Without Hefner there could have been no Austin Powers.
6 Likes
I just sold my shares in silicone futures.
4 Likes
the spiritual father of the White House blingsters…!!
1 Like
If there’s a Wankers Heaven, Hefner is there now.
Hef unashamedly objectified women, but he was a pioneer of freedom of speech, paid well to publish fiction and nonfiction by authors who couldn’t get their stuff printed elsewhere, championed LGBT causes (well, for his own purposes, but still), printed some of the best interviews of any publication in the 60s and 70s, and was one of the first club-owners to make his nightclubs racially integrated. A spotty record, sure, but I’m glad he lived to 91.
10 Likes
What were his purposes?
1 Like
Dude sold smut, right? I’m going to guess he recognized that different sexual orientations didn’t change human nature. Capitalists gonna capitalize.
4 Likes
He published a lot of LGBT content in his magazine – both fiction and nonfiction – when nobody else would. I’m not sure I’d say it was for a higher purpose than to sell more copies, but he always said that he didn’t judge on the basis of sexual orientation. That kind of thinking was pretty radical in the 50s and 60s.
7 Likes
I was kind of hoping that there was something a little more specific that could be named. So he championed LGBT causes so he could sell more copies of Playboy to women? (When he started said championing Playgirl wasn’t around yet.)
2 Likes
Freely admit I’m just guessing. Maybe he had some noble cause, but given his half-century of creepy objectification, I’m erring on the side of not wanting to exclude prospective markets. I could be wrong.
I find it a little skeevy that this guy is someone for whom the world stops to notice the passing, so I’m less than totally objective.
3 Likes
I could be mistaken – it’s been awhile since I read about this stuff – but I think I remember that in the first issue of Playboy he printed a sci-fi story that nobody else would publish about a future society where gay men ruled over the heterosexuals.
4 Likes
I don’t think it’s much of a leap. Women read Playboy, Men read Playgirl. There were other magazines that catered to different sexual interests and i’m sure Hef was savvy enough to know that if he didn’t fight for not just free sexual expression but for LGBQT+ causes it’d ultimately be bad for business. So yeah, his championing may have been for less than noble reasons that does not mean that he did not believe in LGBQT+ rights.
Also looking at the quote in the post about his thoughts on Feminism, i can’t say i’m surprised. He seems dismissive of the movement, but then again he’s in the business of objectification. He’d be a hypocrite otherwise, well… i’m sure he still was but at least he was up front about it.
3 Likes
As a kid, finding a Playboy in the woods was like hitting the jackpot. If it had been out there for a while, the pages were often rain-soaked and stuck together. My buddies and I would use jeweler’s precision to separate the pages without ripping the photo. Good memories.
7 Likes
Quite possibly “The Crooked Man” by Charles Beaumont, although this story wasn’t in the first issue (according to Wikipedia).
2 Likes
Spoiler warning: the pages were stuck together before getting rained on.
15 Likes
How come? ;B
2 Likes
He championed them in the service of sexual liberation, which was at the core of his brand and also a genuine personal belief. I’m sure he also enjoyed the fact that it needled the Xtianist prudes who hated him.
4 Likes
No matter what you think of his ideas on sex, politics, or whatever, you can’t deny he changed the world. Tens of millions of guys would have cheerfully traded places with him.
1 Like
Woods isn’t a euphemism, right?
1 Like
Don’t so hard on the guy. We need to stop erecting walls among us in the comments. Some people must like being turgid i guess.
2 Likes
