Ambiguous glory Hugh Hefner

“In 1953, when the first number of“ playboy ”was released, there was no sex either - in the same sense as in the USSR”

Photo: Jourdom.ru

In the ninth grade, I drove a literature teacher into the paint, proving to her that there was a bed scene in a “lady with a dog”.

My classmate, reciting the “Bronze Horseman”, said instead of “Poor Chelny Chukhonets” - “Poor Member”.

There was no sex in the USSR, but Soviet teenagers only thought about him. We went ten times to Angelica, saturated with the aroma of sin, all under the desk lay the Maupassant forbidden by the parents of Maupassant, the shabby notebooks with pornographic poems and short stories were handed over, and occasionally in the hands of unknown ways, the playboy (Playboy) fell into the hands of unknown ways - as a rule, five years old prescription. It was delightful.

But the puberty ends sooner or later. The lifestyle of the wealthy bonvivan and the lacquered bodies of the ladies ceased to arouse their previous interest. I could, stumbling through the word, read in English and began to pay attention to the texts of the "playboy".

Naked aunts and the best feathers

It turned out that this is not at all a low -grade reading. To my great surprise, under his cover, the best feathers of American fiction were published, including the salt of Bellou, John Apdike, Norman Meler, Vladimir Nabokov and Kurt Vonnegut.

The cult novel by Ray Bradbury “451º according to Fahrenheit” also first saw the light in the “playboy”. Naked chmanny aunts did not interfere with writers at all. Bradbury fee amounted to $ 400. So, there was something else that pushed the authors to cooperate with the head of the head: he was on the right side in a public discussion about freedom of speech and limits permitted.

Subsequently, I learned that in 1953, when the first number of Playboy was released, there was no sex either - in the same sense as in the USSR.

In the country, books such as “Lady Chatterla's lover” Lawrence and “Tropic of Cancer” Henry Miller were prohibited as obscene. In Hollywood, the Hais Code acted, which strictly regulated a demonstration on the screen of a naked body. Puffed kisses were forbidden. Mentions of sexually transmitted diseases and sexual hygiene were not allowed. Divorce or marital treason should be depicted as an unconditional misfortune and moral fall of heroes. Topics such as prostitution and homosexuality were considered completely unacceptable. There were no laws against domestic violence in America. Doctors refused to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women, single mothers did not receive any state allowance for children, and married women-maternity leave. Sex was absent in public discourse.

Society request

In 1953, the professor of zoology Alfred Kinsey published the "sexual behavior of a human female." The book dedicated to the male man was published in 1948. These two opus turned the Americans's idea of ​​themselves. It turned out that half of American men have illegitimate ties, 33% at least once in their lives had homosexual experience and 95% violated the laws of individual states prohibiting oral sex and intimate between partners of the same gender. The Americans had the statistics lower, but also quite impressive.

Kinsey books have become the subject of acute polemics. Thus, the genie burst out of the bottle: it became possible to talk about sex.

The cult novel by Ray Bradbury “451º according to Fahrenheit” also first saw the light in the “playboy”. Naked chemane aunts did not interfere with writers at all

So the young journalist Hugh Hefner accurately caught the request of society.

Hefner died on September 27, 2017, at the 92nd year of his life, and then, in 1953, he was 27 years old, and he was married to a woman with whom he lost virginity at 22. When his wife admitted to him that he was not innocent before marriage, he was horrified. For the sake of his own project, he left the editorial office of the children's magazine and recently moved out of his parental house.

In a word, Hefner was not at all who he portrayed himself in his first column of the editor-in-chief-a young wealthy bachelor-master enjoying life-however, not without intellectualism’s claims: “We get acquainted with women for a quiet conversation for unobtrusive music and cocktails-about Picasso, Nietzsche, Jaza and Sex.”

Photo: Liferules.com.ua

He collected money for the first issue with the world along the thread, invested 600 of his own dollars in the case, a thousand - a large amount at that time - lent from his mother. Presumably, a significant part of these funds went to purchase a copy of Merilin Monroe - no other woman, of course, could not be on the cover of the first issue of the magazine for men.

One copy of the magazine cost 50 cents. In a matter of weeks, about 54 thousand copies were sold. It was a stunning success. By 1960, the circulation reached one million, in the 1970s it amounted to seven million.

Don't like it - don't read

Photos of naked women and before Hefner published a bunch of publications. But it was frankly low -grade products. In addition, the US was still in force in the United States, which forced the sending of obscene materials by mail. Hugh brought his magazine to the mainstream. He had enough taste not to fall into vulgarity. The presence of the most significant names of American politics and culture in Playboy provided the magazine with a high status.

Hefner was not at all who he portrayed himself in his first column of the editor-in-chief-a young wealthy bachelor-master enjoying life-however, not without claims for intellectualism

Hefner became a key figure in the American sexual revolution. But society and mass culture remained sexist for a long time, the whole struggle for gender equality was ahead. Therefore, Hefner became the object of attacks of two opposite camps: zealots of strict morality, on the one hand, and the feminists who accused him of a sex-operation of women, on the other. Of course, this is true. Hugh never sought to the role of the Prophet or Guru. Do not like it - do not read. That's all his moral. Donald Trump is also a product of this culture of the Alfa-Samets.

The moralists do not give up. When Kondoliza Rice became a Secretary of State in the Bush Jr. office, she forbade the sale of Playboy in the State Department building, and the Minister of Justice in the same office, John Ashcroft, ordered the naked chest of the statues of Themis established in the Ministry of Justice.

The magic has disappeared

For me, the "playboy" remained a magazine for children of senior school age. When in the summer of 1995 the first issue of the Russian “playboy” was released, I bought it and, reading, did not know whether to laugh or cry. All the simple magic, which the Soviet teenager was subject to, disappeared. Even Vasily Aksenov could not cope with this playboy vocabulary and thinking, to talk about Artemia Troitsky! When the venerable editor-in-chief, presenting the playmate of the room, talked about the virtues of the Dutch, I immediately remembered the costume of the “funny guys”, and when the television journalist Evgeny Kiselev, as a reference Russian playboy, spoke in an interview that a real gentleman should change not only socks, but also shoes, Markos came to mind with mind. Her racks of unreliable shoes.

When Kondoliza Rice became a Secretary of State in the Bush Jr. office, she forbade the sale of Playboy in the building of the State Department

Three years later, the Izvestia building, where I then worked, appeared the editorial office of the Russian Hustler (Hustler). I suggested the lively young men my essay about Henry Miller and saw that they simply did not know this name. It seems that they did not even watch the film Milos Forman "The People Against Larry Flint." The industry died ...