Hugh Hefner has often been represented as a key player in the cultural objectification of women in the United States. Critics of his magazine have "argued that Playboy encourages men to eschew the responsibilities of adulthood by flouting the conventions of emotional commitment to and financial responsibility for women, in favor of a hedonistic focus on sexuality." (Beggan, 2003). Typically, Hefner has been perceived as being a catalyst to the perpetuation of these sort of moral standards, and that his magazine was an effort to break away from the moral standards instilled by his parents -- consequently, puritan and protestant Christianity. However, assumption makes the all too common error of too strongly associating Hugh Hefner the man with the magazine that made him rich.

Importantly, Hefner's original attempts at creating a magazine were utterly ordinary and uncontroversial. "At first he hoped to produce a wholesome journal about Chicago, but when...
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