Hugh Hefner’s true legacy: Sexual Exploitation by Patrick Trueman
With Hugh Hefner’s death, the media has erupted in praise for his alleged contributions to society through the pornography magazine he founded, Playboy.
In reality, Hefner leaves behind a colossal legacy of sexual exploitation.
Playboy popularized the commodification of the female body in soft-core pornography magazines in the 1950s, and it laid the groundwork for the public health crisis of pornography that America is experiencing today.
Patrick Truman, in a Washington Examiner column titled “Hugh Hefner’s true legacy: mainstreaming the sexual objectification of women” wrote:
With Hugh Hefner’s death, the media has erupted in praise for his alleged contributions to society through the pornography magazine he founded, Playboy.
In reality, Hefner leaves behind a colossal legacy of sexual exploitation.
Playboy popularized the commodification of the female body in soft-core pornography magazines in the 1950s, and it laid the groundwork for the public health crisis of pornography that America is experiencing today.
Without Hefner, pornography may have never gone mainstream. His opportune use of nude photos of Marilyn Monroe, who was just becoming a Hollywood sensation, in Playboy’s inaugural issue immediately gained the magazine national attention and notoriety. Further, by cunningly using models that captured the male sexual fantasy of the “girl next door,” and creating an archetype of the detached, “sophisticated” male connoisseur of pleasure, especially sex, Hefner succeeded in making pornography seem as American as apple pie.
Hefner was not a revolutionary, folk hero, or champion of free speech. He was a pioneer in the sexual objectification and exploitation of women.
From its very inception, Playboy made its views on women clear. As Hefner opined in the first issue, “We want to make it very clear from the start, we aren’t a ‘family’ magazine.’ If you’re somebody’s sister, wife, or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to the Ladies Home Companion.”
Research shows that Playboy portrayed female sexuality as subordination and women as universally available to the male sexual gaze—a fundamental characteristic of pornography that carries on today.
ABOUT PATRICK TRUEMAN
Patrick Trueman is president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. He is a former chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Criminal Division at the Department of Justice from 1988 to 1993.
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Human Costs of the World Hugh Hefner Created
Hefner’s Mansion Embodied Hedonistic Fun and Darker Impulses – New York Times
Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion was hedonistic headquarters for his brand – LA Times
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