Hugh Hefner Was A
Creepy Old Pornographer. So Why Are Leftists Celebrating Him?
ByBen Shapiro
@benshapiro
On Monday evening, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner died at the ripe old age of 91. He spent his life
sleeping with women (he estimated over 1,000 conquests) and pretending to be a
deep thinker. But the media’s gushing focus on Hefner is truly astonishing: in
an era in which the media routinely condemn President Trump’s “toxic
masculinity,” blast the casual vulgarity of Clay Travis’ support for the “First
Amendment and boobs,” and complain about exploitation of women in culture, they
were willing to overlook all of their basic views about female value in order
to laud Hefner. Why? Because Hefner was a creature of the Left through and
through, a man who sought to break down traditional sexual mores in favor of a
“freer” and more vulgar America.
Let’s be clear about one thing: Hefner’s attempt to
glorify the “swinging” lifestyle was a dressed-up version of pure hedonism.
While he said he liked to listen to jazz, talk about Nietzsche, and be
surrounded by beautiful women, he’s only famous because of the last element:
without publishing pictures of bare breasts, Hugh Hefner would have been a
nearly-anonymous, seedy-type trying to hit on women who could pass for his
granddaughters. Hefner is iconic only because our culture has been so degraded.
Yes, Hefner published articles by Norman Mailer and John Updike. So did Picador
and Random House. But neither of those publishers have been feted for doing so.
The media may pretend that Hefner’s “sophistication” is the reason they’re
praising him today, but it’s his obscenity and his open hatred of traditional
morality that really turned them on.
None of this is to argue that Hefner’s antics weren’t
protected by the First Amendment. They arguably were — although it’s highly
doubtful that James Madison and company were particularly concerned about the
right of individuals to publish nudity in public. It is to argue that
glorifying Hefner for his pornographic use of the First Amendment is
ridiculous.
It’s also worth noting that the Left’s attempts to
attribute Hefner’s reputation to his forward-thinking on civil rights is an
attempt to coat turd in gold. Martin Luther King, Jr. somehow pushed for civil
rights without publicly touting a lifestyle straight out of a Saudi harem. Rosa
Parks didn’t have to pose as a Playboy centerfold to effect change.
What the Left truly loves about Hefner is that he was
instrumental in destroying public support for monogamy. It was Hefner who
celebrated polyamory, who suggested that prior generations were repressed and
ignorant — as though he was the first man to discover the pleasures of sex.
Here’s The New York Times lauding him in a 3,300-word essay (they
gave William F. Buckley some 3,000 words):
Mr.
Hefner wielded fierce resentment against his era’s sexual strictures, which he
said had choked off his own youth. A virgin until he was 22, he married his
longtime girlfriend… In “The Playboy Philosophy,” a mix of libertarian and
libertine arguments that Mr. Hefner wrote in 25 installments starting in 1962, his message was simple: Society was to blame.
His causes — abortion rights, decriminalization of marijuana and, most
important, the repeal of 19th-century sex laws — were daring at the time.
What a fellow. He hated that he stayed a virgin until he
got married — clearly that cut off his creative juices. He loved abortion and
he disliked traditional marriage. Feminists used to be wise enough to
understand that Hefner’s brand of female objectification didn’t liberate women;
now, feminists suggest that Hefner, who built his infamous grotto into a “squalid prison” for
buxom younger women, was somehow a breaker of chains. Hefner didn’t make women
more respected; he made men more open in their piggishness.
But he broke the old consensus about the value of
marriage, so bully for him.
All of which shows that for many on the Left, principles
about female value and opposition to men acting like garbage are disposable, so
long as the man in question fulfills certain anti-traditional standards. From
Bill Clinton to Teddy Kennedy, political leftism is the golden ticket to
enjoying all the rewards of personal depravity. That’s why Hefner was treated
as a cultural hero rather than as a pornographer masquerading as a highbrow
philosopher.
Let’s connect the dots:
Hugh Hefner
Hugh
Hefner was the founder of the Playboy
Enterprises, and Christie Hefner’s father.
Note: Christie Hefner
is Hugh Hefner’s daughter, a
director at the Center for American
Progress Action Fund, married to William
A. Marovitz, was the chair & CEO for the Playboy Enterprises, and a New
Trier High School graduate.
Center
for American Progress Action Fund is an affiliated advocacy group with the Center for American Progress (think tank).
Center
for American Progress (think tank)
calls for heightened “Gun Safety, Gun Control” for guns.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Center
for American Progress (think tank).
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and
a supporter for the Center for American
Progress (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Center for American Progress (think
tank).
Ezekiel Emanuel
is a senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress (think tank), Rahm
I. Emanuel’s brother, and was the health care policy adviser for the Barack Obama administration.
Rahm I. Emanuel
is Ezekiel Emanuel’s brother, a
member of the Commercial Club of Chicago,
the Chicago (IL) mayor, and was the
White House chief of staff for the Barack
Obama administration.
Commercial Club of Chicago, Members Directory A-Z (Past
Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
R. Eden Martin is
the president of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Michelle Obama
was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP,
and Mayor Richard M. Daley’s staffer.
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP.
Newton N. Minow is
a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP,
Nell Minow’s father, and a member of
the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Nell
Minow is Newton N. Minow’s
daughter, and was a New Trier High
School graduate.
Richard M. Daley
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, was the Chicago (IL) mayor,
Michelle Obama was his staffer, and an
Illinois Senate senator.
William A.
Marovitz was an Illinois Senate
senator, and is married to Christie
Hefner.
Christie Hefner
is married to William A. Marovitz, Hugh Hefner’s daughter, a director at
the Center for American Progress Action
Fund, was the chair & CEO for the Playboy
Enterprises, and a New Trier High
School graduate.
Nell
Minow was a New Trier High School
graduate, and is Newton N. Minow’s
daughter.
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