Playboy published the first quarterly issue of its relaunch this spring with Colombian pop star Karol G on the cover, and it sold out. But the message of this new Playboy relaunch is what really made headlines. They want you to know that this is not pornography.
“There’s always been a difference between Playboy and porn, especially the kinds of porn that are really prevalent today and that people have access to just by having a Twitter account or a Reddit account,” explained editor-in-chief Phillip Picardi. Picardi is Playboy’s first openly gay editor-in-chief, brought in this year alongside president of media and brand David Miller to resurrect the publication that stopped print production in 2020. The summer issue features Cara Delevingne in a latex corset, and they upped the print run after selling out their spring issue.
The distinction Picardi is trying to make is strategic, but it’s not new. Playboy has been making this argument in various forms since Hugh Hefner founded it in 1953. That’s over 50 years of “wait, this isn’t porn!” arguments. To be fair, the magazine has always positioned itself as the sophisticated alternative to smut, where the nude centerfold came with a celebrity interview and long-form journalism. But in today’s media-savvy world, the argument is harder to sustain.
The content model Picardi describes sounds awfully familiar. Models decide how much of their bodies they want to reveal. They approve the photographers and stylists. Most of the crews have been women. Picardi said when permission sits with the model, she usually shows more than the magazine expected. “It is up to a woman how much she has to show on set,” he said.
Independent adult creators have been running their sets this way for years. The entire value proposition of platforms like OnlyFans is that the creator controls the content, approves the production, sets the terms, and keeps the majority of the revenue. What Picardi describes as Playboy’s consent model, making it seem like some sort of modern innovation that distinguishes the magazine from the rest of the industry, is really just the standard that the creator economy built – minus the models getting to keep most of the money.
The business structure behind this relaunch is worth considering separate from the editorial positioning Picard is attempting here. Playboy Inc has moved primarily to a licensing and lifestyle model with apparel, hospitality, digital media, and consumer products. Its actual adult properties, including its creator platform, TV brand, and subscription image service, have been pushed out to partners. The company posted $120.9 million in revenue in 2025 with a $12.7 million net loss, down from a nearly $80 million loss the year before. The quarterly print magazine is just one piece of the broader strategy, not the revenue center.
Structuring this new version of the magazine as “not porn” is a clear business decision. Playboy’s licensing business relies on the brand being something companies want their logo associated with. A Playboy-branded hotel or clothing line needs the Playboy name to connote aspiration and transgression in a carefully calculated ratio. It has to be sexy enough to be interesting but respectful enough to be useful. The magazine relaunch is part to produce content but definitely to reinforce the company’s brand. It’s a regular reminder that Playboy exists and stands for something specific: tasteful nudity with artistic intent, as opposed to the alternative.
The alternative, in case it wasn’t clear, includes OnlyFans. Human behavior analyst Dr. Lillian Glass was asked about Playboy, and she’s skeptical that it can compete in today’s world, explaining: “It was devised when there was no access to internet porn that is so readily available today or seeing sites like OnlyFans pop up regularly.” Picard seems to think that they aren’t competing with OnlyFans, but with the idea of OnlyFans. Instead of all-you-can-watch on-demand content, you get a curated and editorially intentional alternative.
Respectability is a positioning strategy, not a moral fact. The same nude photograph means something different depending on the masthead it appears under, and Playboy is willing to bet there is money in that gap. They’re counting on institutional legitimacy thanks to their legacy brand instead of directly produced content from creators.
But creators may argue that institutional legitimacy is actually the problem, not the solution. The Playboy model is exactly what gave us decades of exploitation and the culture around it. Is that really something we want to go back to?