Rather than bringing me closer to women or the world of sexual fulfillment, growing up on Playboy gave me false expectations of what that world was actually going to be. You see, I read Playboy. I didn't just stalk pictures of hot naked chicks--though I certainly did plenty of that. I dug into the words, the ethos and I look back and see that they did a lot to form who I am today. I did not understand as a boy the consumerism at work, that the hot naked chicks were a piece of the on-the-go lifestyle of an aspirational young professional man, that the women were meant to go right alongside the cars, clothes, and home stereo equipment that were meant to fill a sensible man's home and heart. No, I thought the words were guides to how to get the women, which turns out not to be the case at all. I thought hot naked chicks were going to be into Thelonius Monk albums and the comedy stylings of Mort Sahl, that they would be into passionate discussions on Constitutional law and college football. Not so much. Turns out hot naked chicks don't tend to want to talk about Saul Bellow novels. Oh well. It all still very much enlightened me to my own deeper sexual desires of...well, no desire...and my appreciation of a world of art and commerce. I dig Thelonius Monk and Mort Sahl even if my female contemporaries have no interest in that at all (indeed, I still prefer Monk and Mort to my female contemporaries).
I long thought it was kinda strange that when Hefner burst onto the scene in 1954, Playboy was considered the far edge of prurience. But by the time I deeply encountered Hef's work (circa 1984), Playboy hadn't changed one iota--and was the tamest thing around! Hefner went from most dangerous to least dangerous without taking a single step.
What was the transition? And how much of that transition came from Hef himself?
Hefner was influential in the early 1960's in desegregating night clubs, bringing black and white entertainers and audiences together in the same space. In the 1970's he put a lot of money into the defense fund of Roe v. Wade and encouraged birth control options and availability. Sex and sexual desire became topics that could be discussed in polite society. He encouraged a world where people could explore their own desires rather than giving in to the social expectation of marriage and family. From 1954 to 1984 brought an immense amount of social change throughout America and though I would suggest Hefner was more the effect than the cause, he was a beacon for people (women as well as men) who wanted to have their own enjoyment of success. And the post-Playboy years had a lot to do with expanding the range of acceptable images in polite society, as seen in the shift of American cinema in the 1970s: nudity, sex, insanely graphic violence, adult situations, people of color, foreign languages, etc, all under the guise of a ratings system that quantified its family friendliness.
Let me make clear: the vast sweeping social changes of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are, I believe, a result of the post-war economic forces that demanded that, say, women and African-Americans participate in the work force. The cultural changes are a result (I believe) of the larger economic forces that demanded full participation in the economy. As people get more money, they want more freedom, so divorce become an easier process, higher education become readily available to more people, entertainment and news options expanded to wider audiences. Hefner didn't do any of that by himself but he was a face of change. He was a face of individual liberty rather than the social order and culture demands individual leaders to personify the opportunities and desires of the larger populace.
Though Hefner was a little bit older, the audience he spoke to were the Baby Boomers: those Americans born between 1945-1960, who grew up in a society that was rapidly changing. That generation of folks grew up with new technologies, expanding social interactions and were raised by parents who came of age during the Great Depression. The Great Depression generation knew the value of a dollar because they learned about money when a penny still bought stuff. That generation treated their children with a preciousness hardly seen in the history of parentage. The Baby Boomers grew up insanely wealthy and with the expectation that wealth would only expand. And they were selfish and egoistic--and rewarded for that selfishness!--like no other generation of humans before. Hefner championed the individuality but how does one separate out the egoism?
He championed the protest, he championed the social changes, and he championed the economic growth too. These are all separate and distinct paradigms but the culture that came from them is a soup of the good and the bad. And Hefner made a life's work out of mixing the good and bad together. As the Baby Boomers were continually rewarded despite their petulance, they grew to believe that the petulance itself was the source of the change. Hef taught them tolerance but he also taught them indulgence.
Aw, hell: Hef gave up on this world years ago. He cashed in on playing a parody of himself for the last few decades--and why not? He still lived a comfortable life. But make no mistake, this man invented the Playboy Jazz Festival and championed the work of John Coltrane and Miles Davis and made music criticism one of the bedrocks of his ethos; but by the time I came along in the mid-1980s, Playboy readers were electing the likes Phil Collins and Hall and Oates to the music Hall of Fame. *smh* Hef must've been crushed to realize that his readers, the folks he put so much time and energy into educating about the good life were listening to god damn Phil Collins! The move from Coltrane to Phil Collins mirrors the move from FDR to Trump. How sad Hef must've been surveying the world he wrought.
