Andrew Klavan - Hugh Hefner and the sexual revolution — Transcript

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1. 0:00so we got to talk a little bit before we
2. 0:02bring candace on we have to talk about
3. 0:04hugh hefner i mean
4. 0:06if if you're my age hugh hefner was a
5. 0:09big big deal i mean the first time you
6. 0:11ever saw a naked lady was in the pages
7. 0:13of playboy and he came in and he
8. 0:16basically he started a magazine that was
9. 0:19an attack on puritanical values if you
10. 0:21ever saw the picture um the tv show mad
11. 0:24men that was the image of men that he
12. 0:27put forward he put for he was he himself
13. 0:29was was in this marriage he married the
14. 0:32first girl uh he ever slept with and he
15. 0:34said when she revealed to him that he
16. 0:37had that she had had a previous affair
17. 0:39he was devastated he said that was the
18. 0:41most devastating thing that ever
19. 0:42happened uh in his life i have a clip
20. 0:46you know the thing is he he presented as
21. 0:48an intellectual and he always went on
22. 0:50and he defended his point of view which
23. 0:52was the puritan american puritan ethic
24. 0:55had to go and so i have a brought a clip
25. 0:57of him on william f buckley's firing
26. 1:00line ethan heff we call it uh and
27. 1:02buckley just looks at him if you if
28. 1:04you're not watching
29. 1:06because for instance you don't subscribe
30. 1:08or something you know and you're just
31. 1:09listening but if you're not watching
32. 1:12buckley looks at him like he just wants
33. 1:13to scrape him off his shoe uh and here's
34. 1:16just a quick exchange between the two of
35. 1:17them
36. 1:18you reject
37. 1:20the notion of
38. 1:21sexual continence before marriage
39. 1:25yourself that is to say you as a
40. 1:27philosopher of the new
41. 1:29ideal sexual liberation
42. 1:32well i think what it really comes down
43. 1:33to is an attempt to establish a uh
44. 1:38you know what's been called a new
45. 1:39morality and i really think that's what
46. 1:40the america you know this this thing
47. 1:42called the american sexual revolution is
48. 1:44really all about
49. 1:45uh
50. 1:46it's an attempt to replace uh the old
51. 1:48legalism it's certainly not uh a
52. 1:50rejection of
53. 1:52uh of monogamy as such but very much an
54. 1:55attempt
55. 1:56uh in the case of premarital sex uh
56. 1:58there really hasn't been any moral code
57. 2:00in the past except simply thou shalt not
58. 2:02and that's a code isn't it
59. 2:04well
60. 2:05perhaps i don't think it's a very uh
61. 2:08realistic one
62. 2:09it's really hard for people who weren't
63. 2:12there to
64. 2:13understand living in the modern world
65. 2:16how different it was how incredibly
66. 2:18different it was i mean just just
67. 2:20speaking personally when i you know
68. 2:21because i grew up in the 60s i grew up
69. 2:23in this tremendous period of upheaval
70. 2:26when when i was 13 years old everybody i
71. 2:28knew just assumed you would be a virgin
72. 2:30when you were married when i was 15
73. 2:32years old we were all sleeping with each
74. 2:33other i mean that's that is just
75. 2:35literally what happened in the course of
76. 2:37two years not only did the world change
77. 2:39but people's minds change you know the i
78. 2:41mean these were it used to be that you
79. 2:43slept with the bad girls and then you
80. 2:44married the good girls and they would
81. 2:46actually teach you that they would have
82. 2:47classes where they could teach you don't
83. 2:49be a bad girl because you won't get
84. 2:50married because the guy will use you and
85. 2:52then he'll dump you they showed these
86. 2:54movies to us in class
87. 2:56the guy will dump you and then he'll go
88. 2:58and marry a virgin you know so you will
89. 2:59get you know basically screwed not to
90. 3:02make a pun but
91. 3:04but the thing is it changed so quickly
92. 3:06and it didn't change because of hugh
93. 3:08hefner it changed mostly because of
94. 3:10birth control it changed i mean these
95. 3:11things were coming along
96. 3:13anyway but the but birth control and the
97. 3:15pill and all this just freed people to
98. 3:16do things there was no punishment you
99. 3:19were basically now making a spiritual
100. 3:20argument spiritual arguments are always
101. 3:22very weak
102. 3:24what's the result you know we look
103. 3:25around and you say like
104. 3:27you know hugh hefner won i mean a while
105. 3:29back in fact it was almost the first day
106. 3:31we started the show about two years ago
107. 3:33playboy announced that they were no
108. 3:34longer going to have nude pictures uh
109. 3:37and they said because you can just find
110. 3:40everything everywhere we won they said
111. 3:42we won and so they had this feeling that
112. 3:43they had really changed the world and i
113. 3:45think they were part of this change you
114. 3:47know it was this idea you know the hugh
115. 3:49hefner mansion you came to the who have
116. 3:50a mansion they were always beautiful
117. 3:52girls
118. 3:53dancing attendance on men i mean it was
119. 3:55not the feminists hated hugh hefner and
120. 3:58you know they hated the pornography
121. 4:00thing and all this stuff but it utterly
122. 4:02utterly changed the world you know i was
123. 4:04i was in a a cab i was promoting a novel
124. 4:08in san francisco and it happened to be
125. 4:09gay pride day and i was in a cab and the
126. 4:12cab driver was annoyed because of the
127. 4:14traffic for gay pride day because in san
128. 4:15francisco the whole city just shuts down
129. 4:17you know i was the visiting straight guy
130. 4:20and he started to you know kind of get
131. 4:23try to get the feeling of where i stood
132. 4:24on things and he realized it was a
133. 4:25conservative so he could say anything he
134. 4:27wanted because you know conservatives
135. 4:29let you express your opinion even when
136. 4:30they differ with you
137. 4:32and he said i think it's a shame that
138. 4:34people define themselves and identify
139. 4:36themselves in terms of their sexuality
140. 4:39and i said yes so do i but i want you to
141. 4:42know that when i was a kid a cop could
142. 4:44walk into a bar a gay bar
143. 4:46wait until somebody propositioned him
144. 4:48and then arrest him
145. 4:49and the cabbie said for what
146. 4:52the world he didn't like the gay people
147. 4:54who didn't like the gay pride he didn't
148. 4:55like the gay trafficking but it never
149. 4:57occurred to him that anybody should be
150. 4:59arrested for being gay i mean it was
151. 5:01just the world has changed that much the
152. 5:03the sodomy laws in america were not
153. 5:05overturned in 1986 they were upheld by
154. 5:07the supreme court and the sodomy laws by
155. 5:09the way didn't just uh outlaw what you
156. 5:13thought what you might think of as
157. 5:14sodomy they outlawed uh oral sex too
158. 5:18and they were not overturned until 2003
159. 5:21okay this is 2003 and the thing that
160. 5:23always bothered me about those laws a i
161. 5:25think a government that can tell you how
162. 5:27to have sex is too strong a government
163. 5:28but b they were never of course enforced
164. 5:30on a married couple
165. 5:32doing you know things that married
166. 5:34couples do that would be defined by the
167. 5:36sodomy laws they were only used to
168. 5:37persecute gay people and so you know
169. 5:39there's there's much about this world
170. 5:41obviously that is better than that world
171. 5:43women when they were stuck in marriages
172. 5:45were stuck in marriages you know i mean
173. 5:47when and i say women men were stuck in
174. 5:48marriages too but they had a lot more
175. 5:50latitude but women it was just harder
176. 5:51for them to get out a lot that has
177. 5:53changed
178. 5:54is positive but you got to look at the
179. 5:57world and you see we are awash in
180. 5:58pornography they're guys who don't have
181. 6:00sex with real women anymore because
182. 6:02they're so addicted to pornography the
183. 6:05illegitimacy rate which is just a
184. 6:08back-breaking indicator of generational
185. 6:11poverty
186. 6:12is so bad that it's not and it the black
187. 6:15community used to be 25 illegitimacy
188. 6:18right now it's over 75 it's worse than
189. 6:20it was during slavery days when you had
190. 6:22guys selling fathers down the river so
191. 6:25you had single mothers left behind you
192. 6:27know this is just voluntary people whose
193. 6:29lives have just been destroyed by a
194. 6:32moral catastrophe you know and it's true
195. 6:34in in poor white areas as well that
196. 6:37people no longer have fathers and we
197. 6:39know this is an indicator of crime of
198. 6:41drug addiction of
199. 6:43of poverty going from one generation to
200. 6:45the next
201. 6:46rich people don't do it rich people get
202. 6:48married before they have kids almost
203. 6:50exclusively rich women get married
204. 6:52before they have kids and of course
205. 6:54decadence is always good for the rich
206. 6:55decadence is fun for the rich you know
207. 6:57they can take care of the illegitimate
208. 6:59children they can take care of the
209. 7:00diseases all the stuff which is another
210. 7:02thing the disease in the uh in the wake
211. 7:05of the sexual revolution is out of
212. 7:07control i mean this is a couple years
213. 7:09ago but there were more reported cases
214. 7:11of sexually transmitted disease and i
215. 7:13think it was 2014 than ever before in
216. 7:16the united states and the annual report
217. 7:19showed that the rates of chlamydia
218. 7:21gonorrhea and syphilis the three most
219. 7:22commonly reported sdts in the stds in
220. 7:25the nation increased between 2014 and
221. 7:282015 reaching an all-time high now all
222. 7:30of those are curable with antibiotics
223. 7:32but you never know you have them you
224. 7:33know you don't know you have them until
225. 7:34it's really too late you've passed it on
226. 7:36to your child and it damages chlamydia
227. 7:39which is minor for men damages women's
228. 7:42ability to have uh children and all this
229. 7:44stuff
230. 7:45there's just no question that
231. 7:48there's a catastrophe that our sexual
232. 7:50lives are a catastrophe
233. 7:53i get hit all the time on the show i get
234. 7:55letters every week at least about my
235. 7:58apparently liberal attitudes towards
236. 8:00sexuality because i don't condem other
237. 8:02people and i don't think the government
238. 8:03should have the right to tell you what
239. 8:05to do in your bedroom
240. 8:06but i don't live
241. 8:08a liberal life i live a very
242. 8:10conservative life i've been married for
243. 8:12112 years i'm devoted to my wife i mean
244. 8:15if you ever read my memoir the great
245. 8:17good thing it's a love letter to my wife
246. 8:19who has defined and saved and created
247. 8:22and made my life and
248. 8:24i recommend this way of life to anybody
249. 8:26but the thing is i i always want to err
250. 8:29on the side of freedom i always want to
251. 8:31err on the side of freedom i can't just
252. 8:33say this is a bad thing that people
253. 8:35can't be arrested anymore that the cops
254. 8:37can't kick down your door if you're gay
255. 8:38that they can't walk into your bars i
256. 8:40can't just say that's a bad thing the
257. 8:41government should have no business
258. 8:44uh
259. 8:45regulating your sex life but but just
260. 8:48because you're free just because you
261. 8:49have the right doesn't mean it is right
262. 8:51and that that is the thing we have to
263. 8:52learn we've got to start to learn to
264. 8:54preach
265. 8:55chastity and you know i've talked about
266. 8:57the difference between chastity and
267. 8:58abstinence and all this stuff the
268. 8:59chastity is basically making your body
269. 9:01follow your soul making your body ex
270. 9:03when you make love you should be in love
271. 9:05making love should be part of love we've
272. 9:07got to preach the joy of that because
273. 9:08preaching the moral condemnation of it
274. 9:11just isn't going to work anymore that
275. 9:12world is gone and by the way can you do
276. 9:14it of course you can you know the 20s
277. 9:16the 1920s in america were a sexually
278. 9:19free sexually liberated uh world you
279. 9:22know it was just uh everybody was always
280. 9:24condemning the free sex and the flappers
281. 9:26and all this stuff by the 1950s you had
282. 9:30the peak of american society was a very
283. 9:33restrained very restricted world
284. 9:35sexually same thing happened in the 19th
285. 9:37century in the early
286. 9:39in the late 18th and early 19th century
287. 9:41you had people preaching free love i
288. 9:43mean the famous poet percy shelley was a
289. 9:46big advocate of free love and of course
290. 9:47he destroyed every woman he came near
291. 9:49because he dumped her when he got tired
292. 9:51of her that was free love and they had
293. 9:52children one of his wives you know one
294. 9:55of his girlfriends killed herself
295. 9:57by 1850 you were in the victorian era
296. 10:00again
297. 10:01a sexually restricted time and one of
298. 10:03the high points in human civilization
299. 10:05those things do seem to come together so
300. 10:07it's not
301. 10:08uh it's not
302. 10:10impossible to hope that we can turn this
303. 10:12around if we talk about it if we talk
304. 10:14honestly about it and if we talk about
305. 10:15chastity with joy rather than talking
306. 10:17about uh promiscuity with condemnation i
307. 10:21actually think it can be turned around i
308. 10:22think hugh hefner
309. 10:24you know he was a man of his time i'm
310. 10:26not going to sit here and condemn him i
311. 10:27always felt he was sleazy but always
312. 10:28remember this always remember this the
313. 10:30playboy mansion was a mansion it was
314. 10:33because that stuff that decadent stuff
315. 10:34works for rich people it was always a
316. 10:37mansion it wasn't good for the women it
317. 10:38was only good for the rich men and that
318. 10:41that actually remains exactly true today