Indeed, it would be battle-hardened war veterans, many still in their 20s when the first issue hit the newsstands in 1953, who would make Hef a cultural icon. That would be these same men, right, from 1959?
This is classic theological effeminacy: an aversion to anything that diminishes pleasure. Can't even be bothered to show up to church AT EASTER.
I am not taking away what these men did at Normandy, Midway, or Guadalcanal, but too many of these "battle-hardened" vets came home and became completely effeminate with regard to their duties before God and raising their children. See that boy learning an important lesson about how important God is? Ten years later he was probably a little leftist punk writing in the mud at Woodstock.
See that boy learning an important lesson about how important God is? Ten years later he was probably a little leftist punk writing in the mud at Woodstock. Probably as good a chance that ten years later he was learning an important lesson about how important God is in the jungles of Vietnam (and reading Playboy).
I guess I took issue with how quickly so many here piled on Hefner with knee-jerk clichés when news of his death came last night, "Moral degenerate! Reprobate! Burn in hell!" as if Hugh Hefner single-handedly infected a straight-laced Eisenhower America with filth, forever corrupting a once chaste and virtuous society. Hefner merely provided American culture with something it was asking for at the time it was asking for it. He was as much a product of post-war cultural upheavals as he was an influence on them.