I think we had a tangentially related thread about this a couple years ago. I want to say it was a GQ thread asking, “What’s the straight dope on Hef and those women/girlfriends; do they actually have sex?” I recall there being not a lot of consensus; some people said “of course, and he’s implied fairly openly that he uses a lot of viagra”. Others said “No way, it’s all an act to keep up the image”.
Either way, I do see the OP’s point, and I do think it’s kind of pathetic. I mean, yeah, he has wealth, options, he’s enjoying the life he’s made for himself, whatever, more power to him. I just don’t really respect the kind of person that finds that life enjoyable.
Not to sound snobbish or whatever, but it’s like being friends with, say, a guy whose idea of a good time is going out to a disco a couple times a week; or goes to a hockey game and is a diehard “facepainter”; that sort of thing. Just kind of juvenile.
I disagree, though my sample size in roughly just the past year. Looking at the cartoons, for 90% of them I think, “huh, these guys just really like drawing boobs.”
I don’t really get the criticism. It seems to boil down to three things: 1) I don’t like the magazine, it hasn’t kept up with the times; 2) the brand is poorly managed; 3) Hef’s old! Old people are creepy and disgusting!
One and Two seem irrelevant to discussing Hef, unless you blame them on Hef’s poor (in your mind) taste in women and lifestyle. Certainly lots of other magazines, like Men’s Health and Maxim and GQ and Esquire have the same basic mix of content, including profiles of models and tips on grooming and “being a man,” just in different proportions. Three just seems shallow and, frankly, offensive.
About 25 years ago I won a free one year subscription to Playboy, that has never stopped coming! The wrong box with my address must be checked on their computer. Hell who am I to turn down free magazines. To quote an old joke I really do read it only for the articles as they exist, I would say the page count is about half of what is was earlier. I especially like the interview if it is someone I am interested in, it is fairly in depth. I don’t really look at the girls with their shaved crotches, fake breasts, tattoos and airbrushed tone, give me the playmates of the sixties any day.
That’s a mis-representation of anything I (or AFAICT) anyone else here has said about Hefner’s age. All we have done is question the age-appropriateness of Hefner’s activities and persona. I can say there’s something a little bit creepy about JonBenet’s wearing makeup, or about a forty-five year old insurance salesman hanging out at South Padre Island during Spring Break, or about an 83 year old trying to act the role of a dashing Lothario, without being “anti seven year old” or “anti middle aged businessman” or “anti old people.”
There’s a long and fairly widely-held theme, in our society and in literature, etc., of people raising eyebrows at those who seek to prolong their adolescence/youth/middle maturity a bit too long – think of the figure of the overaged fratboy, the too-forced-by-half-girlish cougar, the aging roue or withered ingenue. Are all of these tropes motivated only by invidious dislike of entire categories of persons based only on their age (as opposed to their activities/mannerisms in the context of their ages)?
I don’t really think that he has slept with them. Granted, they may be ubersluts, but I don’t think that the hot babes that like famous football players, young famous football players to whom they are engaged, are just dying to hop into the sack with an 82 year old. Any 82 year old. I think that this spin is much of the ‘sad’ of which the OP writes. Any day now, I expect the Playboy editorial page to start calling him 'the 82 years young Hef."
My girlfriend likes his show, so I’ve seen it from time to time and as well as Hef is made up, he’s an old ass man who looks unsteady on his feet and who needs help getting out of cars and chairs. Something about that does not say to me that he’s honestly banging the crap out of anyone, let alone three ugly blonde chicks a quarter of his age. To keep implying such is pathetic, but it’s Hef’s emergence from his marriage to Kimberly Conrad that revived a dying brand.
Now if you want to talk pathetic try reading his Playboy Philosophy. That’s pathetic.
I think you underestimate what some women (with no bankable talents outside their bustlines) will do for money. I’m sure any one of them would marry him in a heartbeat just to get a little closer to his fortune.
I thought I read somewhere they mostly acted out some mild girl on girl kissing while he jerked off. Or something of that nature.
Personally, what I’ve always been grateful for to Playboy, not being its target demographic, are the interviews with various people. Years ago, for a school project, I read the complete interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which were interrupted by his untimely assassination.
Great, fascinating interviews, for the most part-but you can usually find them through other sources (the Lennon/Ono ones I found in our school library, believe it or not-it was in a book!)
Yep. None of us really know if he’s sleeping with them, or if so, what that amounts to, or how often. My own speculation (but, it’s just that) is that for his ego’s sake, there was/is probably some obligatory, awkward, half-assed, chemically-fueled, encounter or two with each “girlfriend,” but that both parties, somewhat relieved to have gotten it out of the way, just sort of let it slide after that.
Because it really couldn’t be anything else. Not just because of his physical limitations. Not just because of the ick factor. But because (IME) it’s difficult to get motivated to sleep with someone who you know is not physically or romantically attracted to you, and it’s essentially impossible that any of his “girlfriends” are. And, he’s smart enough to know that.
There’s an old and cynical line: you don’t pay a prostitute to come home and sleep with you; you pay her to leave afterwards. I guess another spin on why I think Hefner’s sad is he got that turned around 180 degrees – he’s surrounded by dumb ugly bimbos all the time, and he’s probably not even getting any/much.