Hugh Hefner Dead, So Goes Fun

Hugh Hefner finally died. It’s been one of those decade long slow walks to the grave that most people probably hope they get to experience. Save for the fact that many of the years were a massive pity party for a former mostly sleazy, but kind of iconic man’s man whose family and business cohorts sold him out in his late golden years.

There are a million things unpleasant and squeamish and ball-gag gross about Hugh Hefner especially in the second half of his years. But the first half ought be remembered for the way in which he said fuck you to 1950’s conservative social mores on sexuality, and forced the American culture to deal with the fact that men liked to get laid. Also, sports cars, cocktails, and sports. Pretty much in that order.

Hefner was in some sense the first magazine publisher to live the lifestyle of his famous periodical brand. Heretofore, publishers were the stuff of shrinking men with monocles sipping tea. Hefner posted nudes, banged a bunch of Playmates, hobnobbed with celebrities, and drank a lot of Scotch. He let James Caan move in to party for a couple years. That’s pretty baller.

There’s no real evidence that beyond being a “Playboy” that Hefner was ever mean toward women. He used them and they used him. Maybe some quaalude rape at the mansion. But in the Valley of the Dolls era, that wasn’t known as rape. Merely hard partying and occasional pre-paid abortions. It’s how the hottest girl in a small Nebraska town could get a little taste of fame and champagne in Hollywood.

Times change. Usually for the worse. Playboy was sunk by the odd combination of the rise of feminism dogma and universally available free Internet porn. To everything there is a season. Hefner became an old man quickly, fumbling about trying to make the whole robe and pipe thing look cool by paying women to play with his senior wee-wee. It’s not necessarily a sad statement on the rise of the PC culture or the decline of masculinity in the Western world perhaps as merely an existential comment on the Circle of Life. His time came, his time went. 

Every generation will look back with melancholy upon the totems of their youth that will never be the same. For many, that was the first impressionable glimpse of naked curvy women in Playboy during that one recess in middle school. The man and the magazine may fade. But the love of those big titties remains eternal. Think of the man in his prime and you’ll be giving him his due. 

_{Photo credit: Getty Images / Pacific Coast News}