Hugh Hefner Leaves Behind a Legacy of Sexual Exploitation

Hugh Hefner, the bachelor hedonist who brought us female exploitation and sex clubs, passed away Wednesday at the age of 91. The media has erupted in praise for his alleged championing of “free speech” through the pornographic magazine, Playboy, which was founded in Chicago in 1953. Hefner’s Playboy Club featured bow-tied women in bunny costumes, as “pets” of deviant and perverted men. In an article in The Washington Post, columnist Derek Hawkins points out:

He portrayed himself and his magazine as defenders of women’s rights, but his critics have called him anything but, pointing to his rotating cast of girlfriends, multiple divorces and general objectification of women in the pages of Playboy (“They are objects,” he once told Vanity Fair).