The Playboy Philosophy and Your Health Care

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's take on the Tiger Woods saga is that monogamy is over-rated. Of course, that randy old coot does not speak for the majority of Americans -- at least not yet.

by: david bozeman | published: 12 22, 2009

But I know I speak for working Americans when I observe highly sexual lifestyles and ask, "who has the time?" With jobs, families and monogamous relationships that require work even under the best of circumstances, sexual shenanigans are largely pastimes of either the very rich or a fraction of those at the other end of the spectrum who don't work at all.

Of course, no group, including family values conservatives, is immune to sexual transgression, but the relaxing of social stigmas is clearly a liberal phenomenon. The refrain during the Clinton scandals was that the Dow Jones mattered more than Paula Jones, as if the foundation of a sound economy was executive privilege to commit adultery and lie under oath. And Hef, by the way, aside from being every woman's fantasy, has been a life-long lefty.

The parallel ascensions of government intervention and a highly permissive, sexualized culture are not coincidental. One buttresses the other. The last line of defense against creeping statism is the traditional family. Renowned economist and social critic George Gilder wrote in 1986's Men and Marriage that, "women transform male lust into love, channel male wonderlust into jobs, homes and families; link men to specific children; rear children into citizens; change hunters into fathers. . . " With the weakening of the family unit over the last forty years, big government invariably seeps in to fill the void. It is true of the socialist, sexually sophisticated states of Europe, notably France, which liberals sneered was laughing at the uproar over the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Observers have noted that the account of Mary Kay Latourneau, the teacher who had an affair with and married a student, while shocking to Americans, is considered a love story in France.

Meanwhile, Americans instinctively perceive government-sponsored health care the death knell of a free society, thus the impassioned opposition. We consider ourselves autonomous individuals, united by family, community and work, not by the frills and fashions of a continental culture where self-gratification, responsibility-free sexual liaisons and government-mandated summer holidays are the highest ideals. The US has accepted many tenets of the Playboy Philosophy but has yet to embrace it in totality. Hugh Hefner is lovably naughty cavorting through the entertainment channels with his current trio of twenty-something girlfriends. Is it telling that two in his current crop -- twins -- frequently sport Obama t-shirts? They, as well, will pass their sexual expiration dates somewhere in their twenties. Just having been his girlfriends, they will survive and even prosper.

Yet for ordinary people, the love 'em and leave 'em lifestyle is a recipe for social disaster. Hef is not the object of envy he fancies himself -- many Americans are repulsed at the notion of leaving women and children to either fend for themselves or become wards of government bureaucracies. Not just conservatives but no less a Democratic icon than the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted, in a 1965 report on the "State of the Negro Family," the alarming rates of unemployment, welfare dependency -- and illegitimacy.

Not all or even most welfare recipients have ever been African-American. The over-riding point is that divorce and unwed motherhood have been the most common reasons people apply for welfare. Once government has stepped in and assumed the roles of husband and father, is health care provider not a logical next step?

One could argue that it's a stretch to link the latest sex scandal to far-reaching government policy, but culture sets the tone for what is and is not permissible. The mores of an if-it-feels-good-do-it, who-am-I-to-judge culture invariably bleed into national politics. Fortunately, in America, as in golf, the standards of gentlemanly behavior remain high, and we still depend on ourselves and our families for our welfare. Despite his fortune, Hugh Hefner is just a soft-core pornographer and not a statesman, and we will fend off the Nanny state by promoting not his definition of cool but what we think is right .

add a comment