\n Editor\u2019s Note: <\/b>The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation<\/a>, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation.\n<\/p>\n \n \n Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine 70 years ago this year. The first issue included a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe, which he had purchased and published without her knowledge or consent.\n <\/p>\n \n Hefner went on to build the Playboy brand off the backs of the countless women featured in its pages, whose beauty and performance of heightened feminine sexuality have entertained its readers for generations.\n <\/p>\n \n Approaching its 70th anniversary in December, Playboy has radically shifted. With the magazine no longer in publication, the Playboy Mansion sold to a developer and London\u2019s last remaining Playboy Club closing in 2021, what is the future for Playboy? The brand is changing to keep up with the post-#MeToo world.\n <\/p>\n \n Hefner passed away one month before allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced in 2017 giving momentum to the #MeToo movement (which saw survivors of sexual assault and harassment speak out against their abusers).\n <\/p>\n \n READ MORE: <\/strong>Sex, love and companionship \u2026 with AI? Why human-machine relationships could go mainstream<\/strong><\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n In recent years, many have re-evaluated<\/a> Hefner\u2019s legacy and relationships with women. The 2022 docuseries \u201cThe Secrets of Playboy\u201d (which aired on Channel 4 in the UK) detailed sexual misconduct accusations against Hefner from several ex-girlfriends, including model Sondra Theodore and TV personality Holly Madison.\n <\/p>\n \n Hefner and Playboy\u2019s relationship with women has been complicated. Playboy was an early supporter<\/a> of abortion rights, helped fund<\/a> the first rape kit and was at times an early proponent<\/a> of inclusivity (for example featuring transgender model, Caroline \u201cTula\u201d Cossey, in its June 1981 issue). But most women featured in Playboy have fit within a narrow beauty standard \u2014 thin, white, able-bodied and blonde.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile Hefner\u2019s personal relationship with his much younger girlfriends reportedly followed patterns<\/a> of control and emotional abuse. Ex-girlfriend Holly Madison described Hefner as treating her \u201clike a glorified pet\u201d in her 2015 memoir, \u201cDown the Rabbit Hole.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hefner\u2019s passing meant he evaded reckoning with the #MeToo movement. Playboy, however, responded, releasing a statement<\/a> in which it affirmed support for the women featured in \u201cThe Secrets of Playboy\u201d and called Hefner\u2019s actions \u201cabhorrent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The statement declared that the brand was no longer affiliated with the Hefner family and would be focusing on aspects of the company\u2019s legacy that align with values of sex positivity and free expression.\n <\/p>\n \n READ MORE: The \u2018milf\u2019: a brief cultural history, from Mrs Robinson to Stifler\u2019s mom<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n Today, Playboy is a very different company from the one Hefner launched nearly 70 years ago. Roughly 80% of Playboy staff identify as women, according the company, and its motto has changed from \u201cEntertainment for Men\u201d to \u201cPleasure for All.\u201d Shares in the company are publicly traded and 40% of its board and management are women.\n <\/p>\n \n The company has also moved towards more creator-led content through its app, Playboy Centerfold. Similar to subscription content service OnlyFans, Playboy Centerfold allows subscribers to view content from and interact with its creators, which it call \u201cbunnies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n On the app, creators \u2014 or bunnies \u2014 are able portray their own bodies however they wish, putting the power back in their hands. Perhaps Playboy\u2019s future is no longer in serving the male gaze, but instead the very audience Hefner dismissed in his first letter from the editor<\/a>:\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf you\u2019re a man between the ages of 18 and 80 Playboy is meant for you \u2026 If you\u2019re somebody\u2019s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The stars of Playboy\u2019s mid-2000s reality series, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, are also enjoying a resurgence among fans.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Girls Next Door\u201d launched in 2004. The show focused on the lives of Hefner\u2019s three girlfriends, Madison, Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. It became E\u2019s best performing show and cultivated a new female audience for Playboy.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Girls Next Door\u201d was a story of complicated empowerment despite patriarchal interference. Its three female protagonists went from being known solely as some of Hefner\u2019s many blonde girlfriends, to celebrities in their own right.\n <\/p>\n \n They each ultimately broke up with Hefner, leaving the Mansion and going on to lead successful careers.\n <\/p>\n \n The show\u2019s depiction of Madison, Marquardt and Wilkinson as empowered, fun-loving and complex individuals, who found joy and agency through expressing their sexuality was perhaps what drew so many female fans to the show. However, amid the girls\u2019 fight for agency, Hefner retaliated.\n <\/p>\n \n The series shows that he maintained final say in every Playboy photograph of the girls, as well as imposing strict curfews and spending allowances.\n <\/p>\n \n In Madison and Wilkinson\u2019s memoirs, \u201cDown the Rabbit Hole,\u201d and \u201cSliding into Home,\u201d they claim that production consistently undermined them. They refused to pay them for the first season, didn\u2019t credit them until season four and aired their uncensored nude bodies in foreign broadcasts and DVD releases without consent.\n <\/p>\n
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