Playboy is back – back in the black.

The infamous magazine has topped the list of most read male-interest magazines for years, but it has been losing its readership since peaking in the 1970s. In recent years, Playboy Enterprises’ annual reports show a net loss ranging from $700 to $30,000 from 1999 to 2005.

The empire was built by the Playboy god himself – Hugh Hefner – but is now run by his daughter, Christie Hefner.

The change to a female CEO was made in 1988, but the company stayed headstrong in the male demographic for more than a decade. Sales in the red forced Playboy Enterprises to find a larger market.

As a woman in power, there is no chance Christie Hefner missed seeing a new generation of sexually empowered women emerge from the woodwork. To capitalize on this, she and Playboy have filled the pages with information that affects the lives of both genders. Women across the nation are checking out their boyfriends’ coffee tables for their Playboys, to read the articles amid naked women, and to even find themselves looking forward to the next issue.

It’s not just the magazine. Playboy has jumped from print to television and taken full advantage of reality TV mania. In 2005, the show “The Girls Next Door” begin airing on the E! network featuring Hugh Hefner’s three blond bombshell girlfriends in the notorious Playboy Mansion. The show – immensely popular with women and college students – will begin its fourth season later this year.

This is not a show about objectifying women, but rather a show about empowering them. We’d all love to think that Holly, Bridget and Kendra are nothing more than airheads with killer bodies.

However, they all have brains and they’re not afraid to use them. They are completely aware of the impact that they are able to have on society. Also, their distinct personalities make it easy for women to identify with them, and their stunning beauty makes it easy for men to watch as well.

They do charity work and are constantly promoting the idea of being an individual. Contrary to what people would like to expect of Hugh Hefner’s playmates, these girls make far better role models for children than women like Britney, Lindsay and Paris.

Since the success of “The Girls Next Door,” Playboy Enterprises also has started a Web site much like Facebook. Only this is exclusively for college students – like Facebook was in the beginning. I’m sure many people scoffed at the idea, thinking that it would be nothing more than a bunch of half-naked women and men simply there to look at the pictures.

There is nothing to be scoffed at, though. Playboy U is much like any other social network, only geared more toward sexually ambitious people. It’s not porn by any means – but a place for people to ask questions they wouldn’t normally pose to each other. The “girls next door” are continually featured on the site and have a created a link between the two realms of media.

Playboy U has a steady stream of blogs being posted from students across the country that make it easy to communicate with each other. Surprisingly, there is no nudity – aside from the cleavage you could see on Facebook anyway.

The Playboy empire that was once solely for male sexual pleasure is now an outlet for female sexual empowerment. A new generation is coming of age, and they are not content standing in the background and watching a sexual revolution pass them by.

In the coming months and years, we are going to see more companies sell sex to not only men, but also women. The audience has always been there – it just took a different view to find it.

– Emily Garringer is a senior in marketing and hotel, restaurant and institution management from Williamsburg.