Playboy Philosophy, Installment 12

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The Playboy Philosophy

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Editorial by Hugh M. Hefner

The twelfth part of a statement in which playboy's editor-publisher spells out—for friends and critics alike—our guiding principles and editorial credo

George Bernard Shaw wrote, "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships." Eugene O'Neill put it more bluntly: "Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always will be the last cowardly resort of the boob and the bigot." On June 4, we were arrested in our home by four intrepid officers of the law, on order of Chicago Corporation Counsel John Melaniphy, for "publishing and distributing an obscene publication." The "obscene publication" turned out to be the June issue of Playboy and what the Corporation Counsel objected to, he said, was the picture story on film star Jayne Mansfield nude in bed and bubble bath in scenes for her latest contribution to cinematic art, Promises, Promises! We discussed the obscenity charge and arrest at length in the last installment of The Playboy Philosophy, because we believe this single example of censorship can add considerable insight into the real dangers of such police action in a free America. We hope to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, in this second installment on the subject, that a good deal more is involved here than nude photographs of Jayne Mansfield and that what we are faced with is a frightening example of church-state suppression of freedom of the press that strikes at the very heart of our democracy.

Why Now?

Irv Kupcinet expressed the feelings of many when he wrote, in his Chicago Sun-Times column: "The obvious question about the arrest of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner on obscenity charges based on the Jayne Mansfield nudes in the June issue is: Why now? Playboy has been publishing nudes of voluptuous dishes for years." Why now? It is a very good question and in attempting to find the answer—in attempting to establish the real motivations behind the arrest—an insidious, twisted labyrinth of pious prejudice and prudery may be brought to light. It is virtually impossible to look deep within the human mind and find the sometimes complex motives that lie hidden behind a single act, unless your subject reclines willingly upon a psychoanalyst's couch. We have no analytical couch, and if we had, our adversaries in this little melodrama would surely decline to lie there. So instead of supplying suspected motives, we'll offer up not one, but a chain of events, and let the reader draw his own conclusions. First it must be mentioned that Playboy has never been adjudged obscene by any court in the land. In last month's editorial, we entered into an extensive examination of the recent Supreme Court and other high-court decisions on, and definitions of, obscenity. We successfully established, we think, that not by the wildest extensions of these definitions and decisions could be the June issue—or any issue—of Playboy be considered legally obscene. We went further, pointing out the extent to which Playboy meets contemporary community standards, as defined by the Supreme Court, and how the text and illustrations in this magazine are considerably more respectable than much of the material now available in a great many books, magazines and movies in our present-day society --and far less objectionable, by any objective standard, than material already declared not obscene by our courts. We went further still, pointing out that Chicago censors had approved scenes in a French film for exhibition that very month that were far bolder than the still photographs in Playboy. And pointing out, too, that similar (if less revealing) nude bed scenes (it was the photographs of Jayne in bed to which the Corporation Counsel took particular exception) were published at the same time in two other major magazines (Esquire and The Saturday Evening Post) with nary a Counsel criticism. And after all else was said and done, since similar photographs had appeared many times before in the pages of Playboy during our nearly ten years of publishing, with never so much as a discouraging word from the custodians of this fair city's morality—why now? What special, possibly pre-established perspective or prejudice set Playboy apart from the rest? And what prompted the action at this particular time?

Religious Freedom in Chicago

If the June pictorial on Jayne Mansfield is not so different from many that Playboy has printed before, what is different about the June issue—or perhaps one or more of the issues that immediately preceded it? Well, nothing really—except...! Except The Playboy Philosophy, this continuing editorial statement of our personal convictions and publishing credo, begun last December and carried in each issue since. These first installments have been primarily devoted to our concern over the separation of church and state in a free society and critical of organized religion's undue influence over portions of our government and law, thus emphasizing that true religious freedom means not only freedom of, but freedom from religion.