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Purpose and benefits

Hugh Hefner (1926–) has built a publishing empire on the backs of naked women and bunny rabbits. A man who likes to dress in pyjamas and who has a rare species of marsh rabbit named after him (Sylvilagus palustris hefneri), Hefner broke the boundaries of sexual permissiveness in US society when he launched Playboy magazine in 1953. He started with a circulation of 53,000; 20 years later it was over 6 million. When Hefner handed the control to his daughter Christie in 1982, Playboy was an industry comprising magazines, cable television, videos, and clothes. More than that, it was part of the fabric of US male culture.