I want to first acknowledge that it seems Mr. Hefner was trying to do something good, as this NPR piece aptly noted:

“My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom,” Hefner’s son Cooper, now the company’s chief creative officer, wrote in the company’s statment. “He defined a lifestyle and ethos that lie at the heart of the Playboy brand.”

Hefner’s assault on a what he called a “puritan” America was, I believe, well-intentioned. As such, I applaud him for stepping out to try and make America a better place. It’s much more than the twitter-verse has done to stop pretty much anything it decries and more than most bloggers (such as myself) do to bring positive change to the problems we wish we could fix with a laptop and a cable modem. Hefner certainly achieved his goals.

I’m just not sure those goals were good.

Let me be clear; I’m not ashamed of the female form. In fact, I love the female form, and my wife will attest to that fact. I believe that Eve was not an after-thought in creation; no, she is the shining crown of creation, God’s highest achievement of earthly beauty. In Genesis 2, He thought He was done and then realized He needed one more thing to complete His work: woman. Creation wasn’t complete without her.

And she shouldn’t be on a centerfold.

I’m not going to quote the data for how addictive and destructive pornography can be. That’s been done somewhere else. I want to write to the heart of the issue, that what playboy and other similar (not even more “legitimate” porn mags) publications offer is easy access to intimacy that should only be shared inside the covenant of marriage.

I have a lot of more liberal friends, so I at least appeal to their sense of a “committed relationship” as a means of understanding how porn hijacks intimacy. It gives us the feeling of being close to someone without actually being close to them, without spending the hours, days, weeks, months, and years that should lead up to the pleasure of knowing someone in the sense the King James means it.

Porn comes to us in a secret place and satisfies the secret longings that are meant to be shared with another person who is also feeling that way about us. Letting that happen on a piece of paper or smart phone screen while we’re alone in the bathroom isn’t what God had in mind, I don’t think.

Maybe you can read Playboy for just the articles. I don’t know who you are and I’ve never met anyone that’s actually said that in real life, but why play with fire, ya know?

I’m sad Hefner died, but mostly because I have a notion He wasn’t intimate with Jesus. That’s just a guess; I could be wrong. If he did make it, I’ll hug him when I see him and maybe we can talk about why he actually did what he did.

I guess I’ll find out eventually.