Hugh Hefner's Ghost ...

Ruth Orkin - An American Girl in Italy

The real story behind "An American Girl in Italy" - CNN

Hugh Hefner’s Ghost is a specter before us …

A man in silk pajamas, a bon vivant, a beautiful young woman on each arm with extras bringing up the rear, the women proportionally younger to their aging master, proof of his continuing virility. Hugh Hefner lived the life that “any man” would crave.

He was not the author of this fantasy but he certainly helped promote it, normalize it. He contributed to and popularized a fantasy of masculinity that engaged in sex free of responsibility and without concern for partners. It is a fantasy that does not distinguish between coercion, or force and consent. It simply does not matter.

“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," Donald Trump in his now infamous 2005 conversation. Trump Hot Mic - NBC News

What Hefner pandered was winked at. Just good fun. Like “locker-room” talk, it didn't/doesn’t mean anything …
Except that language begets a sense of expectations about what the world is… and should be.

When I was in my 20s, I was at a small dinner held in the honor of an artist exhibiting at the gallery where I was working. It was attended by “professionals” in the field, other artists, mostly men. The guest of honor looked at me at said he could “hang coffee cups off my nipples.” Everyone at the table laughed. I didn't feel titillated or flattered. I felt humiliated and diminished in front of my peers. I still feel humiliated when I think of it.

This is a minor story. It is mild. I, and many of my friends, have much worse.

Historically speaking, for most women, there is no power to be had. Historically in the west, women of color most especially, but all women, in all or almost all “civilized” cultures, constitute one of the most repressed and abused groups.

Culture and the human/monkey mind has bred the expectation that to exploit those with less power is one’s right; a demonstration of one’s place in the hierarchy. Like wild dogs, for the human-monkey mind holding down the weaker “proves” something about strength and dominance.

It is the most monkey-minded human who flexes their “power” by imposing and inflicting on the bodies of others.

Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.
1 out of 6 women has been the victim of a rape or attempted rape.

Rainn Org. Sexual Violence Statistics

Every 9 seconds a woman in the United States is beaten.

Domestic Violence Statistics

Human trafficking, rape, etc., these are extreme examples of what we’re talking about, but be sure it is shot through at every level of our society. “A thousand tiny cuts” of taking liberties, of cultivating shame - acts which culminate in a kind of psychological prison.

Abusiveness is a transactional relationship. The monkey-mind definitely understands this -
"You are beneath me, whatever I 'give' you, is an act of generosity. It is your obligation to please me. You cannot earn anything. It is given, and you should be grateful for it. You owe me your loyalty. You owe me more loyalty than you owe yourself. If you damage my reputation by telling what I take from you, instead of what I have “given,” you have betrayed me. You will be punished. I will give you tiny tastes of approval or validation: love, kind words, professional acknowledgement, but you have never earned any of it and it will come at a terrible cost. I will remind you, every day you are near me, that I am doing you a favor, that I am so much more important than you and you owe me everything."

Harvey Weinstein is such a man.

Every single person of a status lacking power, whether a kid being bullied at school, a person of color, a woman – Every. Single. One. - has known this abuse. If you’ve ever lacked power you know what I mean. It is pervasive. For women it comes in a cultural attitude that says your body is for others. If you are young and beautiful – it is for the pleasure of others. You are not to be trusted with it. If you are not beautiful, you are to be held in contempt for your failure to please.

There is not a woman out there who cannot say “me too.” It is wrenching to know what that means, really.

Sexual Harassment, Roger Ailes - The Guardian

Hugh Hefner Dark Side - The Guardian

Did the Sexual Revolution Liberate Women - Dame Magazine