Hef was the grinning pimp of the sexual revolution, with quaaludes for the ladies and Viagra for himself — a father of smut addictions and eating disorders, abortions and divorce and syphilis, a pretentious huckster who published Updike stories no one read while doing flesh procurement for celebrities, a revolutionary whose revolution chiefly benefited men much like himself. The arc of his life vindicated his moral critics, conservative and feminist: What began with talk of jazz and Picasso and other signifiers of good taste ended in a sleazy decrepitude that would have been pitiable if it wasn’t still so exploitative. Early Hef had a pipe and suit and a highbrow reference for every occasion; he even claimed to have a philosophy, that final refuge of the scoundrel. But late Hef was a lecherous, low-brow Peter Pan, playing at perpetual boyhood — ice cream for breakfast, pajamas all day — while bodyguards shooed male celebrities away from his paid harem and the skull grinned beneath his papery skin. (Read more.)
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3 comments:
I did not even know he died.
This is a well done piece even if I disagree with some of the points they made.
Yes, I disagree with the attack on Trump at the end.
The desperation in the lives of young and beautiful women who allowed themselves to be exploited in this way for money and sometimes fame....some ended badly...one shot by her boyfriend, and the sad ending of Anna Nicole Smith to name two.
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