Christ and Hefner
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - April 7, 2006
As Catholics throughout the world convene on Sunday in Church to enter into the passion of the King of Kings, dressed in a scarlet cloak with a reed in his hands, others will be coming together at the Playboy Mansion in California, to celebrate the passion and 80th birthday of the King of Porn, vested in an chic bathrobe with champagne in his hands.
The first will be sandwiched by thieves and taunted by passers-by. The latter will be enveloped by beautiful models and lauded by glitterati. The first will be bathed in blood. The latter in sweet-smelling cologne.
Yet both claim to know, to teach and to live what true love is, while affirming that the other does not. Both assert that they are emancipators, while declaring that the other is not only an unwitting slave but a slave master. Both avow that they are trailblazers on the road to true happiness, while averring that the other is an unconscious cattle driver on the road to perdition.
That leaves everyone who seeks true love, freedom and happiness with a choice, as stark as that given by Pilate to the crowds in the Fortress Antonina: the choice between Jesus Christ and Hugh Hefner, between the Gospel and sleek magazines, between Easter and bunnies, and between the heavenly mansion and the playboy mansion.
Many today in our culture, including some who are outwardly disciples of Jesus, have chosen Barabbas in a bathrobe. Rather than following the one who said in his most famous speech, "blessed are the pure of heart," they have sought to imitate the one who claims to be living out what he calls "every man's real dream" — to be rich, famous and surrounded by gorgeous young women who can make you forget you're growing old. More than any other figure, Hefner remains the most notable icon of the sexual revolution, which was an insurrection against the teachings of Jesus Christ on sexual morality. Hefner has always been the most famous of the false prophets claiming to liberate us from "the sexual repression and unhappiness" inculcated by the Christian ethos. And many have followed his seductive lies.
As he has neared his 80th birthday, and the inevitable realization that his earthly paradise will have an expiration date, Hefner admits that he has become "utterly obsessed with his own legacy." As Matthew Scully wrote in an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, "What's clear from all his legacy projects is that he wants to be remembered as anything other than what he is. We're to think of him as Hugh Hefner, social philosopher and cultural revolutionary. Hugh Hefner, entrepreneur and Charity Events Man of the Year. Hugh Hefner, friend of Marilyn [Monroe]. Hugh Hefner, luckiest cat on the planet. Anything, please, but the truth about Hugh Hefner, pornographer."
As much as he obsesses, as much as he attempts to air-brush his legacy with mascara, the principal patrimony of his life will be the massive growth of the pornography industry that he spearheaded and strove so hard to make "respectable." He tried to take the visual "sleaziness" out of porn and replace it with the "classy" and "artistic" exposed beauty of the all-American "girls next door" — and to a large degree, his attempt worked. Porn became mainstream. Hotel rooms now contain pay per view channels instead of bibles. Convenience stores routinely stock magazines without considering them so "dirty" anymore. Video stores have lucrative special sections. And it is by far cyberspace's biggest business: there are 260 million pornographic web pages and 60 percent of the internet traffic is sexual in nature. In sum, pornography is now a $57 billion annual global industry.
If Hefner really thought that he was an emancipator from repression, this would be quite a legacy of which to be proud. He is, after all, the Watson and Crick, the Gates and Jobs of his field. But he does not feel secure in his legacy. Perhaps this is because his conscience is not yet entirely dead. Perhaps it is because he has read the many recent books of women who have been exploited in the porn industry, women who felt more enslaved than emancipated. Perhaps he is aware of the clinics to treat the legion of ex-porn stars with AIDS. Maybe he knows that 25% of divorce cases cite pornography as the cause of the breakup, or that 41% of husbands consider their wives unattractive after using porn. Or perhaps he cannot ignore the high correlation between child abusers and porn use or the fact that, as internet porn has grown, the incidents of child sexual exploitation have risen from 4,573 in 1998 to 112,083 in 2004.
There is another revolution, another legacy, started by a carpenter nailed to a Cross. It is a legacy that we mark this upcoming week. It is one that the carpenter invites all of us to share — including, we pray, a modern Dismas.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
