00:00:41.819 - 00:01:01.930

How gullible we are about the new but only the most naive will not be able to see. But Mr Mount only appears to be offering something brand new and I only appear to be defending an old and worn out system. His offer is just as old

00:01:02.229 - 00:01:20.779

as mankind itself. In fact, it was the prevailing moral philosophy in many of those histories of the world or periods of the world such as the Greco Roman culture. It was in fact, Cicero, a great philosopher, statesman who wrote or who said in his fine speech,

00:01:20.790 - 00:01:39.750

Pro Kaleo, if there is anyone who thinks that young men should be completely forbidden, the love of courtesans, he is indeed extremely severe. I cannot deny the principle he states Cicero spoke, but it is at once at variance, not only with the license of what our

00:01:39.760 - 00:01:57.699

own age allows, but with the customs and concessions of our ancestors. Therefore, Anson, if I appear to be accusing you, it certainly will not be of originality. To talk of newness. Here is to talk nonsense. The idea of extramarital sex is not new, what is new.

00:01:57.709 - 00:02:17.220

And I suppose this is what has disturbed me most is the incredible but quite serious public campaign of Playboy philosophy to promote non marital sexual intercourse as a Christian way of life and as scandalous as it may sound. I think Mr Hefner is a man of

00:02:17.229 - 00:02:36.850

conviction on this point in conversation with me. He explained it this way given Christ anti legalism and his emphasis upon the good life. If Christ himself were forced to choose today, Mr Hefner explained between a position in Chicago with Playboy Magazine or a position on the

00:02:36.860 - 00:02:59.979

ministerial staff of one of the joy killing pleasure, denying fundamentalist churches in Texas. He would gladly choose the former and I can only hope that the Lord will never be faced with such a desperate dilemma. But rather than speculating about what Christ might do, it is

00:02:59.990 - 00:03:16.630

more instructive for Mr Hefner to take a look at what Christ actually did in his own first century world. Mr Hefner would do well to recall that the world into which Christ came, had no puritan hang ups and no pleasure denying joy killing fundamentalist churches. It

00:03:16.639 - 00:03:39.729

was in fact a playboy kind of world with complete moral license, but Christ was no joiner. He immediately set about to endow mankind with a moral backbone and the world has never been the same. It was the eminent scholar of Roman and Greek culture and languages.

00:03:39.740 - 00:03:57.869

Doctor William Barclay who has written that the paramount new virtue which Christ introduced into the world was the idea of personal purity. Jesus began his greatest sermon by saying, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. And I don't think he meant pie

00:03:57.880 - 00:04:13.505

in the sky there either as Mr Mount has indicated, Christ did not have the kind of other worldly view which made us sit in our church buildings and thump our bibles and forget about the problems of life. He was a man of his own day. And

00:04:13.514 - 00:04:26.734

when he promised the abundant life, he meant the life that is full and rich here. And when he said, if you will be pure in life, you will see God, I think he meant communion with God here. Or he said later in the same sermon on

00:04:26.744 - 00:04:45.299

the mount which Mr Hefner loves to quote, you've heard that it hath been said, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, whosoever look upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his evil, ugly heart because he lusts

00:04:45.309 - 00:05:01.750

after her person to be used as a thing. And he said, therefore, if your eye offends you in this way, it's better just to pluck it out. If your hand offends you cut it off because a man is ahead to lose a member of his body

00:05:01.760 - 00:05:22.369

through self denial than to lose himself through promiscuity and license to advocate extramarital sex. Then is one thing to do. So in the name of Christ is quite another. But the sheer fact that Mr Hefner advocates extramarital sex to 18 million readers monthly suggests that he

00:05:22.380 - 00:05:39.720

cannot be answered with mere righteous wrath. Just how much of his message young people are actually believing is difficult to tell, but that they are listening and some of them intently is impossible to deny. Let us then be very serious in asking upon what philosophical base

00:05:40.390 - 00:05:59.350

does. The idea of extramarital intercourse actually rest. The underlying philosophical premise is but a revival of the ancient privatized ethic which holds morality is my own business. What a man does in his private moral life, what he chooses to do with his sex life is his

00:05:59.359 - 00:06:17.510

own business and nothing is out of bounds. So long as no one gets hurt. Now, this is at the bottom and it is at once both a very appealing, a very simple point of view and upon this ancient priva principle, upon this rock, the prince of

00:06:17.519 - 00:06:38.010

Playboy has built his Playboy kingdom and mere pistic huffing and puffing will never blow it down. We have to challenge the very basic philosophical premise upon which the house is built and that is this privatized ethic. If it can stand this idea that morals are simply

00:06:38.070 - 00:06:57.170

a matter of individual, private personal judgment, then the Playboy philosophy cannot be shaken, but we are here to try to shake it by getting at this principle which underlies it and we shall suggest that Mr Hefner's interpretation of privatization and morals if allowed to prevail, will

00:06:57.179 - 00:07:17.239

not end up ennobling the individual but degenerating the individual. And because of that will lead both the home and society into ultimate destruction. Ironically, the apparent strength of any privatized ethic is its appeal to the primacy of the individual. Mr Hefner has written, our view of

00:07:17.250 - 00:07:36.445

the world is predicated upon the paramount of the individual and each person's inherent individuality. I like that. I buy that this is a much needed in an age of mass impersonal, is conformity and anonymity. But to whom is Mr Hefner really indebted for his idea of

00:07:36.454 - 00:07:55.260

the ult ay of persons who was the first to announce upon this earth, the startling truth that one person is more precious than all the world. Besides Jesus came into a world where human life was cheap and some beings were treated as mere chattel. And although

00:07:55.269 - 00:08:14.369

he was exposed during his entire lifetime to a smaller audience than Hugh Hefner contacts every first day of the month. So revolutionary was his idea of the ultimate value of the individual that it is now the undergirding principle in the whole of the western hemisphere. Little

00:08:14.380 - 00:08:33.900

wonder then that Hefner's appeal is powerful. He has borrowed from Jesus, one of the great eternal truths. But his application of that truth is utterly anti-christ, Hefner's doctrine of the individual degenerates. And here's the weakness of it, it breaks down because it degenerates into a pleasure

00:08:33.909 - 00:08:53.450

seeking selfishness. Jesus was not against pleasure. He said I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly and he meant the abundant life in the here and now. But Jesus warned that this kind of rich, full, great life can only come through unselfishness.

00:08:53.460 - 00:09:11.119

He taught, whosoever shall seek to save his life is going to lose it, but whosoever will lose his life will save it. Mr Hefner, on the other hand, answers for ourselves and I'm quoting any doctrine is evil. If it teaches that self denial is preferable to

00:09:11.130 - 00:09:32.479

self-gratification, Christ call to men was whosoever would be truly great needs to become the servant of men. Mr Hefner's gospel proclaims we oppose the tendency to selflessness in our society and what he affirms is a hedonism while Anson says he is not far irresponsible hedonism. And

00:09:32.489 - 00:09:53.979

so we will not accuse him of that. He is for hedonism, which by definition means that pleasure is the greatest good in life, sensual gratification. Therefore, is to be the moral law by which one seeks pleasure, fulfillment. It is Hemingway's classic statement. What is moral is

00:09:53.989 - 00:10:10.900

what you feel good after what is immoral is what you feel bad after we're contending that. What is what a man ought to feel good after is something which is good and what he ought to feel bad after is something which is inherently bad. But Mr

00:10:10.909 - 00:10:32.500

Hefner tends to promote a kind of enlightened self-interest which ends up being the most crass form of egoism and the apex of his selfishness is his sermon that women exist for the sole purpose of the pleasure of men and that they exist for the purpose of

00:10:32.510 - 00:10:52.900

allowing a man at any time or place to seduce any consenting female. When his urge arises, the chief good to Hefner is the individual but that his use of the individual tends to incline his position toward an exploitation of persons in the name of rugged individualism.

00:10:53.200 - 00:11:10.440

The Playboy Empire has actually been built on the cult of conformity. It is not real men and women that inhabit its pages, but fantasy creatures known as playboys and bunnies. Everyone looks alike, talks alike, loves alike. Everyone has his key, the symbol of his conformity to

00:11:10.450 - 00:11:32.289

the in group and his further security to those whose lives have lost this individual inner heart, which Jesus taught why the Playboy can now have stamped the airs of the bunny on cuff links, wallets, golf club shirts and to score more mass produced gadgets. Hefner lost

00:11:32.299 - 00:11:52.849

$2.5 million last year selling such status to the status seekers. Particularly revealing is the magazine's advice to the lovelorn column which is called the Playboy Forum. All Good Little Playboys. If you read this column, apparently, goose step to its Papal caden is about the right wine,

00:11:52.859 - 00:12:08.679

the right cheese, the right way to carry off seduction. The picture one gets of the Playboy from this advice column is not the joyous debonair, confident man at all, but a very nervous urbanite who seems always to be looking at the color of his shoes with

00:12:08.690 - 00:12:30.010

a knot and his tie. Talk about taboos. Playboy nervously waits for the latest word on what is cool or what is awkward, paralyzed by the fear that he may have pronounced on him. The dread sentence occasionally intoned by the Playboy advisor. You goofed the success of

00:12:30.020 - 00:12:57.190

Playboy magazine, perhaps more than the success of Playboy magazine. Perhaps more than any other single phenomenon is a commentary on contemporary society's conformity syndrome. I see the signal which doctor one minute, we have one more minute until the videotape breaks. And so I will use this

00:12:57.200 - 00:13:15.955

minute and then take the remainder of my time following that tape change. Playboy seems to visit upon society. A new kind of tyranny freed from ancient to be taboos only to be credulous about new taboos emanate emancipated from past prejudices only to become victimized by contemporary

00:13:15.965 - 00:13:36.409

prejudices. The Ancient Seneca wrote No man is free if he is a slave to his flesh. This magazine parades sex as a plaything for fleshly amusement, a tool which exists for the sensuous delight of the Playboy. The most famous feature of the magazine is its playmate

00:13:36.419 - 00:14:00.130

of the month. A multicolored three page fold out which has occasioned Mark Saul's comment about girls that fold in two places and wear staples in their navels. While in word Hefner maintains that he is opposed, that he is opposed to purely selfish sex. One picture is

00:14:00.140 - 00:14:20.679

worth 1000 words and anyone knows that the playmate of the month is the symbol of the playboys recreational sex. There is no commitment beyond the moment's pleasure. And when playtime is over, the woman's function ceases in visiting in Mr Hefner's mansion, we sat sipping Pepsi Cola

00:14:20.690 - 00:14:36.000

in the living room, one floor above the swimming pool and one floor below the bunnies. And I'd heard he was supposed to drink nothing but Pepsi Cola. But I was concerned because I watched him have a little squat bottle that had no markings on it. It

00:14:36.010 - 00:14:54.630

looked like Pepsi Cola in the bottle, but it was a soft drink bottle I'd never seen and I first thought aha, he's drinking something more potent at its only disguise in this incognito type bottle. But uh the honest Hugh said no, it is really Pepsi Cola.

00:14:54.640 - 00:15:08.869

It comes in these bottles that you don't have to fool with when you're finished. And he handed it to me for examination. And sure enough, stamped on it in the glass were the words, no deposit, no return. My theory is that this is precisely his philosophy

00:15:08.880 - 00:15:47.809

of sex. No deposit, no return. As the impassioned young man, a playboy takes what he wants for his sensual desire. We'll pause just a moment. Now, Doctor Kennedy may have a statement while we change the videotape. The

00:15:47.820 - 00:16:43.830

paper has already been shared conclude he has about a minute and a half time remaining now so vulnerable is this crass egoism that preachers haven't been the ones to make the most devastating attacks upon it. These have come from

00:16:43.840 - 00:17:04.640

the liberal theologians of the Situation Ethics school. We deny Mr Mount entry into the Situation Ethics school because the great prophets of situation ethics in our country are denying him that entry. There is a real difference between true situation, morality and Hefner's privatized morality. Hefner would

00:17:04.650 - 00:17:21.029

like to gain respectability among those who still consider him merely the peddler of a girly magazine by claiming that his casual sex is just another form of situation ethics. But the genuine situation ethicists are not buying. They are answering that Hefner's casual sex violates the cardinal

00:17:21.038 - 00:17:40.974

rule. The situation morality is postulated by Emmanuel Kant. So act that thou dost treat every human being as end and never as merely a means. And what is that? But a restatement of Christ's great injunction, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Speaking specifically of Hefner,

00:17:41.234 - 00:17:58.760

the death of God. Theologian William Hamilton has charged and I'm quoting there is love your neighbor and there is knife, your buddy and he honestly chooses the latter living for others selflessness. These may do for the unsophisticated or for some other century, but for the sophisticated

00:17:58.770 - 00:18:17.550

20th century, a new faith is required. Looking out for number one, Harvard's Harvey Cox, author of the secular city was just as blunt for Playboy is man. He wrote others, especially women are for him. They are his leisure accessories, his playthings for the Bible man only

00:18:17.560 - 00:18:34.542

becomes man by being for others. We must therefore see in Playboy, the latest and slickest episode in man's continuing refusal to be fully human. While those who accept biblical authority will see the grave dangers of situation morality, we can at least be thankful for the present

00:18:34.743 - 00:18:52.696

that these respected exponents of that school of thought have exposed Playboy magazine as an unwelcomed hitchhiker casual sex. Then is merely another name for man's inhumanity to man. The real sin in sex is not the act itself, which is purely biological, of course. But the exploitation

00:18:52.706 - 00:19:11.365

of human personality, prostitution is mostly wrong for instance, because it degrades the prostitute, making her an object for the gratification of man rather than a person respected in her own. Right. From this point of view, the prostitute is far more sinned against than sinning. If pressures

00:19:11.375 - 00:19:29.760

or persuasions other than money lead one person to exploit another person because of unrestrained desire. The sin is no less great George Bernard Shaw's old story is to the point about the old Codger who offered a sweet young lady $100,000 if she would sleep with him.

00:19:29.770 - 00:19:43.969

And he said, would you insist? She said, why? Yes. But when he brought the bargain down to $10 she said, why? No, what do you think I am? And he said, we've already established that we're just haggling over the price. It comes down to this in

00:19:43.979 - 00:20:00.930

all the universe, in all the universe, people are ultimate and people are to be loved. Never used. Only things are to be used. And the greatest immorality is to love things and use people especially to use people as things. While Mr Mount maintains that casual sex

00:20:00.939 - 00:20:18.404

need not be wholly selfish. He is extremely naive if he fails to know that extramarital sex is purely and simply the giving of self with reservation, the giving a body without the legal commitment, the giving of body, without the vows for better worth the giving of

00:20:18.413 - 00:20:41.147

body, without the giving of one's total self. And this is therefore a great attack upon the institution of marriage, which is in the final analysis, the very bedrock of any society Jesus taught against the abuse of marriage by condemning condemning the Jews capricious divorce procedures. Have

00:20:41.157 - 00:20:52.687

you not read? He said that he who made them in the beginning, made them male and female. And said for this cause a man is going to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are

00:20:52.697 - 00:21:10.572

no longer two but one, but therefore God hath joined together. Let not man put asunder. God's miracle of marriage is the making of two into 12 people. Is different as they can be, man and woman will to immerse their separate prior selves into one new self.

00:21:10.582 - 00:21:27.962

And as the instrument of forging this great personal union, God gave the gift of sexual love. But the giver also spelled out the ground rules. The very first one of which is that fulfillment comes only when the sex act is an expression of the unreserved commitment

00:21:27.972 - 00:21:45.395

and union of persons which only married can bring. This is why Dr Peter, a Bertos Professor of Philosophy at Boston University turned the rule on its negative side and said sex decreases in quality of satisfaction to the extent that the sexual act cannot express the deeper

00:21:45.406 - 00:22:03.130

values which the couple holds in common. If my counseling of college students can be trusted with a general truth, the campus playboys seem to know a lot about sex biologically and yet I suspect despite their knowledgeable air of sophistication, they know very little sometimes almost nothing

00:22:03.140 - 00:22:25.810

about genuine sexuality. They make pretenses at fulfillment. They have never truly known in choosing to embrace sexually several persons. They are sacrificing the profound privilege of ever embracing one person as God meant it to be when a man makes a sex a plaything, he forfeits the

00:22:25.819 - 00:22:42.930

real thing. It is in the nature of this mysterious gift that somehow for those who separate it from marriage and make it an idol for sensual gratification. Real gratification never really comes playboys grow old and at 40 wonder why they're playing more and enjoying it less.

00:22:43.510 - 00:23:01.189

What they have missed is the truth that sex is not looking lusting. It is the surrender of two persons and into the making of one and lacking this dimension. The playboys asexuals sexuality comes out a bit flat. This may explain the frequent remark made by observers

00:23:01.199 - 00:23:25.459

of the playboy clubs about the curiously sexless, almost voyeuristic atmosphere. Carl Menninger, the great man of medicine in the human mind has clinched this point. Listen carefully. It is an axiom in psychiatry that a plurality of direct sexual outlets indicates the very opposite of what it

00:23:25.469 - 00:23:46.469

is popularly assumed to indicate dividing the sexual interest into several objectives, diminishes the total sexual gratification and man whose need for love drives them to the risks and efforts necessary to maintain sexual relationships with more than one woman show a deficiency rather than an excess in

00:23:46.479 - 00:24:10.459

their masculine capacities. How ironic then as we close by saying that in the name of individualism, the Playboy begins by seeking total gratification as a person but ends by forfeiting the opportunity ever to be a real person. Perhaps that's why subscriptions fall off so precipitously after

00:24:10.469 - 00:24:26.390

men reach the age of 35 or 40 they know that sex is given for the glorification of persons and to whatever extent it is used apart from the deep communion of persons in marriage, to just that extent it ceases to be a genuine act of love

00:24:26.400 - 00:24:49.770

and approximates the mating of animals. As Dr Leslie H Barber, a distinguished Washington DC psychoanalyst has pointed out the logical conclusion of hedonism, the use of sex for purely personal private pleasure. And apart from the context of humanity, the logical conclusion is masturbation. Nor he said,

00:24:49.780 - 00:25:07.979

should we be too surprised if such solitary pleasure becomes finally the ideal by which all mutual sex is measured? It is in this light that the dashing playboy who regards his playgirl as a sex object, one of the items of his leisure activity to be contained

00:25:07.989 - 00:25:28.250

within the entertainment area and like any other accessory detachable and disposable needs to be judged. Is it possible that Harvard's Harvey Cox is right when he predicts that thoughtful college students will see in Playboy the latest and slickest episode in man's continuing refusal to be fully

00:25:28.260 - 00:26:02.050

human. Ladies and gentlemen, in spite of the observations which I made at the beginning of the program that there would be a very tight time schedule for those of you with watches and I have one and

00:26:02.060 - 00:26:17.699

thought both speakers had one. Both of both of our speakers ran over approximately the same amount of time. So we'll make up about the same amount of time. So as to conclude exactly on time in the question and answer period. Now we have before we start

00:26:17.709 - 00:26:34.890

the question and answers about, we've got about 14 minutes left. Total time. We have time for about two or three minutes of uh interchange here. I will indicate to you the kinds of questions, many of the questions obviously were answered by the two speakers and they

00:26:34.900 - 00:26:54.550

fall in about three or four stacks. First of all, uh Anson, would you like to address a question to Bill? Uh Well, yeah, I'd like to uh ask Bill why he felt that it was necessary to draw a caricature of what he felt that Playboy stood

00:26:54.560 - 00:27:07.510

for and then proceed to damn it. As you said, when you began your discussion, uh you found a great many things that you could agree uh with in what I said, and I can find a great many things that I agree with in what you say.

00:27:08.010 - 00:27:22.189

Uh I don't believe, nor does Hefner believe, nor has Playboy ever said or even indicated that women exist for the sole purpose of men. There's nothing in the magazine that can give that indication at all. If you can look at a cartoon about sex, if you

00:27:22.199 - 00:27:35.536

can look at humor and say that it carries a message, then you must be thinking you're looking at a political cartoon. The one point. Well, the one thing that humor does is it decontaminates. That's why Dick Gregory was so effective in his racial jokes because he

00:27:35.546 - 00:27:49.166

could talk about something that was a hang up in our culture at the time. Sure. We joke about sex. We joke about premarital sex. We joke about extramarital sex. But that doesn't mean we're selling it any more than any other cartoon in any magazine sells anything.

00:27:49.381 - 00:28:04.462

We think that it's healthy to joke about snakes. There is nothing in Playboy Magazine since, you know, I've been there from the beginning. Never ever in the history of the magazine. Has there ever been a serious contention that women exist for the sole purpose of men?

00:28:04.472 - 00:28:19.140

Never have we said it never have we implied it? If you read it into the cartoons, that's your hang up people. We have never said that we've always said that people must be ends, not means. As a matter of fact, it's one of Hefner's most often

00:28:19.150 - 00:28:33.280

used phrases. We certainly believe that nor do we believe in the exploitation of, of human personality. The exploitation of human personality is a very vague thing. You can exploit people when you do business with them in the store, you can take advantage of them if you,

00:28:33.290 - 00:28:52.680

uh, uh, uh I'm amused at the, uh, uh, reference to Doctor William Hamilton since he is now one of our most popular authors. Uh, uh, he William Hamilton was one of those persons who, uh, like a lot of other preachers seemed to be horrified at the

00:28:52.689 - 00:29:10.640

thought that somebody might be agreeing with him who he doesn't particularly like. Um, ah, I think it was Dr William Hamilton, from whom you borrowed the phrase knife thy neighbor. That is certainly a most unchristian viewpoint. I can't remember anybody that I've met outside of this.

00:29:11.979 - 00:29:29.920

Uh, I can't, I can't remember about anybody I've ever met whose philosophy was based on that. I'm sure there must be some, uh, this bit about the underlying principle that man's of personal morals are his own concern. Yes, they're his own concern. They need to be

00:29:29.930 - 00:29:50.050

primarily his concern when our actions interfere with someone else or affect someone else and it can do so that that can happen subtly. Then of course, it's not someone else's concern. But the, but the idea that our own personal judgments, whether or not we overeat, for

00:29:50.060 - 00:30:15.680

example, or whether in any kind of activity where there is no true victim. The idea that some outside agency will make those decisions is tyrannical and we simply won't buy it. I was most particularly upset at your uh uh suggestion that Playboy encourages extramarital sex. That

00:30:15.689 - 00:30:33.010

is simply not true. It is not true even by trying to read into the magazine something you would like to read into it. It is not true by statement, it is not true by suggestion. It is not true by inference. We do believe that it is

00:30:33.020 - 00:30:49.069

possible that in some extreme and unusual cases and they would have to be in our society, extramarital sex might be moral. But it's very rare. We believe incidentally that adultery is not, is very rarely the cause of divorce, for example. But we do believe that adultery

00:30:49.079 - 00:31:07.880

is more often the the outgrowth, the product of a broken marriage, not the cause of a broken marriage. That it is a very sad and unfortunate thing that is a violation of a contract of an agreement of a bonds. It would be very easy for me

00:31:07.890 - 00:31:22.069

to draw a caricature to a review of the church of Christ. I grew up in a camel light church in the hill country of Tennessee and I saw some pretty bad things and it would be very, very unpleasant for me to draw a caricature of that

00:31:22.079 - 00:31:37.130

church and then knock it down. I could do a pretty good job of that, but I'd rather not because I met Dr Bowski and I met a lot of members of the church of Christ and other Christians who I know and admire and appreciate and, and

00:31:37.140 - 00:31:56.040

like, and it would be unfair to draw a caricature and to damn them. For what? For my own childhood impressions. I think that we are so thick on the subject of sex that the very fact that Playboy magazine prints nudes should cause so much discussion. The

00:31:56.050 - 00:32:19.479

one thing in Playboy that really upsets people is the fact that we do print nudes. Yes, he talked about our emphasis on sex. It's true that 10% of Playboy, approximately 10% of every issue she is devoted to pretty girls or to humor about sex. Count it

00:32:19.489 - 00:32:40.989

if you'd like. But the purpose of our, of our magazine is Entertainment For Men. We aim at young men. That's our audience. And incidentally, our subscriptions do not fall off at 35. As a matter of fact, our all, virtually, all of our news circulation comes from

00:32:41.000 - 00:32:57.944

young men who are growing in going college. But the older the guys who were reading playboy years ago still do our, that's why our average, the average age of our subscription of our circulation is, is, is growing. No, people don't stop reading Playboy. When they get

00:32:57.954 - 00:33:12.930

into their thirties, they continue reading it more than ever. But if we have an emphasis on sex, that disturbs people, it's because we think young men are interested in the subject. And when young men stop being interested in pretty girls, then we'll stop having a playmate

00:33:12.939 - 00:33:24.290

of the month and when and until they do, we will have a playmate of the month because we think it's perfectly legitimate. The fact that we print a picture of a girl does not mean that we think that she's an animal nor a tool. This is

00:33:24.300 - 00:33:43.930

something that the traditionalists would like to believe. They would like to think that we're really a bunch of, of dreary dub human unfeeling hedonists who look only at women as another tool as another disposable merchan uh piece of merchandise. I think it's rather strange that you

00:33:43.939 - 00:34:05.140

can draw our attitude toward women from the bottom of a Pepsi Cola bottle that's really going out No. Yes. We think women are human and we think women have the same right to sexual freedom that men, do. We think women have the right to escape from

00:34:05.150 - 00:34:22.820

the dreary puritan blanket under which they've been placed for generations. Don't accuse playboy of dehumanizing women. The Christian church has dehumanized women for 2000 years. How many women preachers do you have? How many women officers? How many, how many, how many offices of position in any

00:34:22.830 - 00:34:47.780

name brand denomination? Can a woman hold in the Catholic church? They don't even have memberships on their own, right? They're, they're members through their husbands. We've been trying, we hope to liberate all human beings liberating from the fear of their own body. Yes. We've been saying

00:34:47.790 - 00:35:07.459

sex is fun. Damn. Right. It is. But it, but it need not be immoral because it's fun and nothing is going to make a relationship a sexual relationship moral except the quality of that relationship. We are not saying that extramarital sex is preferable. We're not selling

00:35:07.469 - 00:35:25.830

it. We're saying that the, the sick and dreary puritan attitudes towards human sexuality have got to go and there is a bit of a reaction. That's true. It is true that Playboy perhaps does have a good deal, more sexual content than it would have in a

00:35:25.840 - 00:35:38.060

society. That's a good deal less neurotic on the subject. It will probably happen that in the future our cartoons, our humor will turn away from sex it's true that a much of playboys humor is funny just because it is sexual. But that's the kind of thing

00:35:38.070 - 00:35:55.429

society we live in, isn't it? That's the kind of jokes that are funniest. But when our society gets a little bit healthier and we get a, we get to a point where the sexual part of our life is taken for granted and is considered to be

00:35:55.439 - 00:36:10.159

a healthy and normal thing. It's true. Playboy will probably have a great deal less hu humor based on sex. We may even have fewer pictures of pretty girls. When, when mirror nudity is less uh is less sensational. It may be as it happens, young men are

00:36:10.169 - 00:36:27.750

interested in pretty girls and we will always have them and we feel no reason to apologize for it and we do deny that anybody should read into our ideas, all kinds of demonic meanings just because we do have an open attitude towards sex and just because

00:36:27.760 - 00:36:53.239

we do appreciate the human body. Ok? It is ludicrous to suggest that Playboy magazine is promoting premarital sex as the Christian way of life. We are saying that no man in this world has the obligation to be a Buddhist or a Christian or a Mohammedan. That

00:36:53.250 - 00:37:10.449

to be a Christian is a purely a matter of personal choice and nobody has the right to force his religious convictions on anybody else. But if he is a Christian, but if he is, he isn't a Christian just by following rules and regulations. If he is

00:37:10.459 - 00:37:28.459

a Christian, then as Dr Bowski pointed out the quality of his sex life makes it moral, not the particular circumstances and not whether or not somebody has, has spoken a few words in front of him are not whether even he's carrying a marriage license. But to

00:37:28.469 - 00:37:49.149

say that we are promoting premarital sex as the Christian way of life is ludicrous, we're saying that a premarital sexual relationship can be Christian and to say that it is Christian only when it is followed, preceded by a marriage ceremony just doesn't work. Ok. Bill, would

00:37:49.159 - 00:38:11.110

you like a couple of minutes? Well, I would apologize for leaving the impression that we drew our understanding of the playboy position from the bottom of the Pepsi Cola bottle. That was perhaps an unfortunate analogy. I'm just very impressed with the uh Pepsi Cola that was

00:38:11.120 - 00:38:30.340

consumed and it was in keeping with Mr Hefner's image. Uh But I would say that uh we have not made an attempt to caricature on this point. Uh The Pepsi Cola bottle does the same thing but William Hamilton Harvey Cox, these other heavyweights in the situation,

00:38:30.350 - 00:38:55.560

ethics school of thought uh have been most savage in their exposure of Plato playboy's tendency toward exploitation. And I have seen no reversal in any public manner whatsoever of the positions these men took uh with great vigor within the last four or five years. And I

00:38:55.570 - 00:39:13.679

wouldn't also uh Manson draw the conclusion from the cartoons though, you know, cartoons may say a lot more about what we really believe than our pious uh preachment. Uh There was the one cartoon you recall Anson about the young man who was passionately embracing the young

00:39:13.689 - 00:39:34.620

lady. She was just disheveled and disarrayed and he was saying to her, why speak of love at a time like this. And so while uh the cartoon may not say a thing, it is my understanding of having read this 300,000 word thesis from Mr Hefner that

00:39:34.629 - 00:39:54.149

uh sex does not have to have a deep and profound love, let alone a marriage relationship. If you wouldn't believe the cartoon, would you believe Anson Mount who has stated sex without love isn't nearly so bad as the sex conservative would have us think and casual

00:39:54.159 - 00:40:11.979

sex and I would suppose the casual sex is one rung lower than sex without love. Casual sex is often better than no sex at all. I think it'd be good Doctor Kennett. If we could have some of the students questions before we have to have these

00:40:11.989 - 00:40:24.699

closing speeches. The closing speeches, I can warn now will be extremely brief because the time that we have left to the questions we'll take it up. Uh I have had one waiver of a closing speech to my right. I will entertain such a waiver from my

00:40:24.709 - 00:40:49.889

left shortly. Let me pick a fairly typical the question. Uh This one is to Mr Mount Anson, how does our society survive when we cease to be our brother's keeper? Protecting each other's personal rights? No longer has meaning. Who would be our scout leaders, coaches, et

00:40:49.899 - 00:41:09.489

cetera. At, I can't imagine. I would, I would think that would be the worst possible thing, thing that would happen if we stopped being our brother's keeper. I've, I've never, I don't recall having suggested or having heard anybody else suggest that we, that we descend into

00:41:09.500 - 00:41:29.989

a moral anarchy. Isn't it strange? Isn't this really strange? Isn't this the kind a sign of the kind of sickness that we're living in? We suggest that sex relations can or cannot be moral depending on how people treat each other and when people treat each other

00:41:30.000 - 00:41:48.580

in a, in a demeaning way, no matter whether they're married or not, it's immoral. Will you make that? Just that suggestion? We suggest that the human body is not evil that pictures of the human body is, are not by definition obscene or evil that the true

00:41:48.590 - 00:42:07.070

obscenity is the way we treat our fellow man. We make those suggestions and then somebody thinks, gee what is it all gonna mean if we all stop being our brother's keeper? Well, what the hell does that have to do with being a brother's keeper? That's what

00:42:07.080 - 00:42:35.860

we're talking about. Moral responsibility, but rational, logical, moral responsibility and thinking into the legalism is not moral responsibility, that's abdicating our humanity. We don't believe in that strange kind of Christian heresy that tells us that suffering is virtuous and that we must deny ourselves always for

00:42:35.870 - 00:42:53.649

somebody else that when we must live in self denial, uh uh always giving what we have to our fellow man. In other words, we're all going to run around in ragged clothes, giving things to each other nonsense. We're human beings too. We have the obligation, the

00:42:53.659 - 00:43:07.370

moral obligation to look out for ourselves. Of course, my fellow man is no more precious than I am. But he is as and if I am a human being, not just a Christian, but a human being, his welfare indeed is a part of my concern. And

00:43:07.629 - 00:43:28.060

let me uh let me say also on this point that Mr Hefner uh has reached back to get an old maxim to promote his idea of what I think is kind of an essential self centeredness, death above all to thine own self be true and thou

00:43:28.070 - 00:43:42.139

can not be false to any man. The argument seems to be if a man answers his own urges that a better society will automatically result. That's not an accurate meaning interpretation of that phrase at all. Well, how, how accurate was Hefner when he lifted it out

00:43:42.149 - 00:44:02.129

of Shakespeare's context, Shakespeare put it in the mouth of Polonius who was no heroic character in an effort to show the uh the uh crass extremism to which uh human selfishness can go. And uh Shakespeare therefore used that particular line uh in an effort to uh

00:44:02.139 - 00:44:18.850

take a whack at Polonius and his ambitions. And uh Mr Hefner, unfortunately, not only has taken that quote out of context, but uh many of his biblical quotations and his self love seems to leave little room for the love of his fellow man. He Snickers at

00:44:18.860 - 00:44:36.129

do-gooder. He uses that very phrase, I suppose he would include a scout master as a do-gooder exclaims that a man should live life with. Gusto. Take great pleasure in his work, surround himself with materialistic success, success symbols seek his own self interest. Such cliches seem to

00:44:36.139 - 00:44:50.929

me though and seem to be the rationalizations of a kind of upper middle class. How does this plea for interest handle the problem of the vast numbers of members of our society who are caught in the trap of essentially joyless work, manufacturing the various state symbols

00:44:50.939 - 00:45:08.199

and appliances, the purchase and use of which Mr Hefner is so anxious to defend Hefner's vision has nothing to say to meaninglessness, drudgery, poverty in our time. His idea is that if a man seeks his own private center of life that somehow the better society will

00:45:08.209 - 00:45:25.379

ordinarily result. It is the most extreme statement of the free enterprise concept, a warping of it. I would say that I've ever really read some people think of Hefner as being very liberal politically because he is in moral fields, but he has built a multimillion dollar

00:45:25.389 - 00:45:47.050

empire from the ground up. And I think because he's been kicked about on tax problems and so forth, he has developed a very rigid extreme position of free enterprise, which has, as I read his philosophy, very, very little social conscience. Now, I think Anson has more

00:45:47.909 - 00:46:05.129

than Mr Hefner Anderson when I was in Chicago sent $1000 down to Nashville to help in a social problem. That was Hefner's money I was sending at his permission. Yes. Yes. And you will recall. Might I point out that, uh, it's, uh, uh, you know, everywhere

00:46:05.139 - 00:46:19.879

I go, I, I, uh, I find myself in these rather strange discussions with people who look at Playboy and don't read it. I, I can't believe that you could read Playboy and not think that we weren't concerned with social issues and social problems. As a matter

00:46:19.889 - 00:46:34.169

of fact, we are constantly in the news and in the headlines because we are tackling social problems and we are tackling issues that other magazines are afraid of. I'm not talking about the articles now that Hamilton and Cox I'm not talking about, I'm talking about, I'm

00:46:34.179 - 00:46:49.010

talking about the statement, the 300,000 word statement of the Playboy philosophy. This gets us to the place where I need to ask another question of answer because we had it twice editor. What does the religion editor of Playboy do? And he was on the verge of

00:46:49.020 - 00:47:07.199

answering this just now. Well, he reads about 200 manuscripts a month and gets sick of it. Uh We started last by Doctor William Hamilton, uh who's a professor of theology at Rochester, uh Colgate Seminary in New York. Uh did a thing uh for us on the

00:47:07.209 - 00:47:21.500

death of God. Uh you know, the, the great uh theological controversy of recent months, he got more mail than anything we've printed in the last several years. And of course, like Bishop Pike says, there is a meaning market, the church is kind of abandoned giving people

00:47:21.510 - 00:47:35.870

meaning and people are looking for people who are interested in these things. We discovered. Our readers are very much interested in religion and theology and morals from the not only the response to Mr Hefner's writings, but to this article by William Hamilton. And then we commissioned

00:47:35.879 - 00:47:49.709

a couple of articles by Dr Harvey Cox, one of which has already appeared. One will be in shortly. Uh We did probably the, one of the longest and most inclusive panel discussions on religion and new morality and sexual ethics on just this subject in the June

00:47:49.719 - 00:48:02.560

issue which I edited it took six months. I interviewed it with many, many hundreds of thousands of words, seven of the leading theologians in the country and put it all into the form of a panel discussion, edited it down. I had to visit these people dozens

00:48:02.570 - 00:48:15.360

of times. Uh We have uh an article coming up by Roman Catholic Archbishop. We have an article coming up by Bishop John A T Robinson, the Bishop of Woolwich who wrote, Honest to God, those of you who know anything about theology. Uh We have an article

00:48:15.370 - 00:48:35.820

coming up another one by Harvey Cox. Uh We have quite a series of uh these articles and uh I would imagine we get um 200 manuscripts a day a day, a month from theologians preachers who are aware of this series that we are going and they

00:48:35.830 - 00:48:50.350

all have to be looked at. It takes a lot of time. We're at the point now where I have reserved for myself about two minutes to wrap up and I'm going to yield about 30 seconds of that. And Dr Kosky would like to utilize part of

00:48:50.360 - 00:49:22.899

his option to close. Mr Mount waived the option. Close a moment ago. Bill. You've got about two minutes. Mr Mount has made the very damaging statement to his point of view that no one really is advocating puritanism anymore. He says even Bill here others. And he

00:49:22.909 - 00:49:40.129

needs to see that Christians since the sexual revolution of the 19 twenties have led the way in putting to death, the dying sexual ethic. Therefore, it seems apparent that Mr Hefner has capitalized upon this dying ethic. Perfectly timing the swing of the pendulum from one extreme

00:49:40.139 - 00:49:57.169

to the other has grabbed a hole to the bottom of that extreme and has built a great empire financially if the idea of sexual license. However, and I think what happens here is that Mr Mount would have us throw the baby out with the bathwater. And

00:49:57.320 - 00:50:14.709

perhaps that's an unusual analogy in this particular discussion. But I think he would have us go from one extreme to the other. And if we ever go to that extreme society will be led into swift decay, Playboy magazine would have enjoyed a mar of the circulation

00:50:14.719 - 00:50:35.510

in first century Rome. But the hour was fast approaching because of social decline brought about through immorality. When the man of that once mighty empire could not have afforded 25 bucks for the Playboy Club. Key sex. Far from being merely personal, is irretrievably social. Its relationship

00:50:35.520 - 00:50:49.754

to family and to Children, to neighborhood and to nation are among those consequences to be weighed when we choose to share in it. Some things are men's private business. But so long as men in community with one another, sexual morality will never belong to that class

00:50:49.764 - 00:51:05.250

of things. That is why there has been no society in all of human history. From the very primitive to the most complex that is not regulated sexual conduct by its folkways. And it is axiomatic that the more noble, the regulating folks folk ways, the more noble,

00:51:05.260 - 00:51:22.379

the society. If it were merely Mr Mayo and Mr Hefner who are seeking license for extramarital sex, we should not be alarmed. But imagining that they did not blatantly advocate a license for all, if there exists a law which grants license to one that same law

00:51:22.389 - 00:51:39.280

grants license to all. One wonders whether the multitude of ninth grade boys in whom the sex drive is beginning to awaken with such intensity will be prepared to handle the absolute freedom, which is theirs. At the instant. The playboy validates his one wonders whether the playboy

00:51:39.290 - 00:51:53.709

has considered the implications for the quarter of a million little girls who this year will use their freedom for an out of wedlock pregnancy. Or shall the playboy have any comment for the thousands of homes this year in which the freedom to commit adultery shall at

00:51:53.719 - 00:52:13.449

least have played some deteriorating role or will we hear that ascending school of psychologists now warning that the threat of emotional damage arising from promiscuity, not puritanism, which is dead, but promiscuity now endangers thousands of lives in our society. Anything is ok. The playboy says as

00:52:13.459 - 00:52:33.459

long as no one gets hurt. But what does he mean by hurt? Who is to measure? Christ says nothing in sex is ok unless someone gets helped. Mr Mount has mentioned Bishop John A T Robinson since he's mentioned him, I want to quote him. He is

00:52:33.469 - 00:52:46.820

the author of the highly controversial book Honest To God. I do not quote him because I agree with much of what he has said. But because coming from him, the playboy has to listen on page 16 of his recent book, Christian Morals Today. The British Bishop

00:52:46.830 - 00:53:09.550

contends I would of course be the first to agree that there are a whole class of actions like stealing, lying, killing, committing adultery, which are so fundamentally destructive of human relationships that no differences of century our society can change their character in quote, even this profit

00:53:09.560 - 00:53:28.500

of the new morality then is in a very real sense Conceding that there are some things still absolute. Thou shalt not commit adultery is one of the absolutes. Bishop Robinson lists the validity of moral principle does not depend upon majority opinion or the playboy subscription rise

00:53:28.510 - 00:53:45.449

are the results of a Gallup poll with the validity of moral principle. What resides in the very nature of man as a human being. Hence this moral principle, thou shalt not commit adultery is absolute, not simply because it was written in the Bible long ago, but

00:53:45.459 - 00:54:05.070

because it is self authenticating within human experience, it is absolute not as a capricious decree from on high, but as a principle designed to fulfill the highest aspirations of human personality. If our civilization ever loses respect for marital fidelity, giving itself up to an orgy of

00:54:05.080 - 00:54:21.959

extramarital indulgence. We shall as of that hour be on the way out. I think in the face of the playboys, self-interest that more and more thoughtful young people of America will be rejecting it because the thoughtful young people today do not want more wall to wall

00:54:21.969 - 00:54:34.199

carpet and a bigger nameplate on the door and a better grade of French provincial furniture. They are looking for an ideal for a mission for a cause. That's why they heard young John Kennedy when he spoke to them and said, let the word go forth from

00:54:34.209 - 00:54:52.620

this time and place that the torch of leadership has been passed to a new generation of Americans born in this century, tempered by war, seasoned by a cold and bitter peace. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your

00:54:52.629 - 00:55:15.350

country. And one of the things you can do is to enjoy within the limitations of a wonderful marriage. The profound mysteries of sex. I think young people today are more impressed by Tom Dooley or Albert Schweitzer who are living life with Gusto by making it rich

00:55:15.360 - 00:55:32.110

for others. I think they're more impressed with the Socrates, drinking the hemlock because of a great ideal. I think they are more impressed by that Nazarene carpenter who because of his do good or convictions got himself an early death. But who died saying they do not

00:55:32.120 - 00:55:50.669

take my life from me. I lay my life down of my own. If any man would come after me to the life, which is rich and abundant, he must be willing to take up his own cross and deny himself and follow me. There has never been

00:55:50.679 - 00:56:33.489

in the history of mankind, a greater moral principle than that of sex within marriage as dignified by Jesus of Nazareth. Ladies and ladies and gentlemen, obviously, there has been tremendous interest in the section this morning. It's been a a difficult one to moderate in

00:56:33.500 - 00:56:49.409

one way because people were so interested in what was being said and those who were speaking were so interested in the opportunity to convey their views that the time has come and gone. Now, the questions this afternoon, uh there'll be a session at the Bible chair

00:56:49.419 - 00:57:06.580

at 24 06 Broadway, in which Mr Mount Dr Bowski will be available. I've gathered the questions, I'll give it, give them to them and they'll have the opportunity to pick those up this afternoon and discuss them with you. We also would like at the present time

00:57:06.590 - 00:57:23.780

for those who have written out evaluation cards and I deliberately didn't ask for them earlier. I hope you've been extremely careful and very critical in your comments. We think that public issues, moral issues, other kinds of public affairs are important enough to get your most thoughtful

00:57:23.790 - 00:57:38.429

commentaries on them and we solicit them. If you filled out the cards, will you pass them to the aisles and the ushers will pick them up as I listened to these two discussions this morning. And as I did the reading, which I did for this session,

00:57:38.830 - 00:57:55.709

I neither read 300,000 words nor 200 manuscripts. Like most people uh in my area, I don't think I can find that much time to study and always regret not having had the chance. But I kept remembering a scene that is described in the book of Acts.

00:57:56.540 - 00:58:16.229

You remember, the great literary and intellectual center of that time was Athens. And uh one of the early apostles went to Athens and argued in the synagogues and some of the epicureans and stoic philosophers, much of what they said could certainly have been applicable this morning.

00:58:16.439 - 00:58:30.669

And on both sides of the table joined issue with him. Some said, what can this Charlo and be trying to say others? He would appear to be a propagandist for foreign deities. This because he was preaching about Jesus and resurrection. So they took him and brought

00:58:30.679 - 00:58:44.175

him before the court of very opus and said, may we know what this new doctrine is that you profound, you're introducing ideas that sound strange to us. And we should like to know what they mean. And here's the part where I so much agree with the

00:58:44.185 - 00:59:02.020

ancient Athenians in their quest for knowledge, the Athenians in general and the foreigners there have no time for anything but talking or hearing about the latest novelty, the other translations put it, I think a bit more graphically, they were interested in hearing and discussing any new

00:59:02.030 - 00:59:20.100

thing. And I think it's important in a free society on religious and non-religious issues as well that the society shows strength enough to be willing to examine. Not try to sweep either behind the door or under the rug or keep in the closet. The fundal fundamental

00:59:20.110 - 01:00:55.679

issues which we face the session is now formally adjourned. Our thanks to both members of the panel and to the courtesies of the audience. Thank you very much. Can we then got up and is it I was in here but

01:00:56.020 - 01:04:10.389

I can make the flies. This *** open up right here. That here I'm bit than that. The girl. No, he is not. I see you from the Yeah and everything and I hope it's more good than that. I hope it's the voice

01:04:10.590 - 01:04:22.020

you in it. May I hear nothing anyway, he hit her up again. I'm number out and you deal your old address.