Hugh Hefner passed away at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday, September 27 at the age of 91. Hefner was known world-wide as the creator and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine. He was known in America as an important voice of the Sexual Revolution, a hero of libertarian ideology, the chief-occupant of the Playboy Mansion and a villain to modern feminism.
Hefner founded Playboy magazine in 1953, a time when American culture was dictated by a sense of puritanism. In the midst of obscenity laws and sodomy laws, Hefner championed abortion rights, contraception rights, the decriminalization of marijuana and anti-censorship.
Playboy is known for its nude and semi-nude photos of models affectionately known as Playmates, and its publication of controversial interviews and literature. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451” was originally published in early editions of Playboy, in 1953 and 1954. The magazine was also a forum for serious interviews with controversial figures of the time. These included Martin Luther King, Bertrand Russell and Malcolm X.
Perhaps the most famous of these was the 1976 interview with Jimmy Carter, who confessed “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”
Hefner championed civil rights in more direct ways as well. Playboy hosted African American guests at televised parties despite Jim Crow segregation laws, and Hefner bought independently owned Playboy clubs from their southern owners when he learned the establishments refused service to African Americans. “We are outspoken foes of segregation [and] we are actively involved in the fight to see the end of all racial inequalities in our time,” said Hefner.
However, Hefner has faced much criticism over his lifetime for the way he objectified women and used porn as part of his business model.
English writer Julie Bindel criticized him in a piece written for The Independent, saying that he “caused immeasurable damage by turning porn, and therefore the buying and selling of women’s bodies into a legitimate business.”
Journalist Suzanne Moore was threatened with legal action by Hefner after calling him a “pimp.” In a piece published in The Guardian, Moore justified it by saying “he was a man who bought and sold women to other men.”
The murder of Dorothy Stratten, Playmate of the Year in 1980, was another point of controversy that raised questions about the lifestyle and environment fostered at the mansion.
“She could not handle the slick professional machinery of the Playboy sex factory, nor the continual efforts of its founder to bring her into his personal fold, no matter what she wanted,” wrote film producer Peter Bogdanovich, who met Stratten and eventually fell in love with her.
Holly Madison, a former girlfriend of Hefner, pointed out the dangerous environment some of the models would live in.
“…He would encourage competition – and body image issues – between his multiple live-in girlfriends,” Madison said. “His legacy is full of evidence of the exploitation of women for professional gain.”
Hugh Hefner, while his practices and vision are seen as flawed and misogynistic, was a pioneer in the publishing and entertainment field by showcasing some of America’s most prolific writers in the same magazine that put sex in the centerfold, for better or for worse.
In the words of Hefner himself, “I would like to be remembered as someone who contributed to, and changed the sexual and social values of my time. And I think my place within that corner of history is fairly secure.”
Will Drewing
Executive Editor