Mr. Flanders said, in order to be allowed on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, vital sources of web traffic.

杂志走过了62年的历程，如今的改版是出于实用主义。弗兰德斯说，杂志已经调整了一些内容，可以安全地在工作场合观看，这是为了杂志可以在Facebook、Instagram和Twitter等重要的网络社交媒体平台上传播。

In August of last year, its website dispensed with nudity. As a result, Playboy executives said, the average age of its reader dropped from 47 to just over 30, and its web traffic jumped to about 16 million from about four million unique users per month.

去年8月，杂志网站上开始提供裸体内容。公司高管们说，由此带来的是读者的平均年龄从47岁降低到了30岁左右，它的网站流量从每月400万次浏览升高到1600万次。

The magazine will adopt a cleaner, more modern style, said Mr. Jones, who as chief content officer also oversees its website. There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be “PG-13” and less produced — more like the racier sections of Instagram. “A little more accessible, a little more intimate,” he said. It is not yet decided whether there will still be a centerfold.

琼斯说，杂志会采取更干净，更现代的风格，他是杂志的内容总编，也负责网络的工作。他说，杂志上仍然会有每月花花公子女郎，不过照片会是“PG-13”级别的，也不会再进行那么多后期制作，而是更像一组活泼的Instagram照片。“更可亲，更亲密，”他说。杂志上是否还会有中间插页照片，目前尚未决定。

Its sex columnist, Mr. Jones said, will be a “sex-positive female,” writing enthusiastically about sex. And Playboy will continue its tradition of investigative journalism, in-depth interviews and fiction. The target audience, Mr. Flanders said, is young men who live in cities. “The difference between us and Vice,” he said, “is that we’re going after the guy with a job.”

琼斯说，杂志的性专栏作家会是一个“性方面非常积极的女人”，她会满腔热情地写性。《花花公子》在调查新闻、深度访谈和虚构写作方面的传统还将延续。弗兰德斯说，杂志的目标读者是居住在城市里的青年男子。“我们和Vice的区别，就是我们更关注那些有工作的人，”他说。

Some of the moves, like expanded coverage of liquor, are partly commercial, Mr. Flanders admitted; the magazine must please its core advertisers. And all the changes have been tested in focus groups with an eye toward attracting millennials — people between the ages of 18 and 30-something, highly coveted by publishers. The magazine will feature visual artists, with their work dotted through the pages, in part because research revealed that younger people are drawn to art.

还有一些举措部分是出于商业目的，比如增加烈酒的报道篇幅，弗兰德斯承认；杂志必须取悦自己的核心广告客户。所有这些变化都经过焦点小组的测试，目标是吸引千禧一代，也就是18岁到30岁的人群，他们是出版商极度觊觎的目标。杂志上还会刊登视觉艺术家的作品，散布在不同页面，部分是因为调查显示年轻人喜欢艺术。

The company now makes most of its money from licensing its ubiquitous brand and logo across the world — 40 percent of that business is in China even though the magazine is not available there — for bath products, fragrances, clothing, liquor and jewelry among other merchandise. Nudity in the magazine risks complaints from shoppers, and diminished distribution.

如今，公司的主要收入是靠着在全球各地出售自己品牌与logo的许可权，包括沐浴用品、香水、服装，烈酒、珠宝和其他小商品，其中40%的业务在中国，尽管这本杂志在中国买不到。杂志上的裸体要冒着被购物者指责的风险，会减少分销数量。

Playboy, which had gone public in 1971, was taken private again in 2011 by Mr. Hefner with Rizvi Traverse Management, an investment firm founded by Suhail Rizvi, a publicity-shy Silicon Valley investor, who has interests in Twitter, Square and Snapchat among others. The firm now owns over 60 percent. Mr. Hefner owns about 30 percent (some shares are held by Playboy management).

花花公子公司于1971年上市，2011年，又被赫夫纳与里兹维·特拉维斯资产管理公司(Rizvi Traverse Management)收购，这家投资公司是由苏海尔·里兹维(Suhail Rizvi)创立的，他是个外表羞涩的硅谷投资者，曾为Twitter、Square和Snapchat等公司投资。里兹维·特拉维斯目前拥有60%股份，赫夫纳拥有30%股份，其他部分股份由公司管理层持有。

The magazine is profitable if money from licensed editions around the world is taken into account, Mr. Flanders said, but the United States edition loses about $3 million a year. He sees it, he said, as a marketing expense. “It is our Fifth Avenue storefront,” he said.

如果把全球的各种授权版本算进来，这本杂志仍然是盈利的，弗兰德斯说，但是杂志的美国版每年亏损300万美元。他说自己把这当做市场营销的开支。“它相当于我们在第五大道的门店，”他说。

He and Mr. Jones feel that the magazine remains relevant, not least because the world has gradually adopted Mr. Hefner’s libertarian views on a variety of social issues. Asked whether Mr. Hefner’s views on women were the exception to that rule, Mr. Flanders responded that Mr. Hefner had “always celebrated the beauty of the female figure.”

他和琼斯觉得这本杂志仍然有着重大意义，特别是因为这个世界已经逐渐接纳了赫夫纳对各种社会问题的自由主义观点。被问到赫夫纳对女人的观点是否是其中的例外，弗兰德斯回答说，赫夫纳“一直都赞美女人的美。”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Jones said of the decision to dispense with nudity, “12-year-old me is very disappointed in current me. But it’s the right thing to do.”

“别误会我，”琼斯在谈到撤下裸体照片这个决定时说。“那个12岁时的我对现在的我非常失望，但这是一件正确的事情。”