Hugh Hefner is dead, and the internet and press are full of those lauding him on the one hand, and of Christians and feminists speaking of the damage he has done in society, on the other. But there is a third story I have not seen, which is the tragedy of a soul who choose straw instead of gold, and who has gone on to meet his Maker unprepared.               Those who laud Hefner will talk of how he has rescued society from narrow-minded religious puritans (nevermind that the puritans often did not live up to their stereotype), but then, this itself misunderstands completely a Christian view of sex. It is, of course rather ironic that anyone makes a case that a group with a higher birthrate than the rest of the population is somehow against sex. There is no question that Christians both engage in sexual intercourse and it is rather difficult to assume they do not enjoy it. The problem is that the world has the entire question of sex backwards, that is, they think that because Christians believe sex should remain within the boundaries of heterosexual marriage that we believe sex is evil. Instead, we believe sex is precious, and that promiscuity demeans it. Make no mistake, sex is precious and beautiful because it was made by the God who declared His creation, including the creation of man and woman who had sexual organs designed to please one another, to be good. For a Christian, declaring sex to be good is to recognize it to be a gift from God. The “misogynist” Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 makes a statement that, to the first century Greek world was an extraordinary claim: he argued that women as well as men had the right to sexual pleasure from their marriage; this passage has inspired a number of practical manuals on sexual intercourse, such as Ed Wheat’s Intended For Pleasure, and Tim LeHay’s The Act of Marriage.

No, the sexual revolution and the changing sexual mores that Hefner bequeathed have not left the world a better place. His legacy is one of broken homes, addiction, sexual jealousies and a loss of intimacy in our sexual relationships. Hefner’s comments about his first wife show a man who was shattered by an affair. “I had literally saved myself for my wife, but after we had sex she told me that she’d had an affair. That was the most devastating moment in my life. My wife was more sexually experienced than I was. After that, I always felt in a sense that the other guy was in bed with us, too.”[1] Thus, Hefner’s own life was touched by the inadequacies that he has bequeathed to many women comparing themselves to his models. Rather than working through his pain, he turned to addiction instead, seeking to make sexual conquests into substitutes for sexual intimacy. In his old age, there is no companion who he has truly shared a life with, no one who has helped him bear the existential sorrows of life, no one who has shared the joys of life. His children did not grow up in his home, and subsequently he had to compete for their affections with his former spouses rather than sharing those affections with them. Often he lived with girlfriends whose affections for him were based solely on the lifestyle the playboy fortune bought for them, rather than a soulmate who loved him no matter what. Whatever else be said, Hugh Hefner had a large bank account, but an impoverished life.
[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-442600/Playboy-boss-Hugh-Hefner-finds-soulmate.html#ixzz4uYKQydZn  Accessed 10-4-2017