Washington Times Promotes Hugh Hefner And Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Billing itself as "America's Newspaper," the Washington Times promotes family values by running columns by Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Now its op-ed pages will feature Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual who supports gay marriage. But that's not all. On October 3, the paper ran a promotion for Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his magazine. Playboy, the Times said, has hired a new editor, and Hefner thinks less sex might be appropriate. It was presented as a man-bites-dog story.

Times reporter Jennifer Harper must have thought she had a funny and amusing angle. But what she really did was conceal the damage that Hefner has inflicted on American society. An excellent example is found in the new book, Epidemic: How Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids, by Dr. Meg Meeker. She described how teen sex was being practiced in a small upscale community of Conyers, Georgia, where more than 200 teenagers - many as young as 13 and 14 - were infected with syphilis.

Meeker reports, "Some of them had been holding 'study groups,' in which they watched, then re-enacted scenes from The Playboy Channel in their bedrooms. Preteen girls admitted to participating in an act they called 'the sandwich,' in which one girl had oral sex with a boy while having vaginal sex with another boy and anal sex with a third boy, all at the same time. The girls had sex with each other."

Harper called Hugh Hefner "a man known for his silk pajamas and a gaggle of buxom companions." In fact, Hugh Hefner is a dirty old man who sexually exploits women. His own Playboy philosophy has been free sex and freedom from religion. His magazine has promoted marijuana, cocaine and LSD. Playboy has also glorified the sexual abuse of children. Dr. Judith Reisman did a federal study back in the 1980s on how Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler magazines had all run depictions of children enjoying sexual relations with adults.

Harper said the 76-year-old Hefner has "from four to seven blonde girlfriends at any given moment…" She quoted him as saying, "Age doesn't matter, as long as you have your health." That's an interesting comment from someone whose philosophy has led to sexual promiscuity and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. The Meeker book shows how this epidemic has exploded among teenagers. One, human papilloma virus, or HPV, causes most cervical cancer.

If those teenage girls cited in the Meeker book get pregnant and pass syphilis on to their babies, the children may develop skin sores, rashes, fever, swollen liver and spleen, jaundice, anemia, and various deformities. As they get older, symptoms include damage to their bones, teeth, eyes, ears, and brain. Experts believe syphilis renders people more susceptible to other life-threatening infections and cancers. That's quite a legacy - one that deserves condemnation, not a puff piece, from the Washington Times.

Buy Playboy for the articles — really

     Less is more, at least according to Hugh Hefner, the original playboy and traditionally a more-is-more kind of guy.
     Nudity just ain't what it used to be.
     Hoping to reinvent both Playboy magazine and the social mores of the American male, the new Hefner motto is "less sex," an about-face for a man known for his silk pajamas and a gaggle of buxom companions.
     "I am out to recapture the mainstream nature of the magazine. And more sex just doesn't really make it," Mr. Hefner said by phone from Chicago yesterday. "Playboy was always set apart from the competition because it is a lifestyle magazine. And sex is only a small part of that."
     Vexed by competition from brazen pornographers and feisty men's-interest magazines, Mr. Hefner wants to retool his 49-year-old publication by emphasizing intellect over loins.
     Playboy?
     Well, that, or descend into depravity.
     Mr. Hefner has acknowledged he could instead go the hard-core porn route, telling the New York Observer that it would "only erode the uniqueness of Playboy. We just live in a completely different world now in terms of the acceptance of sexuality, and we need to find ways to do things with style and taste."
     This comes from a 76-year-old who has from four to seven blonde girlfriends at any given moment and a house full of ogling guests anxious to see his personal "grotto."
     "Age doesn't matter, as long as you have your health," he said yesterday, adding that Playboy and its brand identity is being "embraced by young women in a curious way" in a "post-feminist world."
     The female lead in HBO's popular "Sex in the City" series, Mr. Hefner noted, has taken to wearing a little Playboy bunny pin.
     Meanwhile, Mr. Hefner is determined to better his magazine and return it to the heyday of the 1960s and '70s when Playboy was equated with the good life, suave romance, savvy thinking and a paradoxical sense of chivalry for the fairer sex.
     What better way for a septuagenarian to sock it to his whipper-snapper competition? Mr. Hefner is determined to wrest the attention of the American male from the bad girls of Hustler and Penthouse — not to mention the unevolved bad boys of Maxim, FHM and Stuff magazines, where "beer and babes" are a specialty.
     With a paid circulation of more than 3 million and up to 15 million readers around the planet, Playboy remains the world's best-selling men's magazine. The business side of things has been managed by his daughter Christie Hefner since 1985. In recent years, Playboy Enterprises has bought three pornography cable channels and offered 11 Internet sites. It also maintains a brisk product-licensing division.
     The current Playboy features a list of the nation's top 25 "party" colleges, a centerfold who doesn't "believe in monogamy" and a review of sex in the cinema.
     But this week finds Mr. Hefner pining for "journalism of importance," "must-reads" and "good reportage," according to the Observer. Perhaps readers really will buy the magazine in the future for its articles rather than pictorials.
     "There's really no other way he can go, though he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't," said Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi communications professor who analyzes the magazine marketplace.
     "The concept of a centerfold doesn't mean all that much to a 21st-century man who has cable TV and the Internet. Competition like Maxim of FHM has taken the guilt out of the pleasure. A man can have them on the coffee table and not get in trouble with his wife or girlfriend," Mr. Husni said.
     Still, the old cachet of Playboy is intact, he says, and mighty powerful. "People still perceive Playboy as sexy, though it's like Sesame Street compared to Hustler magazine. But Playboy can't go to that extreme."
     Mr. Hefner has gone right to his competition for help. He has lured James Kaminsky, 41, from his post as executive editor of rival Maxim. He will start as Playboy's new editorial director Monday, replacing Arthur Kretchmer, a 30-year veteran.
     Maxim prospered under Mr. Kaminsky, increasing its circulation sixfold in three years. He does, however, have a certain affection for Playboy.
     "This is the magazine that convinced me to go into the business," Mr. Kaminsky said in a statement earlier this month.