Hugh Hefner’s Legacy: The Celebrity Pornographer Turns 80

Breakpoint with Charles Colson ^ | 4/10/2006 | Charles Colson

[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.

[lovecraft]

I've seen porn movies showing in other cars twice now on the highway in the last 3 years. Though uncommon, it IS happening.

Porn should should kept where it was intended, hidden in a shoebox in your closet or cleverly hidden amongst your normal DVD collection(usually in the boring documentary cases)......ahem.

It'a proven mathematical theorem: The more boring the DVD case, the higher probability the case actually contains porn. :-)

[conserv13]

Do you really have to ask 'How do photos of naked women make the world a better place??'

[Paradox]

There are some good points in the article but the above statement is way over the top. Theoretically possible but highly unlikely.

Funny, I just saw this occur last week, some porn was playing in an overhead DVD player is some large SUV. The windows were tinted but at night, you could still easily see the picture.

I say this just as an anecdote. I am not anti-porn.

[mkjessup]

Say what you want about him, yes he's liberal. Hefner is an American icon. He changed the world forever, I think for the better.

If a bunch of rev'd up males with their testosterone whipped up by Hefner's depravity or any other pornographic product, had sexually assaulted your mother, sister or daughter, you might not think this world has been changed for the "better".

Hefner and his pornographic soul brothers and sisters have cheapened the human soul, elevated the worth of mere flesh to heights it is not entitled to, let alone capable of, and the gift of sexual pleasure, GIVEN to us by Almighty God, has been twisted, perverted and presented as nothing more than the recreational exertion of muscles and nerves, all for the gratification of the senses.

Hefner, for his own selfishness and greed, built a spiritual concentration camp for our souls, and too many of us were more than happy to become inmates.

[MHGinTN]

As a 'social movement' (and that's what you're defending, the scoial movement to accept exploitation of females for sexual display and masturbation) blossoms, the consequences usually manifest in non-dirct line ways. An example is legalizing gambling and the non-direct connection to rising poverty and child abuse and neglect. Another example: Crack addicted females have left their children in the car for hours while 'endulging a person choice'. When the subpreme court passed Roe v Wade, the explosion of abortion (from around 300,000 per year as a high number, to 1.5 million per year) took three years, but the stamp of 'acceptability because it's legal' finally caught on. Prior to 1973 abortion could be performed by any gynecologist when his patient's life was endangered should the pregnancy continue. Look at the stats at the turn of the century, then watch the stats as America went through different upheavals such as the great depression, wars, and 'sexual revolution'. Then apply a bit of common sense rather than seeking to justify behavior you don't want to change.

[rlmorel]

Big Ears?

[conserv13]

LOL.

[Pondman88]

"While I agree 100% with your statistics and I certainly believe them to be correct, you cannot make the conclusion that porn does not increase instances of rape. Rape may have decreased by 40% instead of 20% if porn did not exist. One simply cannot come to the conclusion that either one is responsible for the other."

You are correct, one could argue any casual relationship caused the decrease in crime. However, the article implies an explosion in crime against women and children caused by porn---which is easily refuted. Instapundit (Glen Reynolds) has argued that porn and video games has led to decreasing crime, and the statistics certainly back up that claim.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

"Hugh Hefner may enjoy the next ten or twenty years of his life, but his life will end tragically"

Prediction: Viagra overdose.

[mkjessup]

There’s no longer any doubt that the pornification of America has led to a huge increase in crime against women and children...
Is there any solid evidence for this?
Any at all?

Happy to help:

http://www.tldm.org/news6/bundy.htm

[ArGee]

Men like naked women, and that's a good thing. Without that attraction, none of us would be here.

Men like food, and that's a good thing. Without that attraction, none of us would be here.

However, that attraction can be misused, and the attraction can become a sickness. In the same way, not every expression of sexual attraction is a good thing. It can create, but it can destroy as well.

Shalom.

[Revolting cat!]

No pictures? I'd like to know what I'm protesting against!

[ArGee]

However, I have to ask the rhetorical question: "guilty of what?"

Of sin. That's why my post was referring to.

In this case, it's sexual sin. Sex is intended to create a lifetime bond between a man and a woman. This bond is to be the root of a family that begets good to both the children produced (or adopted) and to the society of which it is a part. Destroy the family and you destroy the society.

Sexual sin destroys the family. That's why G-d was so concerned with putting sex in its proper place. It's "G-d given place" if you will.

Shalom.

[ArGee]

Do you really have to ask 'How do photos of naked women make the world a better place??'

Yes. I don't think they do, so I want to know how you think they do.

Yes, I'm a heterosexual man.

Shalom.

[rlmorel]

"...Prediction: Viagra overdose..."

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Of course, I would guess that wouldn't be much fun...kind of like being 13 years old, again...all dressed up for a party with no place to go...:)

[Steve_Seattle]

I don't agree with Hef about much, but I've never found him to be personally unlikeable. And - I could be wrong - but I don't recall hearing bad stuff about him from his employees or girlfriends.

[RicocheT]

Hefner is just Larry Flynt in pajamas. Both are sleazy porn merchants.

'From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Larry Flynt - Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. (born November 1, 1942) is an American magazine publisher. He is the head of Larry Flynt Publications (LFP), producing over twenty magazines, including Hustler, with an annual turnover of around $150 million.'

[HawaiianGecko]

However, the article implies an explosion in crime against women and children caused by porn---which is easily refuted.

I would certainly also disagree with the article and it's conclusion that porn caused an explosion in rape. According to most thinking today, rape is about power not sex. Porn is about sex, in general as I'm sure there are flicks about power that are also porn so those of you about to flame me over snuff films etc., hold your ammo, I won't respond.  But the point to be made is:

• Guy watches porn
• Guy gets woody
• Guy goes to sleep
• Rapist still out stalking women

This appears to be common sense to me.

 

[conserv13]

Its hard for me to explain if you don't understand it. I like attractive women, naked or not. I appreciate all the different women - black, white, short, tall, blonde brunette, etc...

I don't see why nudity is bad or shameful. I don't see how sex is bad or shameful. BTW I also don't share your religious beliefs, Judeo-Christian morality does not infuence my views.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

It inspries men to do great things, so they can get girls like that. :)