To be honest, I hadn't thought of Hugh Hefner in years. The whole Playboy thing has been dated and yesterday for a long time. I don't think he jump-started the sexual revolution, but he surely cashed in on it and monetized it. As a young woman, my reaction to Playboy and all its works and pomps was low-grade irritation. My DH subscribed to it back in the old days, for the articles, of course (sarcasm off!) But the pictures were there. And the women didn't have stretch marks, or cellulite. Or bed hair. They always had bedroom eyes, and signaled sexual availability. Some of them even had advanced degrees and careers other than posing for pictures. An image that no real woman could live up to. Not that most of us were expected to. But just a little reminder of how far from that ideal of perfection we were. The subscription came to an end and the Playboys went to the dumpster the day dad came home and discovered two little boys under the bed, giggling, because they had found his stash of magazines.
Unfortunately nowadays there is way worse than Playboy on the internet, and it's a lot harder to keep track of what kids are getting a hold of. However Hugh Hefner contributed to that long slow slide, though I know he did some good things with his money and supported social justice causes. My he rest in peace and perpetual light shine upon him (there, am I virtue signaling enough?). Actually I really mean that prayer.
Where was I when I heard Kennedy was shot? In the recreation room of Anselm Hall, during my undergraduate years at Saint John’s University.
ReplyDeleteWhere was my first encounter with Playboy magazine? At a bookstore near the Greyhound Bus station in Saint Cloud, Minnesota also during my undergraduate years. I don’t know whether I bought the issue. I suspect it was banned from the campus by the Benedictines. By so was alcohol, but we had great parties of fresh monastic bread soaked in wine.
What I do remember was reading an excerpt of the Playboy philosophy. It somehow argued that Playboy was meant to inspire a healthy interest in the girl next door. Two things were immediately obvious. The model was not the girl next door, and an interest sexual or otherwise in the girl next door was far more healthy. That ended my interest in Playboy and the Playboy philosophy.
I was surprised to learn that Playboy was founded in 1953. I was completely unaware of it in high school. However as a very nerdy National Merit Finalist I was completely out of touch with my fellow public high school students who were mostly interested in sports and planning to work in the Steel mills. My best friends and real peers, one for life, were my teachers. “Adolescent rebellion” was a hot topic. Mine was totally directed against my age peers.
The Playboy philosophy was "a series of editorial essays that ran from December 1962 to May 1965." May have been controversy about it that aroused my interest in the philosophy, the magazine, and is responsible for my vivid memory.
Going down to Saint Cloud was a popular escape from campus. I was friends with the pre-divinity students from Saint Mary's Abbey in New Jersey. We often sang Vespers with the monastic choir. We would walk halfway across the bridge over the Mississippi River and break into joyful shouts. "We're back East! We're back East!" A little protest against the local provincialism. For all its deserved national reputation, Saint John's like most Benedictine abbeys dug deeply into its surroundings.
Hugh Hefner's time passed a long time ago. He was merely one in a string of millions of individuals down the centuries who profited from commodifying the female form.
ReplyDeleteHefner pandered to men who preferred women without brains or emotion, for men so squeamish that they demanded that women be airbrushed, for men so immature that they preferred images of simulated desire over the real thing.
There will always be men who stop developing mentally at 14, and the market will always be willing to provide.
In a way, Hefner, I think, was a victim of his own industry in that he was the object of derision in his later years. He extolled youth and beauty. And in doing so, he helped create a culture that made a priapic octogenarian a joke.
And what was with the stupid rabbit ears, anyway?
ReplyDeleteI remember Kirstie Alley in the made for tv movie, "A Bunny's Tale". It was based on Gloria Steinem's undercover stint as a Bunny.
He began his business with a naked photo of Marilyn Monroe he bought for $500 and printed without her permission, ... now he's buried next to her. He made porn acceptable to the general public. I think he was a creep.
ReplyDeleteHi Crystal. "old goat" is the phrase that comes to my mind. People think porn doesn't hurt anybody. But it's exploitive, and for the viewers it sometimes becomes an addiction, more important than their real relationships.
DeleteYes, I think pornography is really dehumanizing. Interesting that it's religious conservatives who love porn, not liberals ... https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/erbe/2009/03/02/porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-use-more-pornography-than-liberals
DeleteReally happy to see you here again, Crystal! Agree with you about porn being dehumanizing. I know of at least one marriage (friend of one of my children) that broke up because of the husband's addiction to porn. When I looked at some, it was actually pretty boring. I was not married then, but my roommate and her boyfriend had gone to a porn movie. She came home and told me about it, said that they left early because once the shock value was past, they were bored. So I checked some out also and found she was right. But, we were of the generation that liked "romance". And I imagine that what was called porn in the early 70s would be pretty tame by today's standards. What truly horrifies me is the popularity of child porn, especially with RCC clergy - many scandals during the last 15+ years. How many of those priests addicted to child porn ended up as child molesters? Thanks for the link. Useful info.
DeleteHi Anne. Yes, like that Vatican diplomat who was recently investigated for having child porn here in DC but then was whisked back to Rome.
DeleteThen and now I found Hefner's hundreds (thousands?) of nubile collaborators ditzier than their ringmaster. He was in it for the money; they were in it for what ... the fame of having two good ones? But, Thomas, that is even less than Wales.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't understand them either. I'll bet there were plenty of them who later had kids, and wished those particular pictures of mom weren't out there.
DeletePamela Anderson is one of those who regrets that the photos are out there because her kids have gotten harassed over it.
DeleteI frankly think those doing the teasing are more concerning than Anderson's doing nude photos. One thing to collude with the "prurient interest" mongers, but a whole other thing to revile the children of women who made errors in judgment.
Women hope to jump start or save a flagging career with nude photos or movie scenes. Helen Mirren, Kate Winslett, Joan Collins have all said they hated or regretted doing nude work but felt pressured into it.
Jean,about doing it to help the career, I wonder if it really does help? I can see it getting them some "B" roles, but some high quality opportunities, maybe not so much. I think Helen Mirren would still have been great without it. I never heard that Merrill Streep was in any nude roles.
DeleteThe movies pay more if you do nude sex scenes because the movie will make more money if there is flesh on display. Seemed to have kept Jane Fonda's career charged up, even though she used a body double as she got older.
DeleteHelen Mirren may have got nowhere had she not been willing to do nude scenes as a younger woman.
I have seen nude scenes I thought were helpful to the story (Mary Louise Parker, fleetingly, in "Angels in America," such a sad vulnerability).
But Hefner's brand of cheesecake struck me as not only exploitive but none of the women looked like they were having any fun. Grin and bear it.
It doesn't seem fair that men are not under the same pressure to bare all to advance their career.
DeleteIt's all about "the male gaze". Most men aren't interested in seeing full frontal male nudity at the movies. And hey, we women might actually start making comparisons. then.
DeleteCGI can fix anything.
DeleteI'm no paragon of virtue but I found the whole Playboy eros artificial and unnatural, the "philosophy" thing pretentious, and especially the pipe. Yeah, the old guy Chris who ran the stockroom had a stash of Playboy magazines I found when I, newly hired, had to do inventory. Paged through enough to know it wasn't my style. Now, the Sears Catalogue, that was different.
ReplyDeleteStanley, The Sears catalogue left plenty to the imagination, so it depended on sentient viewers. Like us.
DeleteI did read one whole installment of the Playboy Philosophy when Swami Hugh was pontificating. I conspicuously did not look at any other part of the magazine (I was being watched) while I studied it. I found that drunken discussions of my freshman year had been better argued. But I guess if one is exposing his sexual pretensions he may as well go pretentious all the way.