He married a woman 60 years his junior in 2012? Even at 86 he hadn't discovered the value of real love? That's kind of sad, I think. I don't discount the validity of some May-December romances, but I just don't buy a 26 year old knockout marrying a shriveled 86-year-old purely for love . . . unless he's fabulously wealthy and famous.
Anyway, he did a lot to open up America's mind to free expression of sexuality and that's not a terrible thing - but it seems to me there was a lot of traditional sexism involved in all things Playboy, even when the daughter was at the helm, so there's that, too.
I liked the comment that said, 'there's one guy you can't say went to a better place' - I took that to mean not that he went to hell, but that heaven can't beat the Playboy Mansion.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
I always had a grudging respect for Hefner--sure he was a sexist and set in his ways, but he did it with a style worthy of James Bond. And as BSG said, he did a lot to open up American's minds to sexuality and its free expression, and he did it with relish, attacking the old conventions as he saw fit. Leave the true porn to Larry Flint and the more mainstream shocks to Bob Guccione, it always seemed to me that Hefner was just a guy who enjoyed having fun and doing things his way--and he lived until with that lifestyle--good for him.
You're right, I doubt he can go to a better place.
He went on SNL one time and had a really sharp self-effacing sense of humor.
He was interviewed on NPR and told the story that it all began when he asked a woman to go out with him and she completely deconstructed him in her refusal. She gave a detailed critique of his grooming, dress, manners &c which he listened to and used to re-make himself. He revealed that he was grateful to her for the rest of his life and had stayed in touch over the decades.
Playboy is known, first and foremost, for inventing the centerfold. That said, Hugh Hefner's legendary magazine has published some exemplary prose over its 60-year history. As Hefner once admitted to a group of former Playmates gathered for a Playboy reunion, “Without you, I’d be the publisher of a literary magazine.”
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké