"I read it for the articles" is an excuse as old as time. For decades—nay, centuries—men have been using this claim when caught with dirty magazines. We're pretty sure this is actually the excuse that cavemen used when their wives caught them sketching naked ladies onto the cave wall.
It wasn't always the most believable exclamation, but now it's pretty much iron-clad. As of this spring, Playboy will no longer feature nude pictorials. That's so long, sayonara and au revoir to naked ladies in any form, whether it be on the cover or in a centerfold.
That means that finally, Playboy really will be all about the articles. In the company's announcement, they promised to "remain committed to its award-winning mix of long-form journalism, interviews and fiction." Most of the public probably doesn't even know that there were, like, words in Playboy. Because really, who's reading the Letters to the Editor when Lindsay Lohan is in her birthday suit?
But the words have always existed, and they're actually very, very good. We don't know whether they'll beef up features going forward (you know, to make up for the lack of naked ladies), but here are five they've done before that should get readers excited for the revamped glossy.
1. The 1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. interview. For anyone that was skeptical about Playboy's contributions to the world of journalism, the simple fact that they interviewed Dr. King should stand as the perfect argument. And it wasn't any interview; he discussed everything from his childhood memories to his coming to terms with the possibility of being assassinated. It's all heartbreaking and fascinating, and this quote says it all: "I must face the fact, as all others in positions of leadership must do, that America today is an extremely sick nation, and that something could well happen to me at any time. I feel, though, that my cause is so right, so moral, that if I should lose my life, in some way it would aid the cause."
2. The Steve Jobs profile. How trendy! But actually, Playboy was way ahead of the curve, because they posted their article way back in 1985. It went down after he was forced out of Apple and was starting his new company NeXT Computer, and Jobs spoke candidly about everything he'd been through and his visions for the future. It makes for a pretty interesting read today, especially when you take into consideration how he was able to predict how pervasive computers would be one day.
3. "The Man in the Bomb Suit." Here is a little-known fact: The screenplay for the Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker actually started as this Playboy article. Reporter Mark Boals embedded with bomb disposal experts in Iraq—a group that later became the inspiration for Jeremy Renner's heartbreaking character. And, dare we say it, the original article is just as fascinating as the flashy flick.
4. David Foster Wallace's first magazine fiction piece. Twenty years before he tragically took his own life—and 27 years before Jason Segel played him on the big screen—David Foster Wallace was a little-known writer from Minnesota. A little-known writer who scored a major assignment from a national magazine. The story was called "Late Night," and was a fictional recollection of an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman. How very Foster Wallace-y.
5. "The Ghost in the Machine." This article won Playboy (and its author) the 2013 National Journalism Award for Best Personality Profile. So yes, the 'zine can really call itself "award-winning." "Ghost" told the story of rapper and songwriter D.O.C., who just so happened to be the ghostwriter responsible for some of the biggest hits from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and the like. So it's kind of like the original Straight Outta Compton, right?