Hello everyone! I had to take a couple of days to think about this so I could put my words together in a way that they could be received as well as make sense.
Mr. Hugh Hefner died recently. He has been hailed as America's greatest playboy. Now I will grant you the women who stayed with him and married him did so by choice. Yet, I ask you, what drew them to him besides money and fame? Now I will say he had some capacity to love because he still married, even if it was many times. And there have been women who had the capacity to love him, including his current widow. I am a widow and my heart goes out to her. I understand what that is like and how that feels. I honestly hope their time together was full of good things.
Now let me say what many may not like or may not agree with, he was your quintessential glamourized pimp. Yes, I said pimp, whether he realized or intended it or not. For him and his industry, women were objects, even if they were not treated badly by him or those that worked for him. The problem with this is it creates a following of much darker agendas and personalities - even if he never knew them personally or interacted with them. Agendas and personalities who want to use the glamour of his position to entice, to prey, to trap and to abuse women and children.
What I have to say to the adult sex entertainment industry is this; by glamourizing his life style, you gave the modern day street pimp a spring board from which to start his own operations. Operations very different and yet the same. You have, in effect, whether you realize this or not, glamourized the objectification of women and that is all a common street pimp is doing. Only he's doing more because he does not stop there, he's abusing women and children and yet maintaining this Hugh Hefner like persona. He is objectifying and owning them. So does that mean in essence you are glamourizing not only the lifestyle of a pimp but the abuse he is dishing out as well? In my mind, yes that is exactly what you are doing. Yet most of you would want to distance yourself as far from a street pimp as you possibly could right? If you want to distance yourself from the common street pimp, then all of you as an industry must stop objectifying women. You must stop telling young girls and women it's okay to dress however they want and do whatever they want - because it's not okay. You must stop telling them they are here for the pleasure of a man and that is all that matters. If it were okay and that was all that mattered, there would be no street pimps to traffic these girls who fall prey to them because of this glamourization and the fake love you portray everyday to your audiences. Yes I said fake.
I am going to put this out there, if you don't stop objectifying women then you are condoning everything on that spectrum, from what seems like an innocent photo shoot to the beating up of a young girl who does not want to sleep with the 20th man in one night. Don't you see, one thing leads to another and then to another and then to another? You can't silo or compartmentalize what you are doing and think it won't effect someone is some way.
Now let me say this. Anyone who is alive can still change. A pimp can change. A Playboy bunny can change. A man like Hefner can change. A pornographer can change. A person who uses and consumes these things can change. My hope is, that in his last days, Mr. Hefner changed for the better and saw that he could have done better things with his business mentality. I hope he came to know Jesus. I hope his widow comes to know Jesus. Jesus loves her and he loved Hugh Hefner. All of us, the pimp, the Playboy bunny, the pornographer and the person using the adult sex industry are all people Jesus died for and people He loves. His love can change anyone. His love can heal anyone.
I would ask this industry to take a look at itself and see with new eyes. Understand that when you glorify a man like Hugh Hefner, you give the common street pimp the ammunition and the inspiration to do what he is doing. You, in essence, glamourize and okay his abuse and horrific treatment of women and children. Please think about it!!
**Note: I am in no way saying Mr. Hefner condoned or was okay with human trafficking of any kind. I am also in no way accusing him or anyone associated with him of abuse or mistreatment of any women or children. I simply believe he and his associates did not realize the message they were sending nor would they realize its ultimate impact in his lifetime. **
Unapologetically,
Elizabeth