As Playboy’s US edition pins its future to the idea that no nudes is good news, there are perhaps few people more abreast of the situation than Valent Soisuvarn.
Bunny girls: Khanisorn 'Ploysai' Punyawat and Kannapapat 'Gege' Manaswasunan. Gege hopes to appear in the US 'Playboy' one day.
The boss of the magazine’s Thai edition, which has never shown full-frontal nudity, says his business model proves there is life beyond the centrefolds for men’s magazines.
“Playboy Thailand will not be affected by the change of Playboy US policy, since we don’t have the same policy to begin with,” Valent explained.
That is largely through necessity rather than design, as Thailand’s media censorship laws prohibit the display of nude images, meaning Playboy Thailand is the only soft-core version of the magazine in the world according to Valent — or was, until the US followed suit.
But Valent said the Thai version sets a strong example on how to remain sexy without having to reveal everything.
“We have positioned ourselves to be the premium luxury sexy magazine,” Valent said. “The models we feature are sexy and classy. Instead of full-frontal nudity, we feature implied nudity, which means the model is nude but will cover their important body parts with their hands or hair.”
Indeed, Valent believes the US executives may have already looked to his operation for inspiration.
“During one interview on TV, I saw the CEO of Playboy magazine in New York put a copy of Thai Playboy on the desk,” he said. “Though they don’t say it directly, I am sure they are implying that they want to head in the same direction as us.”
The “Playboy” name was purchased under a franchise deal by Thailand’s Bunny Ventures Ltd in 2011 under the special agreement that there would be no full-
frontal nudity in the magazine.
The pilot edition of Playboy Thailand was printed in April 2012, though it wasn’t until July the next year that the maiden edition hit news stands featuring Ploy Chermarn as its centrefold Playmate.
Since then, the magazine has built a circulation at 80,000 per month for both print and digital versions, and more than 3.3 million followers on Facebook.
“Our target readers are people aged of 25-45. We want to attract young executives to be the main readers of our magazine,” Valent explained.
He said his focus is on the lifestyle that the magazine promotes — expensive cars, luxury vacations, fancy drinks and beautiful women — which helps to draw premium advertisers.
Valent said the product is proof that nudes are not essential to the survival of Playboy, though whether the strategy can arrest the US version’s rapidly declining circulation will only become clear in the coming months and years.
For the time being, Playboy magazines in other countries are sticking to the same old strategy. Valent said this might lead to more content being shared between the US and Thai versions.
“We usually share content between other Playboy magazines. Since we are now the only two in the world that are not displaying nudity, there will be a chance that they will use our models in their magazine.”
For the models themselves, the US move is welcome. Kannapapat “Gege” Manaswasunan, 28, has dreamed of appearing in Playboy magazine since she was young.
She told the Bangkok Post Sunday she believed the US magazine’s decision would help improve the image of Playboy models.
“I was worried at first to become one of the Playboy bunnies since many people might mistakenly think that I am a porn star,” Gege said. “What we are doing is sexy and classy. We are not porn stars. We have style, we are friendly, we are sexy and we have everything that a Playboy bunny is supposed to have.
“All of the Playboy models will also benefit from this since our image will be a lot more positive and we might have a chance to have our photos displayed in the main Playboy.”
No need for nudes: Valent Soisuvarn, editor in chief of Thai 'Playboy', believes US executives were inspired by his operation