Just wanted to share an excellent short video.   That he once pushed child porn (involving Brooke Shields) isn’t forgivable, nor some of the accounts of his treatment of the women in his mansion – assuming their accounts are true, and they seem to ring true.

But I remember some of the interviews of the 1970s which I read with my friends as we got into one of my friend’s father’s stash in his garage.  I remember the interview with Carter where he admitted “lust in his heart.”  I remember G. Gorton Liddy confessing that he would have killed columnist Jack Anderson if it would have kept Nixon in office.  I remember articles about the Weathermen, Watergate, the Vietnam War, and other issues from a take much of the rest of the media avoided.

Basically, the boobs drew me in, and the magazine delivered some early political education.  And social.  The magazine helped popularize Jazz, Beat poetry, and what was then considered gourmet coffee.

But, he made an industry which reduced sex to a commodity and it was not friendly to women.  He didn’t invent rape culture, but he certainly exploited it.

3

So how to evaluate?  Well, check out what Barbara Ehrenreich as to say (she had a great chapter about Playboy way back in Hearts of Men).