The decline of the House of Hefner

This Pandagon article and the Maclean's article it links to, paint a picture of the lifestyle of Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy, as he nears octogenarianity:

As Hefner approached 80, his sexual prowess had dimmed. With Viagra he could summon a facsimile of his youth. The result, as described by St. James, was as spontaneous and erotic as a tax audit. After much female fluffing, Hefner always finished solo, which is ironic: the man responsible for the fantasyscape of generations, the role model for promiscuity, is in the end like a teenage boy masturbating alone to Playboy. The only difference: Hefner brought himself to orgasm amidst a living Playboy tableaux, as naked women writhed in a "pseudo-lesbian thing."

What a wonderful, sad, poignant mixture: here's Hugh, living out the beautiful "pseudo-lesbian" multiple bed-partner fantasy. But alas, he is unable to take advantage of it fully, and requires a product touted by Bob Dole to do so in even a limited fashion. What a wonderful mixture of envy and pity rises in my heart at the thought of his situation. Hugh Hefner seems to be living a life that is half wet dream, half Hadean torture straight out of Greek mythology.

On the other hand, the stories of how he tried to control the lives of his concubines are just plain disturbing:

The perks came with a price. Life at the mansion was tightly controlled. At 9 p.m. curfew was imposed when they weren't out with Hefner. Lest Hef be seen as a cuckold, Girfriends weren't allowed to see other men (an edict the women violated). Privacy was limited; security shadowed them at clubs; their phone calls were screened. "It is not a real, equal or intimate relationship," St. James writes, should the reader be in doubt.

And the living quarters apparently left something to be desired:

With time, though, the shabbiness of the private quarters began to grate. Furniture looked like it came from Goodwill, she writes. Hefner, an animal lover, let Girlfriends keep dogs as pets. Carpets were filthy and smelled of urine which "added to the general scent of decay."

I hope that should I ever somehow acquire a harem, I will be a much more kind, progressive, and empowering manager of it than Mr. Hefner. At least he could change the carpets. (I think landlord/tenant laws in here in Albany, CA require that, don't they?) And a 9pm curfew? WTF? That is controlling and pathetic.

As for the Playboy brand and magazine, it's funny how quaint Playboy seems today, compared to what's out there. I can remember when it represented the hight of all that was delicious and forbidden. Now it brings up images of tired, soft-core, air-brushed commercialism and middlebrow sophistication with an edge of ersatz rakishness. These things have their place, (perhaps even a place in my own erotic universe, I confess), but the brand ceases to inspire wonder. Even Hugh's multiple bed-partners and blonde bookend girlfriends have an air of staid, old-fashioned conventionality about them. Of course I envy his ability to do what he does (be honest with yourself menfolk: having a bevy of such arm candy/bed candy would be nice), but I also get the distinct feeling that the times have passed old Hugh by.

Maybe someone else will come along and update the dream of male sexual hedonism for modern times. And when they do, I hope it doesn't include smelly carpets, 9pm curfews, and screening people's phone calls. That sounds like some kind of depressing group home for recently paroled juvenile delinquents, not a Xanadu of luxuriant voluptuousness and sexual ecstasy.