WI: Hugh Hefner dates Gloria Steinem, higher trajectory for both.

And they almost did!

Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream, Steven Watts, 2008, pages 238-239:

' . . . Put in touch by a mutual friend, they tried unsuccessfully to met up in New York City and Hefner sent a note of dismay over having missed her. "There's the possibility that I should leave things as intriguing and mysterious as they are. Nothing you can say, as a novelist friend once pointed out to me, is nearly as good as what the readers will imagine," Steinem wrote back. . . '
 
and almost always, it's the small reasons you like someone else, the foibles, the imperfections. The big reasons might need to be there for the relationship to 'work.' But somehow it's the small reasons which really attract you to someone else.

And same for helping. Yes, there can be tangible, practical help of one spouse to the other, but often the biggest help are the small things hard to put into words.
 

jahenders

Banned
Even if they were both intrigued enough to get together, I don't think it would likely have turned into a sustained relationship. If they got to know each other, I suspect that each would decide the other was crazy (he misogynistic, she vehemently anti-men).

If they DID somehow make a lasting relationship, I think it could only be if they tempered one another -- he less flamboyant and she less vocal. If so, his Playboy empire might be less successful and someone other than Steinem may have emerged as a loud voice of feminism.

And they almost did!
 
I don't think of Gloria Steinem as anti-man. She might be perceived that way in certain quarters. Maybe if she was known for being in a relationship with Hugh, fewer people would decide to dismiss her writings and views with a label.

I read most of her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (first edition in 1983, and later second edition) and found it pretty sensible and middle-of-the-road. It might help that she seems to largely share my skepticism toward institutions, pretty much any institution, that there are the professed and stated goals, and then there's how the institution really works. The only thing she could maybe emphasize more is that activism sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and it sure helps to have colleagues who can both understand what you're going through and provide tangible help at times.
 
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Hugh Hefner's actually not as bad as some might think - he's actually considered a feminist in some circles, and has defined himself as one for years.

Maybe partnering the two of them would keep feminism much more sex positive. One of the big bones I have to pick with Third Wave feminism is how they've basically repackaged Victorian era sexual prudishness.
 
And Hugh missed an opportunity. Around 1970, he gave a woman a writing assignment to write an article about the new women's lib. Then, Hugh wrote in a memo, that it's a good, balance article, but what he really wants is a devastating attack which takes the radical militants apart. He did pay the first lady for her article, but then he hired some guy to write his devastating attack.

Now, it's his magazine. He can publish whatever he wants.

But, for crying out loud, Playboy is the magazine I depended on in the '80s when I was in my twenties for accurate information about AIDS. Much of the news coverage was very vague, like "intimate exchange of bodily fluids," so vague it's almost not useful. Then there's the element, not just on AIDS but pretty much on any health and safety info, the person is going to give the maximal advice, and then they are off the hook. And if you choose to do less, then you are to blame. And I guess that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not taking a deep breath and speaking to someone like an older brother. With just one or two articles in the mid '80s, Playboy approached this second level. Mainly just factual information without a lot of window dressing, but a little bit of the element of speaking to you like someone who gives a damn.

So, by deciding ahead a time about feminism, and running the straw argument of trying to find and refute extremists, you are not doing your best on in open-ended intellectual project. You're stacking the deck ahead of time, and not diving into the topic and letting the chips fall where they may.
 
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Mainstream media coverage about date rape and acquaintance rape started in the mid '80s best that I can remember.

It's only a minority of men who do this, but they seem to think they have the grudging admiration of other guys. If there was coverage to the effect that other guys actually think this kind of thing is a really bad deal and the guy who does it is a first-rate asshole, that actually might a difference.

And potentially, Playboy could have started covering this in the mid '70s. Don't need to jump into every social issue, but if they had kept a little more authenticity, they may have hit upon this.
 
Do you mean like a dad who's not real crazy about his college-age daughter working at Tilted Kilt restaurant and wonders why there are so many more of these Hooters-type clones than there were 20 years ago?

I am a feminist, but I'm not an expert on feminist thought. There might well be sex-negative feminist writers. I'm just not familiar with them. Am willing and happy to discuss them, also would like to discuss more centrist feminist writers and activists who perhaps have more challenging views. To me, feminism is the radical theory that women are human beings afterall!
 
Gloria was one of the founders of Ms. magazine around (?)1972. One of the things I like about the magazine is that it has international coverage and includes issues affecting women in developing and less affluent nations.

Maybe Gloria could be one of the major leaders of Ms. magazine, and at the same time branch out and put together an early version of CNN about 10 years before OTL and become known as one of the most successful women in American media.

And maybe she builds it much like Ted Turner, starting with a UHF channel in a larger city, building solid sports and solid local journalism. And she's largely successful in asking her journalists to do their best work without worrying about offending the powers-that-be. And it's focusing on the main journalistic task of telling what's going on in the world.
 
Alright, how about a scientist who focuses on pandemic influenza and who really sweats the details (well, could we get a universal vaccine for the proteins on the coating which don't change?). And who also looks at some of the worse case scenarios. Is such a person a pessimist?

My point being, someone who looks at all the abusive shit which goes on regarding sex and relationships, is such a person a pessimist? And I answer, not necessarily.
 
On the fun side, X-rated movies in the '70s had an offbeat, quirky side where maybe 30% of the movie was plot, as unrealistic as it might be!

In the '80s, with cheaper filming direct to videotape, it was just wall to wall sex, which sometimes when you're in the mood for porn, is exactly what you want to see, although sometimes a smattering of plot is fun.

And so, maybe in an ATL, Hugh invests in these offbeat, quirky, goofy '70s-style porn films and gives them a higher trajectory and keeps them going longer into the '80s.
 
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