I felt compelled to make two points faced with a piece like this: 1. You may agree or disagree with Douthat's premise but the general tone of the article is al

I felt compelled to make two points faced with a piece like this: 1. You may agree or disagree with Douthat's premise but the general tone of the article is almost hysterical and has the quality of a freshmen Op Ed piece in a college daily. You may care less about Hefner but personally I see this as part of a pattern of extremism in expression that has taken hold of the NYT recently, I cancelled my longstanding membership a couple of months ago. 2. If you want to form a balanced opinion about Playboy's role (and Hefner's, by proxy since he was so influential) for good or ill in affecting women's liberation movement and general culture, in addition to reading opiniated OpEds like (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/sunday/hugh-hefner.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/sunday/hugh-hefne...) also consult the other side, one book I would recommend *The Century of Sex" by James Petersen (https://www.amazon.com/Century-Sex-Playboys-Revolution-1900-1999/dp/B000OV16OE https://www.amazon.com/Century-Sex-Playboys-Revolution-1900-...). For example, the storefront that Susan Brownmiller opened in Times Square in 1979 to educate women about pornography. The radical stance of one wing of the feminism movement against pornography is well-known (e.g. see https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/10/the-space-in-between https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/10/the-space-in-b...).