Hugh Hefner and Playboy
I am writing in reference to Steve Proffitt’s interview with Hugh Hefner (Opinion, July 31). I was struck by the contrast between Hugh Hefner’s perception of Playboy and my observations of its effect on society.
Hefner mentions the founding of this country by Puritans. The attitudes they handed down discouraged communication about sex, creating an atmosphere void of healthy sexual growth or exploration. When Playboy appeared in the ‘50s, it represented a swing of the pendulum in the opposite direction. While it appeared to champion a positive perspective on sexual issues, it was no healthier or realistic than the Puritans. It just showed the other extreme.
In his own words “sex can be twisted and exploited, but in its most essential form, it’s the best part of who we are.” Yet Playboy capitalized on sex and exploited it very successfully. Under the guise of encouraging open discussions about sex, it presented unrealistic images and fantasies that helped confuse and alienate the sexes. Presenting sex by surrounding it with self-proclaimed socially redeeming journalism does not promote true healthy sexuality. As a result women were compared to an unrealistic body image that men were encouraged to seek. Everyone was misled.
Healthy sexuality strives toward making relationships work, not by displaying intense, glamorous, beautiful people with their clothes off. The mixed messages he says this country suffers from have been fueled by this propaganda. If Hefner was so concerned about raising social consciousness, he could have created a publication that stood on its writings instead of its centerfolds.
ART KELLNER
Torrance
The interview was really wonderful.
The only false note in the piece was the curious connection made between “plummeting” circulation and young people who found the magazine “either offensive or a curious anachronism in the 1980s.”
It wasn’t “young people” who took away half our single-copy sales, sent hate mail to our advertisers and took away our casino licenses in London and Atlantic City.
An unholy alliance between church and state played havoc with our circulation and advertising in the 1980s. A Falwell-Wildmon inspired letter sent by the Meese Commission to the Southland Corp., and to others, cost us the 7-Eleven stores and a number of other major convenience and drug chains.
It should be obvious to even the casual observer that powerful forces (some of them in the federal government) have been our enemy from the outset--and we have never had the advantage of a truly open marketplace for the magazine or any of our subsidiary businesses.
HUGH M. HEFNER
Holmby Hills