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Free the bunnies! Free the Playboy Mansion playmates! Free Hugh! Ugh? Yes, the man who promoted T & A outside the bedroom, the father of the everyman-airbrushed fantasy is being held hostage by a mistaken heritage. Playboy magazine turns 50 this year. Is it merely a collection of unreal glossy depictions of female anatomy or the bible for a societal revolution? “ I was trying to give sex a good name,” Hefner said in an interview with the Television Critics Association earlier this year. “Because sex had always been both legally and socially and politically outside the boundaries of what was acceptable in society.”

Beyond the boobs, Playboy changed our minds about more than just sex. Against the beauty norms of the day, Hugh Hefner launched Playboy in 1953 with its first pinup, Marilyn Monroe who was a healthy size 12. Unfortunately, most men today still consider a perfect 10 to be a model who doesn't wear anything but single digits. Oh well, Hugh you tried.

The magazine which everyone read for the articles, contained well-written prose from Ayn Rand, Norman Mailer and excerpts from Alex Haley's Roots. His television show, Playboy After Dark, lit the way for most modern talk shows (Oprah, Larry King, Phil, etc) where Hef entertained pop culture royalty from the fields of news, politics and entertainment. His was the first “omni media” enterprise hawking a magazine, television show, and lifestyle merchandise creating the new domestic goddess before the pristine Martha Stewart. The infamous Playboy magazine interviews, like that of former President Jimmy Carter, were oft quoted in term papers and news media across the globe.

But what if Mr. Hefner was really playing the boys? What if Mr-24/7-girls-on-a-dime was really playing on the girls' team? Is Hugh a new kind of 21st century pop psychologist gone bad – way bad? Make them think I'm using and abusing women when what I'm really doing is advancing an agenda of self-empowerment in the bedroom and the boardroom? His perfectly groomed lifestyle with matching blonde twin sets fueled male sex god fantasies, while he maintains he wrote a manual devoted to bettering the sex lives of men- and women.

At the recent Speakeasy at the W Hotel where the operators in Playboy Mansionlike fashion answer the phone “Whatever. Whenever.” I interviewed LINEUP guests about their thoughts on the legendary magazine.

“Bait! Switch! Hook! Gotcha to look! Got you into the magazine,” Adrienne joked about the Playboy “mystique.”

“No, I don't think Playboy liberated women. You can own your own body without showing it to the world,” argued Yolanda, a young woman celebrating her birthday at the San Francisco hotspot.

“ He had a lot to do with civil rights and feminism. He broke the mold. You had a very structured way people were supposed to act, talk – the inhibition of sex is the inhibition of everything else-sex, politics, religion. It all goes together, “ argued Steve, a very well put together brother.

Could the magazine that was often paraded as the Gay cover story, was responsible for the sex education of minors and fueled their parents' feelings of inadequacy have redeeming qualities?

“Paying women for their natural beauty is good. They rise to power. It definitely has a lot of class, It's not porn,” commented a female reveler at the XYZ Bar at the W.

“He certainly brought a new perspective for women-not the photographs- especially the articles. They ushered in the women's movement through his magazine. He gave women a voice,” added Edwin, an enthusiastic gentlemen at the bar sandwiched between two beautiful babes.

And a certain voice, one of the most foremost feminists of our day, Gloria Steinem owes a bit of her to fame to the widespread notoriety she received when she published an article entitled “I was a Playboy Bunny” in 1963. Playboy has certainly had it's share of “before they were stars” posers including Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Anderson, and Kim Basinger.

And even soccer moms seem to be proud of the hare in their past. A recent letter to the syndicated Miss Manners column from a concerned mom asked how her daughter could politely let her friends and their parents know she was a former bunny. As a young woman the writer had worked her way through college and graduate school as a cottontail cocktail waitress.

And while Miss Manners agreed that the gorgeous women who grace the pages of Playboy are “normal people”, she did advise her reader that she could tell her daughter “Looking back, perhaps I might have made a different choice.” Judith Martin needs to visit the twentieth-first century. As revealing as the choice of profession may be, there's a little bunny lust in all of us, otherwise Victoria's Secrets would be just that and the company bankrupt.

Then in an unexpected move in 1988, which was met with many, a raised eyebrow, he turned over one of the most successful publishing empires in American history to his daughter, Christie Hefner. She tried to modernize her father's famous playbook by closing the clubs, launching a cable channel and expanding the brand franchise. But Playboy was a casualty of its own success, spawning the more hip progeny of Maxim and FHM in the “I can't believe it's a real girl” category.

At 50, the magazine is a relic of a bygone era when sex and women needed liberating. In the millennium, thong underwear for 'tweens, oral sex among high scholars and the AIDS phenomenon are the norm. Women's organizations lobby for legalized prostitution and women of all ages write bestsellers chronicling their sexual adventures.

The baby boom generation says thank you for the masturbatory memories and has moved on to Viagra and online sex. The consumer has left Playboy behind in its home delivered brown paper wrapper in favor of eye candy online personals and sex video cams in their homes.

“I never intended to be a revolutionary. My intention was to create a mainstream men's magazine that included sex in it. That turned out to be a very revolutionary idea,” Hugh muses on his legacy. The shame of it all is Hugh in his silk pajamas and burgundy satin smoking jacket and his feminist dames have been made totally irrelevant by today's sexual extremes and Sex & the City “sheroes”. At 77, Hugh Hefner is just another parent being pushed aside by his children as they reach for the next best thing. And once again the law of unintended consequences strikes and women get what they want.

Is Hugh Hefner a leader in the feminist pack? Write and let me know…

Email me at JERUSHA@viplineup.com

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