It's been a good week for … reading Playboy for the articles
In 1953, the legend of Playboy was born as Marilyn Monroe graced the cover of the debut edition – and provided its first nude centrefold.
Now, some 60 years on, the serpent has eaten its own tale. From next March, the women who pose for Playboy's print edition will no longer be fully disrobed.
Circulation has dwindled from a high of seven million (back in 1972) to around 800,000 today. The modern gentleman, it would seem, is getting his jollies elsewhere. And, oh, sweet irony? Playboy has become a victim of the porn culture it helped to create.
Last year, the brand eliminated nudity from its website. Traffic jumped and there was a fall in the average age of visitors. The lure among young, urban males? Investigative journalism, interviews, humour and on-trend stories about gaming.
The age old quip spouted by those rumbled flicking through Playboy's pages – "I only read it for the articles" – has become self-fulfilling reality.
Here's hoping it catches on over at The Sun's page 3 …
It's been a bad week for … God
There have long been naysayers who have doubted the existence of God, but a scientist has now come up with a theory that religion is simply an attempt to satisfy 16 basic human desires.
Professor Steven Reiss, a psychologist at Ohio State University, claims this may also help to explain why many of the world's major religions contain a raft of contradictions.
In his book, The 16 Strivings For God, Professor Reiss says that religions address all 16 of the basic human desires at once: curiosity, acceptance, family, honour, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, eating, status, tranquillity and vengeance.
He states that while everyone has these fundamental impulses, they experience them on different levels and therefore their individual motivations will be different.
His conclusion came after looking at 270 different religious beliefs and practices – surveying 100,000 people about how they embrace different goals.
At time of going to press, God was unavailable for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel