Reports<\/a> the NYT. Commentary<\/a> by Mollie Hemingway:<\/span><\/p>\n Mollie<\/strong>: This is the most interesting paragraph in the New York Times<\/em> article:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Mr. Hefner created the magazine, which featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, he did so to please himself. \u2018If you\u2019re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy<\/em> is meant for you,\u2019 he said in his first editor\u2019s letter. \u2018We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d\u2019oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph, and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex \u2026\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n This was the advertisement for the product he sold. The reality, of course, was very different. By the end of his life\u2014for at least the last few decades, really\u2014Hefner\u2019s lady friends were bought off with drugs, nice digs, and a chance at fame, later telling stories about how much they detested what they had to do in exchange for those things. They weren\u2019t in a position to discuss Picasso, Nietzsche, or jazz any more than Hefner could.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n He may have thought that his vision of sexual libertinism would please himself but only the most adolescent of men would believe that he achieved that. It\u2019s a great morality tale about what happens when you throw off received knowledge about something as important and foundational as sex. Sex is much more complicated than Hefner\u2019s commercial product suggested and pretending otherwise was a good way to end up extremely lonely, if not diseased.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n On some level, the image of manhood and sexuality that Hefner was selling was always contradictory. You don\u2019t get to be a cultured and refined modern man without exercising judgment and self restraint, but the sexual revolution that Hefner helped kickstart encouraged men and women to abandon the very inhibitions that helped make sex so alluring in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hefner suggested that the complete male was a man who appreciated the finer things in life. In this view, women were just one of the many consumer goods that a gentlemen would appreciate. But such a view is profoundly demeaning to women and, it turns out, even worse for men. Hefner threw away the intimacy and drama of monogamy for what was supposed to be the excitement and fulfillment of easy sex.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lack of any naked ladies in the pages of Playboy<\/em> is a perfect description of where sexual libertinism actually leads.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reports the NYT. Commentary by Mollie Hemingway: Mollie: This is the most interesting paragraph in the New York Times article: When Mr. Hefner created the magazine, which featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, he did so to please himself. \u2018If you\u2019re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is … Continue reading “Mirabile Dictu<\/i>: Playboy<\/i> to Drop Nudity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americana","category-sex-love-lust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n