Posted on 04/11/2006 7:39:19 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
The founder of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, is worried about his legacy. In preparation for his eightieth birthday, which he celebrated yesterday, he’s been busily filling leather-bound scrapbooks—1,500 of them—about his life and work. He’s arranged to be entombed next to Marilyn Monroe, the actress who posed nude in the first edition of Playboy in 1953.
According to a Wall Street Journal article by Matthew Scully, Hefner wants to be remembered as a philanthropist, social philosopher, cultural revolutionary. In fact, Hefner wants to be remembered as anything but what he was: a smut peddler, and the exploiter of women.
As Scully puts it with biting sarcasm, “There was a dark and joyless time in America when one could actually go about daily life without ever encountering pornographic images.” And without Hefner’s pioneering vision, “American males could not avail themselves of hundreds of millions of obscene films every year—as they do now.”
The fact is Hugh Hefner did more than anyone else to turn America into a great pornographic wasteland. Kids can now download porn on cell phones and iPods. While riding in their cars, children are treated to the sight of X-rated films on the DVD screens of cars in the next lane.
There’s no longer any doubt that the pornification of America has led to a huge increase in crime against women and children, crime committed by those who consume porn that teaches that women want to be raped and degraded.
And not just women. Hugh Hefner, sitting in his mansion in his bathrobe, thinking over his life, ought to consider the effect of his life’s work on kids like Justin Berry. Berry testified before Congress last week about how he was molested by a predator he met online. Justin spent most of his teen years posing naked online for people who paid to see him perform on camera. And he is far from alone: “There are hundreds of kids in the United States who are right now wrapped up in this horror,” he told Congress.
If Hefner wants to be remembered for his good deeds, he ought to start right now funding programs to help people damaged by his twisted view of sex—programs that help men who are enslaved to sexual addiction. Instead of funding Planned Parenthood, he ought to fund crisis pregnancy centers, which help women who bought into the lie that they were “liberated” only when they became reusable sex objects. Hefner should also help women who were lured into the sex industry and exploited—including those “Playboy Bunnies” he made famous, so many of whose lives ended tragically.
And then, Hefner might fund research into cures for the dozens of sexual diseases, including AIDS, that affect millions who believed his warped worldview—that sexual repression is bad, and that sexual promiscuity is, therefore, liberation and redemption.
The picture of Hefner on his eightieth birthday sitting in his mansion in his bathrobe, in the company of “girlfriends” paid to be there, and his jars of Viagra tablets, is a pathetic, tragic one, and it exposes his true legacy. The lesson: The life lived in pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification leads to nothing less than self-destruction.
There was an article about it happening to someone here some months back in a Seattle newspaper and I have witnessed it myself on one occasion. Damn near crashed trying to match the speed of the car next to me........ ;o)
But you are right in the 50s that was breakthrough.
We were at the LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX Sunday and Hefner was there celebrating his 80th birthday. We didn't see him. We did see Paul Newman though!
So, Hef is responsible for all the porn, then? I don't see it. There has been pornography since there has been civilization. There was porn before Hef, too, however old he is.
Further, classifying Playboy's airbrushed naked women as pornography seems to me to trivialize true pornography, which is explicitly sexual.
Colson has gone off the deep end, here, in my opinion.
Is Hugh Hefner someone to be admired? Probably not. Is he responsible for the growth of pornography in this country? Not really. So, what is responsible for pornography? Human nature, I suppose.
We also saw William Shatner, Patrick Dempsey, Bo Bice, Martina Navratiola, Frankie Munoz, John Elway, etc.
I remember the news article when it happened, although I don't remember any of the details.
Shalom.
Back in the 1970s, Bossier City, La. had the old Don Drive In, a drive in theater that had seen better days.
The screen faced I-20 and a busy street called Airline drive.
From about 1974 on, the Don showed nothing but R and hard-R flicks with mucho sex and nudity. That part of I-20 always slowed down considerably.
You are right. There are porn post cards that were made in France back when there were first cameras. We have some of these antique photos.
He supported racial integration for one.
A very great man once said something to the effect of, "Men will sin, but woe be to the one who helps them sin."
The porn "industry" needs both suppliers and users. Both are guilty.
Shalom.
"I have a better statistic - apparently the pornographic film industry now makes more money than Hollywood.
That was simply not the case before Hefner came onto the scene. "
LOL - yeah, I remember learning that in American History.
I am genuinely interested. How do you think Hefner changed the world for the better?
Shalom.
And Rock n Roll existed before the Beatles.
And the automobile existed before the Model T.
I'm not denying that - I do think, however, Hefner brought it out "into the open".
Regards, Ivan
If the guy did not have oodles of money made from promoting porn" how many of those "girlfriends" would be hanging onto this pervert?
I agree...tendonitis and tennis elbow have increased by 600% since the 1960's, so how is that an improvement?
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