Death of a the ultimate Playboy

Cover number 1

Woke up this morning to hear the Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, that pipe-smoking and silk pyjamas hedonist who revved up the sexual revolution in the 1950s died peacefully from natural causes.

His Playboy magazine played a major part in my sexual awakening as a young teenager back in the seventies and was more helpful then my parents or the meagre sex education I received in school. The magazine are famed for its in-depth articles! Really, I was more interested in the pictures particularly the centre fold myself.

Growing up the ultimate 60s 70s, picture for me was the glamor Playboy bunny girl. Those pictures from the inside of the London club looked so luscious but a dream beyond me at the time. I would have to lay back and dream of a bunny girl.

You have to agree the guy lived the ultimate life any man would want to live. Surrounded by a bevy of beauties and having up to seven girlfriends living in all at once in his party mansion, one every day. His parties were legendry full of A-lister and many bikini clad wannabe young girls having fun.

A dream Bunny Girl

He had many fingers in many pies did Hugh but he will be mostly remembered for his magazine which I was an underage customer of for a good few years. As the magazine took off in the mid-fifties it was attacked from the right because of the nudity and from the left by feminists who said it reduced women to sex objects.

The pages of Playboy and the cover have been graced by many top celebrities actresses and others. Drew Barrymore was one and some others were Farrah Fawcett, Pamela Anderson and well-known writers also contributed to the magazine.

One of the enduring legacies will be the iconic mascot, a stylized silhouette of a rabbit wearing a tuxedo bow tie the official logo of Playboy. Choosing the rabbit Hefner said for its "humorous sexual connotation", and because the image was "frisky and playful".

I blogged a few years ago about Playboy ceasing publishing images of naked women, citing the proliferation of online nudity, but they were restored earlier this year.