Hugh Hefner: "Women Are Sex Objects"

[Liberal_in_LA]

Hugh Hefner: "Women Are Sex Objects"
Forget about that age old question of whether Playboy makes sex objects of women, Hugh Hefner says women are sex objects and he likes it that way. In an interview with the NY Daily News, Hef says, "The notion that Playboy turns women into sex objects is ridiculous. Women are sex objects. If women weren't sex objects, there wouldn't be another generation. It's the attraction between the sexes that makes the world go 'round. That's why women wear lipstick and short skirts."

I think Hef kind of misses the point here. Although I think all species make some kind of effort to make themselves more attractive for reproduction and the survival of that species I think what Playboy does to a certain extent is saying that the only thing women are good for is sex and that all women need to look exactly like the women in Playboy or you are not ideal. It does not become about advancement of a species but instead is about some fantasy world that does not exist and that if men go through their lives trying to find a mate that looks exactly like a woman in Playboy that the species would die out because it does not really have a basis in reality.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/hugh-hefner-women-are-sex-objects

[qnr]

1. I understand your point, but I'm not quite sure if I agree. It's just a niche, just like

the publishers of Hot Rod magazine aren't saying that the only thing cars are good for is hot-rodding and as dragsters.

Edit: typo

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Hefner never had to worry about being considered a sex object.

Ick ick ick. Amazing what money can get a degenerate old fart.

[Ricochet21]

5. I agree

I agree

[Amerigo Vespucci]

19. In the mid-1970s, a reporter asked Hefner...

..."Do you realize that most of these women are sleeping with you because of your money?"

Hefner's response was "Who CARES?"

He knows who he is, he knows what he is, and he's known it all his life. When he launched the magazine in 1953, he knew exactly what he wanted...everything he has today, and everything he's had for the last half century.

It's all one big free trade agreement between Hef and his "girlfriends." He knows, they know, and no one cares, except his critics.

[booley]

3. And yet lots of married men see porn

and yet still manage to have kids with their not as pretty wives.

And lets look at the female version of that, romance novels.

Still lots of women who read these books about romances and men that are impossible (often literally, romance novels seem to al be supernatural stuff nowadays) and yet these women still get married and have kids with men who aren't vampires or werewolves or the lost seelie king of the underbarrow.

But they still like the fantasy.

So maybe Hugh Hefner can be a sexist fossil BUT the fantasy that porn provides can still have a use.

[WCGreen]

4. So I shouldn't go out and get myself all pale and buy some fangs...

damn, I thought this time, this trend, I could score...

[Missy Vixen]

6. I've never seen monogamy and a character arc in porn

Have you?

>And lets look at the female version of that, romance novels.<

Romance novels aren't porn. There are sex scenes in romance novels. There are sex scenes in most modern fiction.

-MV
romance author

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Some are, some are not.

My late loved "bodice rippers" despite her views. Never understood why and she told me to quit asking.

[sendero]

17. Bodice rippers..

... ARE the female equivalent of porn, and men that don't get that don't understand women at all.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

27. i wouldn't call them the "female equivalent:"

Not at all coming from the same place.

[Missy Vixen]

28. "Bodice rippers" went out with the Betamax

Rape/forced sex hasn't been part of the romance author's bag of tricks since 1980 at the latest.

And again, they are not the "female equivalent of porn". Romance novels document a monogamous, loving relationship. Sexual activity is typically part of that relationship, unless you've written an inspirational romance. I've never seen a monogamous relationship (let alone a mutually respectful one,) in porn.

[Boojatta]

10. I've never seen monogamy in a biography of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Perhaps you should write a screenplay for a bold new vision of the life of the Prophet.

[Missy Vixen]

23. I'll let you take that one on

Maybe you should explain to me exactly what you meant by your comment, and we'll both know.

[Threedifferentones]

12. Really was not the point MV.

Your statement is true but does not relate to the truth of the idea you were responding to. The stories found in romance novels are not realistic, any more than porn represents a realistic capturing of a typical couple's sex.

If you want to say one fantasy is cruder or more visceral, while the other more sophisticated and cerebral, I can see your point. But it is still true that we all indulge in fantasy while (generally) still carrying on real lives.

[teenagebambam]

7. Women: "Hef is a wrinkled old creep"

[seabeyond]

11. +1. nt

[cynatnite]

14. I second that. n/t

[eowyn_of_rohan]

21. and he was a creep before he was wrinkled

[seabeyond]

8. i am thinking men chose haircuts, showers, perfumes, clothes and all kinds of things

to make them attractive. maybe not make up.... but they are doing about all things women are doing.

[joshcryer]

18. Indeed, all cultures have ritualistic mating behaviors.

I don't cut my hair because I like it cut, I cut it because I look like a fucking slob if I don't. I had many a hippy stage where I had little contact with people and let it all go.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. Men are subjects, women objects. It's a very pervasive view. eom

[Raksha]

15. Right...subjects vs. objects.

That's the basic premise of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, an early-vintage feminist work that had a deep and long-lasting effect on me. The really sad thing is that women internalize the objectification.

[Radical Activist]

16. And men are sex objects.

I'd say nearly all people have been sex objects at some point in their life, at least at the time of having sex. No big deal.

[Hello_Kitty]

20. Thanks for sharing, dude. eom

[Skittles]

22. Skittles: Hugh Hefner is a pig

[Toucano]

24. By that logic, so are men.

His car and his bank account being "survival of the species" equivalents to tits and ass.

What a Neanderthal.

Oops, I forgot. Hugh remembers when Neanderthals walked the earth. Of course he'd side with them.

[Tabasco_Dave]

25. Playboy is irrelevant in the internet age.

Old Hef is getting bitter.

[JCMach1]

26. Hefner says...: Pope is Catholic

As long as there are objectifying men, women will be objectified. DOH!

Thanks for the brilliant insight Hugh