On social media, Mr. Hefner was remembered as an icon of the sexual revolution and a supporter of free speech who brought pornography to the mainstream. Mr. Hefner’s belief that America’s strict sexual mores should be eased was a once-radical idea that is now widely accepted. “That I changed attitudes toward sex,” he said in a 1992 New York Times interview when asked what he was most proud of. Gene Simmons of the band Kiss, who once said that any man would be willing to trade places with Mr. Hefner, celebrated the magazine publisher as a media pioneer. Yet for all the praise of Mr. Hefner as a trailblazer, some feminists both inside and outside the United States criticized what they said was a legacy of objectifying women.

Source: New York Times September 28, 2017 11:03 UTC