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| Karissa and Kristina Shannon, Hefner, and Crystal Harris |
The horrendous treatment of women by Hugh Hefner is being made fully public with a streaming documentary series The Secrets of Playboy. His reputation as a sleazeball is being confirmed not only by that investigation but also by women who are taking Hefner's organisation to court for abuse of employees.
The Sexual Revolution and the licentiousness that Hefner and his ilk appealed to in covering up their abuse of women for their own pleasure, and in making money from them, are certainly being identified one more time as a disease that wracked all who were overtaken by the corruptive power of the mis-identification of freedom. This applied during the late 20th Century, and it laid the foundation for today's promiscuous attitude toward sex, even though the extent of such behaviour seems to have ebbed somewhat.
The reduction of sexual activity among young people recently may be the harbinger of an awareness that shedding a morality that has stood the test of time is stupidity in the extreme. The damage done to individuals and to society by doing so is made clear through the experience I relate now.
At the weekend the UK's Sunday Mirror reported this from twins who lived at the Playboy mansion:
Karissa and Kristina Shannon allege they were first lured to sleep with Hefner on their 19th birthday, then pushed into unprotected group sex and plied with alcohol and drugs. They say the magazine and TV tycoon “had a black soul” and the experience left them suffering from [post trauma syndrome disorder], depression and needing counselling.
When Hefner died in 2017, at 91, the twins were glad – so no other girls could suffer.
Karissa says she fell pregnant at 19 to Hefner when he was 83 – and “if felt like carrying the devil’s child”. She had an abortion without the tycoon ever knowing.
Kristina tells the Sunday Mirror: “Hef acted like he owned you. If we broke his rules, six guards would drag us to our room and not let us leave. Hef called it ‘HMF arrest’, after his initials. He preyed on vulnerable young girls like us. He would offer you the world, then keep you trapped in his house, which was like a golden prison.
“We were Playmates, employed, and everything happened at the mansion, so we want to go after them. We are speaking out because we want people to know who he truly was and what was going on behind closed doors.”
The newspaper says the TV documentary "will raise more questions about how rich, powerful men could get away with abusing women in full sight". It cites the case of financier Jeffrey Epstein who was able to abuse young women despite previously being convicted of sex trafficking, and who died in jail while facing further charges.
Film producer Harvey Weinstein is another who combined the belief that women should be made to appreciate the "benefits" of the Sexual Revolution. He was jailed for 23 years in 2020 for rape and sex attacks.
But this exercise of power in the name of freedom and human rights continues with the Playboy organisation, only now it is giving a woke twist to the abuse of women for the pursuit of profit.
Previously it had entered into a bit of virtue-signalling by making a move to not use photographs of naked women in its magazine, not saying so, but in fact bowing to the new dominance of internet pornography. However, it reversed its decision within two years as it shed "readership" at an increasing pace.
Now we see Playboy going with the latest bandwagon:
In an open letter last week [January 22], the organization variously declared itself to be “a brand with sex positivity at its core,” a workforce that is 80 percent female, and a company that continues to “fight harassment and discrimination in all its forms, support healing and education, redefine tired and sexist definitions of beauty and advocate for inclusivity across gender, sexuality, race, age, ability and zip codes.”
On this basis Playboy should release its women employees, held to titillate the male population, and close the shutters on the whole sordid organisation: "Perhaps more than any other media outlet, it is responsible for the paradoxical equation of 'sex positivity' with a trivialized notion of sex and indeed what it means to be a woman." Amen to that last point, given the the kind of photos young women put on Instagram.
That quoted statement comes from author and academic Carl E Truman who offers further insights into the game Playboy is now playing:
Emily Hill offers a devastating critique of Playboy’s new stance in the Spectator that is blunt and compelling. As she indicates, its executives are merely doing what the executives of so many other companies are doing today, albeit Playboy is having to do so with singularly unpromising raw material: It is reciting the Liturgy of the Woke in a bid to retain its customer base and its profit margins. It remains to be seen, however, to what extent those who buy Playboy do so out of a deep desire to “redefine tired and sexist definitions of beauty and advocate for inclusivity across gender, sexuality, race, age, ability and zip codes”.
[...] When Hef was cool, his perversions were ignored (even indulged), invitations to his mansion were coveted, and his commercial imprimatur was keenly sought. And of course, conservative critics who dared to point out who he was and what he stood for could expect to be decried as puritanical killjoys, lacking, as they did, “sex positivity”.
This brings us to the true significance of corporate wokeism: It is a sign of the morally vacuous nature of our times. In modern America, morality is nothing more than the sum total of the tastes of the moment. When free love and throwing off the sexual restraints of earlier generations was hip, Hef was a godlike figure who was the public face of a family restaurant chain. Now that the human cost of this revolution has become clear, Hef is a demon, denounced even by those who owe their livelihoods to him and to the capital acquired by his peddling of sleaze.
The fate of Hefner’s reputation, like the success of his career, speaks eloquently about the state of America and perhaps the West as a whole. Self-indulgent to a tee, the only morality it knows is that which chimes with whatever the tastes of the moment happen to be, whatever works, whatever makes money. Promiscuity yesterday, wokeness and inclusivity today.
And the tragedy is that such amoral morality, always driven by market forces rather than a true understanding of what it means to be human, must inevitably come with a hefty price tag, as the documentary on Hefner will no doubt reveal in graphic and painful detail. Still, at least the new woke Playboy will now make sure that its profit margins are built on moral chaos that is inclusive of all, regardless of gender, sexuality, race, age, ability, or zip code.
💢 Hefner's widow vows to dress with modesty:
Crystal Harris had built a big social media following by putting up nude poses and the like. She said this made her suffer "internally in the process".
"In short, sex sells. I don’t know whether I felt empowered by dressing scantily clad, showing cleavage, …or if I just felt it was expected of me or what… but now I can confidently and 100% proudly say, modesty is what empowers me these days, and because it feels so much better internally, it will probably be this way for the rest of my life."
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