If you happened to spot a copy of Playboy’s new “Pleasure” issue on newsstands, you might not have recognized its faceless cover model as Kylie Jenner. Last summer, Forbes put the reality TV star, beauty entrepreneur, and Instagram super-influencer on its cover, proclaiming her, at 21, “the youngest-ever self-made billionaire.” This fall, she’s the focus of a nearly-ɴuᴅᴇ layout in Playboy, a spread that was creative directed by her rapper/producer boyfriend Travis Scott and sH๏τ by pH๏τographer Sasha Samsanova. Because I’ve written about Playboy on this site previously, and because years ago I worked for Playboy TV and occasionally wrote for Playboy’s website, a popular Australian podcast called me up to get my take on Kylie’s decision to expose herself to the world. After all, it wasn’t like most billionaires were posing ɴuᴅᴇ. “Can it be an empowering move?” the host inquired of the now 22-year-old’s decision to bare her ᴀssets in Playboy. In response to the host’s question, I couldn’t help but wonder: Are we still asking this question in 2019?

Taken at face value, Kylie’s Playboy feature is only mildly provocative and barely revealing. тιтled “Wild at Heart,” it includes an interview of Kylie by Travis, the content if which is only marginally interesting and sometimes cringe-worthy. “I trust you and your vision,” she says of Travis as creative director. “But I am really proud of myself for the things I’ve accomplished and worked hard for,” she notes of her career. Briefly, things get slightly more тιтillating, when Kylie explains how having their daughter Stormi didn’t change their Sєx life for the worse.

“A lot of people claim that having a baby can hurt your Sєx life, but I feel like that’s the opposite of our experience,” Travis notes. “Yeah, I feel like we’ve definitely proven that rumor to be wrong. [laughs].” As for the pH๏τos, their content ranges from pastoral depictions of the young couple canoodling near orange trees to Kylie draped in a see-through swath of pale blue fabric and gazing seductively at the camera. The most provocative of the images showcases a significant portion of Kylie’s posterior. And that’s about it.

So why are we still questioning whether or not it’s empowering for a woman to chose to pose ɴuᴅᴇ? The body is hers, and the choice of what to do with it belongs to her alone. The same is true whether you’re #2 on “The Celebrity 100” and have a real-time net worth of $1 billion, whether you’re the 50-year-old star of a movie about strippers, or whether you’re a Sєx worker fighting for her right to do business without fear of being killed while doing so. Kylie is successful enough and powerful enough that she can shrug off any doubters who might wonder if appearing on the cover of Playboy sans your head is part of a considered strategic plan. After all, she’s got 146 million followers on Instagram. She doesn’t need your approval. By posing in Playboy, Kylie offers up what “having it all” looks like in 2019. In the course of a year, she can claim a net worth of $1 billion, she can take it off for a famously Sєxy magazine, she can be a loving partner, and she can be a mother. If that’s not empowerment, then what is?

So why are we still questioning whether or not it’s empowering for a woman to chose to pose ɴuᴅᴇ? The body is hers, and the choice of what to do with it belongs to her alone. The same is true whether you’re #2 on “The Celebrity 100” and have a real-time net worth of $1 billion, whether you’re the 50-year-old star of a movie about strippers, or whether you’re a Sєx worker fighting for her right to do business without fear of being killed while doing so. Kylie is successful enough and powerful enough that she can shrug off any doubters who might wonder if appearing on the cover of Playboy sans your head is part of a considered strategic plan. After all, she’s got 146 million followers on Instagram. She doesn’t need your approval. By posing in Playboy, Kylie offers up what “having it all” looks like in 2019. In the course of a year, she can claim a net worth of $1 billion, she can take it off for a famously Sєxy magazine, she can be a loving partner, and she can be a mother. If that’s not empowerment, then what is?