Who is the guy that made sex a household name? He dedicated his life to it and called himself a playboy. Then published a magazine. He even had a television show back in the 60’s. It was just one of the many playboy themed media things that almost made him acceptable in most households. Hugh Hefner is at it again.

At age 85 he is still a party animal playing hard at his infamous Playboy mansion. It is a strange type of old age home where he is the only senior citizen surrounded by women under the age of 30. The very weird thing is that now there is a new generation of people that thinks he is cool. Dirty old man is never mentioned here. Why?

He represents pop culture. His trademark playboy bunnies are a symbol of the ultimate in seduction by women. After decades of decline of his entire empire, he has new clubs in Vegas, London, Mexico, Macau in the Far East and the Bunnies are proliferating. Yes, it is hip and happening again. Even Diane from Ohio wants to go to the club again!

All Hefner can say is that he is glad that he is still alive to see it. It is a worldwide empire that exploded from his imagination, deepest desires and a $1,000 check from his mother. Playboy Magazine hit the stands in 1953 with the first time in any magazine in full color the famous Marilyn Monroe Nude. Eisenhower’s America was shocked and titillated at the same time.

He was the flame that ignited the sexual revolution that leads all the way to today with gay marriages. He fought the stigma of being the corrupter of young morals, being lewd, lascivious of which people today still believe that he is well, smutty. However, the magazine and his lifestyle also made him the envy of many men. Well, also the enemy of many women. He even fueled the fire of the feminist movement with much kindling. Those women were so mad, they wanted to see a cotton tail attached to men’s asses too.

Hefner has endured them all. Is he celebrating women or degrading women? Is it the joy of sex or is it sexist? I’m sure Hefner is happy at this point to be controversial. What is wrong with sex and wealth and throwing a good party often? Leave the guy alone. His lifestyle is obviously keeping him alive! He is a man who has outraged the feminists, outraged the Christian rite, outraged the conservatives and doesn’t care.

There is a documentary out there called “Hugh Hefner Playboy, Activist and Rebel” that even represents him today. He hasn’t aged gracefully at all. Most famous people exit the spotlight at about age 65. Not this guy. He even was going to marry 24 year old 2009 Playmate cover Crystal Harris until she at least came to her senses and ran out of that dirty old man’s jizz filled Jacuzzi! She was 60 years his junior. Beneath those pajamas, beats the heart of a rebel with no apologies.

At a time when America was black and white, Hefner had black and while celebrities on his talk show still on black and white televisions. Mingling guys like Sammy Davis Jr. and Nat King Cole with any white celebrity at one good party with drinking and smoking right in your living room! All this cool stuff in the 1960’s while black people couldn’t even stay at the same hotel’s as most white people. He broke barriers in his own way! His earliest TV shows brought the races together casually and comfortably with a hint of sexual tension.

Around the naked women in the magazine, he published good articles about current topics and interviews with political or inventive important people. He is happy to have been part of the sexual revolution, gay rights and racial equality and the changing of drug laws. What was wrong with looking at a little vagina then a little politics, back to the vagina and then to a good article about a celebrity?

He relinquished financial control of his company 40 years ago. This year he seized it back! Even though the magazine is down from 7 Million readers in the 1970’s to a Million readers now, he never gave up creative control. He still oversees what goes into the magazine, picks the covers and the playmates, cartoons and letters. He doesn’t want to be remembered as a “Playboy”. He wants to be remembered as “someone who changed the social sexual values of his time.”

He has made a difference and America has him as a icon to represent the change. At the very least he has helped fathers everywhere explain sex to their sons by simply giving them a copy of the magazine to keep hidden under their bed. Lesson taught period easy. He doesn’t believe the magazine turned women into sex objects. He believes that that is part of what women are! The attraction of the two sexes gives us civilization. He has been part of seeing that our civilization prospers.

Who can have the confidence to have no regrets at age 85 and who doesn’t plan to stop? The future is more bunnies, more clubs, more parties, more.