Hef's doorplate at the original Playboy Mansion read "If you don't swing, don't ring." He projected his personal image as a man having sex with multiple young women 24-7.
And it was all mainstream and glamorous - as long as the men had money and the women were young and beautiful and pretended to enjoy themselves.
In the 60s and 70s I was a civil rights person which means to me, by definition, a women's rights person. Some people thought the same was true of Hugh Hefner. I didn't think so. Somewhere along the way Hefner started writing these rants that were eventually called The Playboy Philosophy. I actually read them. In response I wrote several poems. Here are two that were published.
THE DEHUMANIZATION OF ALICE
She posed for the number one magazine,
And was euphoric to discover,
That because of her magnificent body and brain,
Low and behold! she made the cover!
Last week I saw Alice on the magazine,
In the midst of a card game on a wooden chest,
Withe the score being kept on her exquisite face,
And a beer can sitting on her lovely breast.
THE THINGMAKER
i saw a layout
in playboy magazine
featuring a racing car
shaped like a women
dear playboy
i am not a machine
i am a human being
is your relationship
with your machine
unfulfiling
undemanding
unsatisfactory
unloving
incomplete
unfinished
next time
try a person
***
