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So why are we celebrating the life of a glorified pimp?

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PHOTO: Gallo images/ Getty images
PHOTO: Gallo images/ Getty images

But I soon realised plenty of others were saddened by his passing. Tributes for the original “playboy” were pouring in everywhere – on news sites, on social media, from celebrities – and it just didn’t make sense to me.

This is the same man who built an empire on objectifying women and getting them to bare all for the pages of his magazines. This is the man who lived with multiple women in a mansion and paid them to do sexual favours for him.

He didn’t force any of these women into anything, some will argue. Whether it was stripping off for a magazine shoot, a reality TV show or just to jump between his sheets, they did so voluntarily, happily, did they not?

But former “bunnies” have painted a dark picture of the goings-on behind the ivy-covered walls of Hef’s mansion.

He heavily controlled these women by setting strict curfews and not allowing them to have friends over to visit, as claimed by Carla Howe in an interview with the Mirror.

One of Hef’s main “girlfriends” Kendra Wilkinson wrote a memoir about her life as a Playboy Bunny and a few lines from her book – about the nights she spent with her benefactor – sent chills down my spine.

“I was usually very, very drunk during those evenings, I tended not to care about much until the next day. I had to be very drunk or smoke lots of weed to survive those nights,” the now married mom-of-two wrote.

“At about the minute mark, I pulled away and it was done. It was like a job. Clock in, clock out. It’s not like I enjoyed having sex with him.”

Another playmate, Izabella St. James, described her time in the mansion in her book Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion. She shared how humiliating it was for them when they had to get their “allowance”.

“Every Friday morning we had to go to Hef's room, wait while he picked up all the dog poo off the carpet — and then ask for our allowance: a thousand dollars counted out in crisp hundred-dollar bills from a safe in one of his bookcases.”

She continued, “We all hated this process. Hef would always use the occasion to bring up anything he wasn't happy about in the relationship. Most of the complaints were about the lack of harmony among the girlfriends — or your lack of sexual participation in the 'parties' he held in his bedroom.”

Other testimonies from well-known former playmates such as Holly Madison and Jill Ann Spaulding also paint scary picture of what these women endured behind those ornate wooden doors.

“Maybe it was the pot and the alcohol, but drowning myself seemed like the logical way to escape the ridiculous life I was leading,” Holly Madison wrote in her tell-all book, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny.

But by far the most shocking for me personally was Jill Ann Spaulding’s account in her book, Upstairs.

“When it first gets started his main girlfriend gives him [oral sex], then she has sex with him,” she revealed.

“She's the first to go because that's the safest for her. No protection and no testing. He doesn't care.”

How is Hugh Hefnor different from a pimp? From a strip club owner? Why are the latter shunned by society – but Hugh is hailed as a hero?

How are celebrities such as Nancy Sinatra and Kim Kardashian West, who claim to pride themselves in being advocates for women’s rights and independence, mourning his loss?

Several of Hef’s “Bunnies” and “Playmates” have spoken out about their shocking experiences in the Playboy mansion – but “Hugh’s legacy lives on”?

This, in my opinion, is a legacy of objectifying women, of patriarchy, of misogyny.

This is also a step in the wrong direction for women who claim to fight for empowerment and men who supposedly support them in it.

I am not saying that we should be happy at Hugh’s death – but rather, consider his life, his “legacy”, as a cautionary tale. A lesson. To never again celebrate men who treat women the way this man did.

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