Hugh Hefner dead at 91

[Middle-aged Europe]

What's the line for occasions like this? "I am glad that he's gone."

"Oh, but he helped to make Americans more comfortable with their sexuality." Sure, but in a way that should make no one proud. I don't care how much money he put toward funding Roe or whatever.

RIP and so on and so forth, but please forgive my lack of excitement about watching as people creepily salivate over his repulsive legacy over the next several days.

Hugh Hefner promoted a particularly twisted form of masculinity that remains the ideal for many American men - and he brought most of us closer to living that grotesque ideal, too. To the extent that he "reshaped our culture," it was to our detriment. I don't think that it's an exaggeration to say that without Hugh Hefner, we wouldn't have Donald Trump.

The canonization of him this week has been truly abhorrent. Sure, Hefner did a lot for free speech and civil rights and so on. But he also introduced a very horrible element to how our society explores sexuality, and as you said, the lens with which we perceive the term "masculinity" and what it implies. I've heard people say that he is very much a product of his time. Hopefully, that time is over now.

Nope.