Playboy’s CEO, Scott Flanders, recently announced that the magazine will no longer print pictures of naked women. He wants us to rest assured, though: Playboy will still print provocative pictures of women.

Yawn.

Flanders explained the logic behind Playboy’s decision to cut the buff after the March 2016 issue: “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

(Psst, Flanders: Sometimes it takes multiple clicks.)

I’m a little baffled by Flanders’ logic. He seems to assume that all men, and women, who pick up or subscribe to the magazine to see naked actresses, models, musicians (and random girls who’ve used the “Pose for Playboy” link on playboy.com) are also interested in Spankwire. Not always the case. Wanting a peek at a naked Cindy Crawford circa 1988 is not the same as cueing up a video with “creampie” in the title.

No judgment. Just a fact.

Playboy’s decision would make more sense if Flanders had used the word “problematic” (as in the commodification or commercialization of female nudity is problematic) instead of “passé.” Or if he’d said Hugh and the editors want to focus more on their thought-provoking news, like “The NFL Network Accidentally Showed Some Naked Dudes during a Locker Room Interview” or “Drone Footage of Tokyo, Venice and Bern Will Give You the Wanderlust.”

Essentially, Playboy called itself corny: if you’re horny, there’s better stuff out there.

But what if, say, someone has looked at Playboy not because she was horny but because Cindy Crawford is gorgeous. Let’s say this someone is all about aestheticism. Appreciating the beauty of something is not the same as wanting to sleep with said something. I haven’t been to Florence to see Donatello’s amazing David. But, when I do, I can’t imagine I’ll eye the nude statue, nod my head, and smirk, Oh yeah, big boy. I like the way you hang. Mmm-mmm.

Or, what if that same someone has looked at Playboy because, hey, eroticism happens. If this weren’t true, we wouldn’t have any stories, novels, and films that begin with a young boy finding his father’s stack of nudie mags and running off, arms full, with a friend to the woods where mischief ensues.

Playboy.com claims this: “Founded by Hugh M. Hefner in 1953, Playboy has been a tastemaker, an arbiter of style and a vanguard for political, sexual and economic freedom for almost 60 years.”

Promises, promises.

Keep that sexual freedom in print: the freedom to pose, the freedom to look. Don’t tell me what I really want is internet porn. As if Playboy is weed to TNAFlix’s heroin. Don’t make me start a movement called Free the Nude, something similar to that lame Free the Nipple thing where young starlets post bare-chested pics on Instagram to fight the censorship of female breasts. I’ll post a picture of the Venus de Milo at the Louvre, with the caption, “If you like pretty and/or you’re horny, Playboy had something way better.” 

This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2015.