Playboy Mansion

Here's a pretty good story about the Playboy Mansion in LA from someone who spent most days there for ten years in the 1990's.

I could have gone to the Playboy Mansion in the 1970's because a friend of mine had a friend who often worked there.  But I never did, because I believed the real Playboy Mansion was in Chicago, so I thought why bother.*  

I regretted that, and tried to sign up for access to parties in (gasp) 2010.  It was not offered to me, I was told they'd become much more limited.

If you believe that Hefner was the ultimate sexual assaulter, etc, you need to read the many articles I've written going way back.  My short history is:

1) Hefner, who generally liked the pro-environment and anti-war positions, published an interview with Seymour Hersh, who had just exposed the Mai Lai massacre, in Playboy in 1967.  That was not unlike the Playboy Magazine of the 1960's, pushing the boundaries of 'acceptable opinion' in a good way.

2) Not long after, a CIA affiliated spook who had done undercover work in Europe, Gloria Steinem, works undercover in the Chicago Playboy Club and writes a damning book about it.  (Though nothing Steinem alleged was beyond the pale in such clubs or even ordinary restaurants of the time.)

3) Having made a name for herself, Steinem became the go-to Feminist in the USA for the next 5 decades.  She generally wasn't arguing for greater equality, but that women deserved a place at the top along with the top men.  So she firmly supported Hillary Clinton vs Barck Obama, etc.  (Quite often these women she backed could be categorized as liberal imperialists.)

4) Having suffered a blow to his reputation, Hefner moves to LA, and the magazine gives up any pretension of intellectualism.  It becomes all about lifestyle, such as selling high end booze.  LA is the most appropriate location now.

5) By the 1980's, Hefner quit editing altogether, giving that role to his daughter, though he still was involved in the centerfold photography selection, his favorite part.

6) After a trying marriage (in the era described by Lorraine Nicholson) Hefner goes back to being single in the 2000's and Ken Burns (known for PBS Documentaries) produces four years of a TV program about the Mansion life of Hef's girlfriends.  (It's intellectually vacuous, but somewhat dramatic and the only "reality TV" show I've ever found worthwhile and fun to watch.  It also clearly shows prejudices of the time, such as support for the War in Iraq, about which Hef says only "support the troops," but Bridget's brother is fighting in so she wants that and more--we need to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq.)  So Playboy has gone from Seymour Hersh to Bridget--who otherwise, I should note, was probably the nicest of Hef's girlfriends on TV.)

In his way, Hefner just became another American Celebrity (not unlike his accuser Steinem) and his limited hangout was ever more limited.  I should't worship Playboy that much, it really only had an all-too-brief era of intellectual significance, later just become more cable TV.  But I still think of it fondly because it was right there just as I was becoming aware.

(*My feeling was also that Playboy models, except in the December issues, were too thin and non-busty for my preferences.  Only by the end of the 1970's did I discover a legion of soft porn magazines including Gent, Juggs, and Score which catered specifically to my "taste".)