I am going to step away from the crises de jour this morning. There are reports that Pyongyang is moving some rockets around, and China and Russia are starting to actually get serious. Who knows? Perhaps this will work out. But I recall that pinching the Japanese with sanctions on oil, steel and rubber exports did not have a happy outcome for Mr. Roosevelt when he tried it on an Asian nation.

The more contemplative story this week was the passing of a modern American icon: Mr. Hugh Hefner. He was 91, and is said to have died of natural causes. Born in Chicago, he came from a solid Midwestern family, based on Methodist values.

He made an enormous impact on our society, even if it was not Methodist. There is no universal consensus on whether it was good or not. He also impacted me and a generation of boys growing up to try to understand the mystery.

Hefner’s Playboy Magazine was a sort of rite of passage for most boys. I knew where Dad kept his copy, at the bottom of the lower drawer of his bedside table. It was always exciting when a new one appeared, and though tame by today’s standards, the magazine was an eye-opener for me. It also perhaps caused what we now call “body image” issues for the girls and women who chanced on it.

Hef always looked for the “girl next door” look while peddling their naked female lady parts.

(Image courtesy of Oscar del Pozo)

He came to the publishing world as a copywriter for Esquire Magazine. Founded in 1933, that publication was targeted at men, and contained what were considered “lewd” pictures of women. Over the years, the images were toned down, quality fiction from noted authors was solicited, and men’s fashion and style came to dominate the contents.

Hef left Esquire over a dispute over an inconsequential pay raise, raised some cash, and opened Playboy for business with a cover that featured Marilyn Monroe waving in a dress with a spectacular plunging neckline. Inside, she is pictured languidly stretching on a field of crimson satin. You could say Playboy was Esquire with naked ladies.

He also took a page out of Esquire’s playbook and published quality fiction. One of the early attempts to get literary was a short story by Charles Beaumont. “The Crooked Man” had been rejected by Esquire for the controversial content. it featured a plot that featured heterosexual men being discriminated against by a dominent homosexual society. Complaining letters flooded in to the Magazine, and Hef calmly wrote “If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too.”

He ran a column each month in which he attempted to outline his view of society, which included sexual liberation, liberal politics, social issues and personal style. Naturally, he irritated a lot of people who disagreed. The legendary conservative thinker William F. Buckley commented that “Mr. Hefner’s Playboy is most widely known for the raciness of its prose and the total exposure of the female form. It is more than that, Mr. Hefner insists — and many agree, including professors and ministers and sociologists. It is a movement of sorts, and its bible is an apparently endless series, published monthly by Mr. Hefner, entitled “The Playboy Philosophy,” the key insight of which is that “a man’s morality, like his religion, is a personal affair best left to his own conscience.”

I could agree with that, though Buckley continues to accuse Hefner of encouraging behavior such as free love, homosexuality and even necrophilia. I did not read every issue, but I think that last one was hyperbole, though given the crazy state of our nation today, perhaps not. He certainly cultivated the fields from which many of our social issues grew.

What followed through the ‘60s was a moveable circus of excess and lust, a literal empire, filled with private jets, clubs, Bunnies and The Mansion, which moved from Chicago LA. It was a self-contained erotic and sensual empire.

I followed the magazine with interest- before women were integrated into navy ships, there probably weighed the better part of ton on any given warship. I subscribed in the years that the magazine’s images got racier to compete with newer, edgier magazines like Penthouse, the more refined sister to the appalling “Hustler.”

I continued to read Playboy right up until a year or two ago, when they dropped the skin, going to a style of imagery that looked liked it could have come from Cosmopolitan.

Hef had a mild stroke in 1985, and left management to his daughter, toned down some of the all-night parties, though not his constant womanizing. He was a constant presence in the media, acting as the pater familia of the Playboy Empire, which waned in the 1990s as print publications declined and tastes changed.

They changed so significantly that it wasn’t the Right that made critical assessments of Hefner’s life. These days, critical Progressive thinkers accuse him of misogyny, exploitation of women, patriarchy and using the Bill Cosby technique of getting partners into the sack. Sort of the usual litany these days. But he certainly altered the climate of his times.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, right?

Anyway, he is gone, and takes a lot along with him. Oh, a while back, he bought the vault next to Marilyn at LA’s Westwood Memorial Park. She is in crypt 34, so his ashes will be either in #33 or #35. He aid if he was going to spend eternity with anyone, he preferred it be her.

After all, she started it all.

(Photo AP)

Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com