It is
hard to say when the sexual revolution in America really began but we can say
that the 1950’s were a very important time, possibly even the catalyst or spark
to the entire revolution. The revolution
could be a spin-off of the work of one man and his magazine.
Born
April 9, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, Hugh Hefner would later become one of the
most recognizable men America has ever known.
Hefner is the founder of Playboy Magazine, a magazine that was way ahead
of its time. The magazine showed
pictures of nude females or as Hefner described it, “[Playboy] encouraged
readers to enjoy the pleasures a female has to offer without becoming
emotionally involved[1]”. In December of 1953, Hefner published the
first issue of Playboy which featured nude photographs of superstar Marilyn
Monroe.
The
circulation of the magazine grew rapidly as it reached 1 million before the end
of the 1050’s and even reached 6 million by 1970, with almost half of the
readers being single men. Hefner grew is nude magazine into a sexual
and financial empire as his peak net worth breached $200 million[2].
Hefner
is a sort-of cultural icon in this day in age.
He’s “The Hef’ and lives in a mansion with some of the most physically
attractive females on the planet. But in
his beginning days he was a pioneer. He
and other can be given credit for starting the sexual revolution which took
full swing through the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Our culture would not be the same today without Hugh Hefner and the
other pioneers of the sexual revolution.
[1] John
D'Emilio, and Estelle B Freedman , Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in
America, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988), 302-303.
[2] Warner,
Brian. "Celebrity Net Worth." Accessed April 10, 2013.
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/ceos/hugh-hefner-net-worth/.
No comments:
Post a Comment