Play Boy!
The Cultural Victory of Hugh Hefner
Read Mercer Schuchardt
July 1, 2001
In launching Playboy, perhaps the smartest thing Hugh Hefner did was in establishing his personality as that of a witty, urbane sophisticate who enjoyed the company of many, many young women. After all, who knows how many fewer copies the magazine might have sold, had he instead depicted himself as a solitary masturbator? -Tim Carvell, "History's Great Persons Reconsidered," on McSweeneys.net One of the occupational hazards of Christian thinkers is the tendency to see Satan behind every sociological phenomenon with which they personally struggle. One of the secret pleasures of this habit, however, is that occasionally, you really do find him. Agnostic or Anglican, it's pretty hard to deny the complete cultural victory of pornography in America today. Hollywood releases 400 films each year, while the pornography industry releases 700 movies each month. The domain name "business.com" recently sold for a record-breaking $7.5 million-but in a recent court case, the domain name sex.com was valued at $65 million. Not surprising, since porn is, at a minimum, a $10 billion a year business. Porn stars are making their way off the screen into mainstream culture, showing up everywhere from Cannes to Maxim. Fifty years ago an American girl would have been ashamed to be seen in public with too little on-now she's ashamed to be seen with too much on. Even if she's in church. What we are witnessing is the work of a master, a virtuoso of the id who has wielded profound psychological insight with the culture-altering ease of a Rasputin or a Hitler. Strangely enough, he doesn't want the credit. Salon magazine: What's the difference between today's public response to Internet pornography and the response to those first issues of Playboy? Hugh Hefner: ...
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