Thank You, Hugh Hefner.
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I think I’m going to refer to 2017 as the year of the lifted veils.
The cultural and political landscape of this year has provided so many gifts and shifts of perception, I truly believe we are moving into the age of the Divine Feminine and away from the age of patriarchy.
This week a cultural icon passed away, Mr. Hugh Hefner, the man who created one of the most globally recognized brands in history: Playboy. The synchronicity of his death, during this year of lifted veils, has left me deep in thought for the past couple of days.
My dad had a subscription to Playboy in the 70’s and early 80’s. I remember he had a stack of them piled high in his closet. He had the current month’s edition hidden in a slot in this side table in our family room beside his favorite chair. He was an avid reader, and I have no doubt he enjoyed Playboy not only for the photos but also for the articles.
Playboy always had many of the best writers of the time as contributors, creating socially relevant, provocative and boundary-pushing articles. He loved the magazine so much so that when he died in 1982, he bequeathed the entire collection to his favorite 21-year-old nephew.
What he didn’t know was that I used to sneak peeks at the magazine when I was left alone to watch TV. I loved the dirty joke cartoons (I realized yesterday this is likely where my own very sexual humor was formed). I also of course looked at the photos with immense curiosity and fascination. The women were so beautiful, and so different.
Back then they were still quite natural, their breasts were different sizes, their body shape, although always slim, different too, their hair color, and of course their big hairy bushes, it was the 70’s! The photos were always artistic and glamorous, many with that 80’s dreamlike glossy vignette.
Viewing these images of beautiful women as a very young girl, I would imagine what my body would be like one day when I was a grown woman.
After my father died, I didn’t see another Playboy until the boys at school stole one every month from the 7/11, when they would hide it under our portable steps and sneak peeks during recess, careful to not get caught, giggling and teasing the girls with their newfound sophistication about our lack of boobs.
The next time I encountered the magazine, I was 20, one of my male roommates had a penchant for skin mags which he left lying on the coffee table in our living room. It was also when I had my first view of Hustler, which I found offensive, so I stuck with Playboy. Lo and behold, I read the great articles, loving the view into the male perspective. I was less interested in the pictures this time around though.
By the late 90’s, the photos weren’t as diverse as I remembered; it was the canned surgically enhanced Barbie-doll look that Hugh had become so enamored of. After I moved out, I don’t think I’ve seen a girly mag since, nor given it any thought…
… until this Wednesday night, when my newsfeed started filling up with shared news reports of his death. I mentioned it to my husband, whose only comment was, Well, yeah, how old was he? The next day I noticed more posts by various men and many references to the dream life he lived, having so many women was heaven on earth, etc. I found myself really triggered and bothered, which surprised me.
I liked his magazines, actually preferring his to all others in the genre. I’m an open person who tries not to judge, but the discomfort kept coming up. I read a few articles extolling his virtues, mostly written by men and published by the biggest news outlets around the world. I learned more about his business acumen and history.
But the accompanied photos of the articles and the memories of the women I recalled in my youth were replaced by these literal plastic fem-bots. I googled some historical photos of Playboy bunnies to see if my memory was correct.
It was, and I wondered where and when the shift happened from natural beauty and diversity to this porn-star version Stepford Wife who has become the North American and European standard of beauty.
That’s when it hit me. This beloved brand and lifestyle that so many men admire has shaped and infiltrated our very culture and how some men view women overall, as well as how women have come to view and compare themselves. Whether or not you’ve ever read the magazine or watched a show, there is no doubt the beauty standard of Heff’s come-to-life fantasy has reached into our very psyches.
Women are desperate to maintain their youth.
Younger and younger girls are flocking to surgeons to cut their bodies and inject themselves with chemicals in order for bigger boobs, full lips, tighter wrinkle-free skin, flat stomachs, enhanced buttocks, and now the new popular procedure with women under 20, cutting their labia so they too can look like the surgically enhanced porn stars their boyfriends and themselves have grown up watching.
Rather than investing their hard-earned dollars into their own continuing education, businesses or savings accounts, they are supporting a billion dollar industry to alter themselves to fit into a box that a now dead man devised.
The anger in me started to rise; I needed to examine this further. The posts from mostly men continued to pop onto my feed, their admiration of this man and his fantasy life gaining momentum. I did more research on Heff. I found it ironic that the brand and lifestyle these men so admired was actually birthed during his first marriage, he founded Playboy when he was just 27 yrs old.
Heff is quoted as saying the trauma from learning on his wedding night that his wife cheated on him during his time away in the army is was what caused his huge shift of perception of monogamy. She agreed to Heff sleeping with other women during her marriage because of the guilt of her transgression, thinking it would keep them together.
Not long after Playboy became financially successful he left his wife and young family to go on a hedonistic spree for decades, epitomizing the Playboy brand, walking the walk. He appeared to grow as a person in the years following his divorce. He was socially conscious, experimental, and became a very rich man.
Of course, his parties were legendary, surrounded by stars and the world’s most beautiful women; he was the envy of every man. By the 70’s, Playboy had 70,000,000 subscribers.
It was around this time that the Feminist movement in the US was also gaining momentum. Playboy and Hugh personally were certainly an object of their scorn. Gloria Steinem herself wore the bunny costume during an undercover stint at the New York Playboy Club for a 1963 essay for Show magazine.
In 1970, Hugh Hefner stated that “militant feminists” are “unalterably opposed to the romantic boy-girl society that Playboy promotes” and ordered a hit piece in his magazine against them. Ah yes, the “romantic boy-girl society.” Hmm.
It sounds that although Hugh would provide and participate in the ultimate orgy any day of the week, he continued to crave family life and tended to have one main woman in his life at any given time, always one of the Playmates of the Year, naturally. A man of contradiction, shall we say?
By the 90’s, this is where it seemed to get a little weird, and when many began to view Heff as less of a man of Libertarian sophistication, and more as a caricature. This is when he created his Playboy TV series, in which he and his seven blonde manufactured fem-bot girlfriends opened the gates to the mansion and exposed themselves, in more ways than one, to the mainstream.
On the surface, it was a true-to-life fantasy for many men, and of course, many women who would give their left tit to become a bunny and one of Heff’s girlfriends. After all, they had a lavish lifestyle, fully funded, access to celebrities, unlimited budget for plastic surgery and beauty treatments, and their own 15 minutes of fame.
Lucky for them, the rotation of girls in those years was indeed a revolving door, as the maximum age to live in the mansion was 30. Most didn’t even make it that long, as there were very strict rules imposed on the girls, and many couldn’t handle it for more than a couple of years.
At the time, the rules that were publicly shared were more about a clean living lifestyle. Right, in a mansion where literally every room is equipped with lube, Vaseline and Kleenex.
As I read more and more about Heff this week, I stumbled upon a crazy amount of articles and exposes of what actually went on in the mansion from the point of view of the girls, which is a far cry from the hedonistic pleasure zone it was marketed as.
Not to say that many of the former bunnies, mainly only the ones that their entire brand and current financial success was launched from being in his magazine, didn’t have great things to say about the old man.
These stories were dark and disturbing.
Tales of forced drug use (Quaalude’s as Hugh’s drug of choice for the girls which he referred to as “thigh openers”), mandatory group sex with each other in order to receive their monthly allowance, mandatory sex with the guests, Bill Cosby of course one of the frequent guests, disgusting living conditions, being constantly pitted against each other by Hugh during weekly meetings where he would degrade them on their looks and sexual performance if he was in a bad mood.
And my favorite, the fact that at every single weekly group sex session in Hugh’s personal bedroom (which apparently was usually littered with dog shit), the man, who had seven young women frolicking in his bed, could only achieve orgasm by ordering them to stop and then viewing porn and finishing himself off. How virile.
In fact, most of the women who experienced this related that it was the most disconnected experience of their lives, leading many into addiction, depression and suicidal thoughts. So much for that boy-girl romance.
One of the things that really struck me was that in the final years before the mansion was sold off, it had turned into a dated, decrepit and rotting place, even with all of these women living there. Ragged stained pool towels, the famed grotto itself with moldy cushions, rooms that hadn’t been updated since the 80’s, guest bathrooms with moldy fixtures.
A big complaint from the girls was that their bedrooms were disgusting, and their mattresses some 20 years old and completely stained. I thought, Come on ladies, get your shit together. With 20 of you, receiving a $1K allowance weekly and all other living expenses paid, why couldn’t you buy a freakin’ mattress yourself? I know the old guy is rich and should have paid for it, but come on.
Any woman I know personally usually has an interest in beautifying her home and making it a warm, happy place. Especially if they are with a man who provides so much to them and that they supposedly love. With all of the resources available to them, they could have started a reno show, where they updated the mansion wearing only their branded bikinis, creating a lifestyle brand for the empire.
After all, so many women across middle America were eating this stuff up, emulating their looks for their own girl trips to Vegas.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? This wasn’t a relationship, as he so liked the world to believe, this was a paid business arrangement with girls, not women. Girls who were recruited from the likes of Hooter’s, girls from impoverished backgrounds, with little or no education, girls who were not allowed visits from friends or family unless specifically authorized.
Heff liked to think of himself as their pseudo savior Sugar Daddy, providing them a life they could never have dreamed of. In reality, he was their pimp, drug dealer, and warden all-in-one.
So caught up in his fantasy and ego, Heff failed to recognize that in his life as a recluse and surrounded by come-to-life versions of his ideal woman who never aged, he stunted his own personal growth. The man who was the envy of all men for decades, a global Playboy and bon vivant, was now surrounded by plastic and decay, dog shit littering his own sleeping quarters.
The many women he surrounded himself with were not capable of breathing life into his home or his mind, as they were not equal players at the table. This man, that so many to this day admire, is the epitome of misogyny. A man who earned his entire living on the exploitation of women for professional and personal gain.
Not only women, but very young girls, let’s not forget Playboy published photos of an 11-year-old naked Brooke Shields — photos once she came of age, sued to get the rights to, which she lost in court.
Even in his death, he managed to exploit the world’s most famous blonde one last time… he is now lying for all of eternity next to Marilyn Monroe. His whole career was launched with her nude photos which he purchased at an auction after her death, having never met her, so obviously she did not profit from this. The photos that launched the first ever edition of Playboy magazine.
I doubt his ego allowed him to see the irony of this. She was a cultural icon herself, the ultimate blonde bombshell, who reportedly ended her own life, someone whom I see as being a victim of fame, toxic men (excluding Joe DiMaggio), and the people who fed her with drugs so that they could continue to profit off her looks.
What’s odd is that even Marilyn would not have made the cut when she died at the age of 36 to live in the mansion. She would have been considered too old, too heavy, too accomplished. He bought the crypt beside her in the 90’s. He is the very type of man that killed her, invading her final resting place for his own perverse pleasure.
The veils have indeed been lifted. This globally celebrated man whom I also had a form of admiration for, is nothing but a rich white pimp, and I’ll say it too as articles are coming out by the hour, possible pedophile. It’s horrifying how blinded we are as a society to wealth, fame and a really sexy brand.
We’ve willingly invited this into our homes and psyches, never stopping to question the source, unwittingly pervading our own sexual tastes and sense of self. Shaping our culture and economics, the porn industry having the highest growing revenues in the last two decades (Playboy was accepting Bitcoin back in 2014) on a sexual revolution that was one man’s dream.
The patriarchy at its worst, or best. Let this be a tale of caution as we move to whole new levels of branding and constant media interference into our lives.
The good news is that those militant feminists never went away. The Bunnies aged, moved out, sobered up, and got healthy. They found power in their voices and told the truth. Hell, Pamela Anderson is on a quest to save the animals and oceans, a real-life former Barbie turned earth goddess. The man is dead, and quite frankly, no longer relevant but to a few.
There is no coincidence his death occurred now. The one-sided patriarchy is coming to a close, we are moving to a more balanced society. Women have found their power, their worth, and their silenced voices, no longer needing men to define that. We are remembering it has always been inside ourselves.
Thank you, Hugh Hefner. Your influence found me once again thinking of who I am becoming as a woman in the future. This time it hit me so much deeper, beyond the surface of my body, and into the shared Divine Feminine, bringing life, sacred sexuality and innovation back to our society which is stuck in a decaying paradigm. Who knows, maybe Marilyn’s true self is having her way with you now.
I hope you get sent back, this time as a woman.
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Kelly Wabi-sabi Chalmers is a woman who walks a line between two worlds, with one foot in the corporate world, the other as a practicing Intuitive, Energy and Crystal Healer. She embraces the philosophy of Wabi-sabi — the beauty and appreciation of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, the flow of life.
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