Sounding a Tad Defensive at Playboy

It seems that the issue of Playboy's relevance, which I raised in an earlier post, has been on the mind of editorial director Christopher Napolitano of late.

Napolitano recently submitted to a Q&A with The New York Times's Freakonomics blog, where the subject came up. (And, no, I don't know why a blog about economics would want to interview the editor of a men's magazine.)

"As for relevancy, what the hell does that mean?" he wrote, responding to a reader's question. "[C]an someone truly say that a magazine with 10 million readers is irrelevant? Drop me in a cornfield with any other editor from any other publication, then ask the first person who walks by which one of us they'd like to meet first."

Personally, I'd probably want to meet Chris first, but only because I've already met him and think he's swell. That doesn't mean Playboy doesn't read too often like it's stuck in the past.

Elsewhere, Napolitano successfully bats away the "porn" label -- "I've seen harder stuff in fashion ads" -- and addresses the issue of whether Playboy's models aren't overdoing it a bit in the boob-job department:

There's a lot of silicone in other magazines -- you just can't see it because clothes get in the way. Still, it's a hard stereotype for us to dodge. We're more varied than that, which means we have to do a better job of getting our message out. Perhaps there's a blog that will run my thoughts.

Happy to be of service.