When I wrote The Playboy Philosophy in the early 1960s, both oral and anal sex were illegal in 49 of the 50 states. In 10 of those states, sodomy—which was variously defined but could, in some states, include oral sex—carried a maximum sentence of 20 years. Citizens in Connecticut who engaged in oral sex faced 30 years in prison—60 years for people who lived in North Carolina. In Nevada it could mean life behind bars. It was a time when 37 states outlawed sex between unmarried people and 45 criminalized adultery. Two states even banned heavy petting.
This is the oppressive world some would have us return to. These moralists say that if sex doesn’t beget children, it’s a sin. Your sex life, your privacy rights and the rights of men and women everywhere are casualties of this belief. In Arizona, under a proposed bill women who hoped to have their health insurer cover birth control would have been forced to provide their employer with proof they were taking the pill for a medical condition—not just for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy. A new Kansas law allows a pharmacist to refuse to sell someone contraception on the grounds that such a sale could violate the pharmacist’s religious beliefs. Similar laws already exist in Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota. Lawmakers in Michigan are pushing one of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in decades, while in Texas and Pennsylvania people continue to demand the defunding of Planned Parenthood centers, which provide health care to countless women. Across America these conservatives continue to assault the rights of gays, whether by denying them the right to marry or, as in Kansas, by attempting to empower landlords, business owners and employers to discriminate against gays on religious grounds. And earlier this year, when a Republican legislator in Virginia told CNN “sodomy is not a civil right,” I thought of Charles Cotner (A man charged and jailed for 3 years in 1965 for engaging in consensual anal sex with his own wife) and wondered how much time we have left before we lose all the advances of the sexual revolution.
Nearly 50 years ago in the pages of this magazine I warned that “when religion rather than reason dictates legislation, do not expect logic with your law.” Today, in every instance of sexual rights falling under attack, you’ll find legislation forced into place by people who practice discrimination disguised as religious freedom. Their goal is to dehumanize everyone’s sexuality and reduce us to using sex for the sole purpose of perpetuating our species. To that end, they will criminalize your entire sex life.
This is a religious nation, but it is also a secular one. For decades the American people have found a way to balance religious beliefs with secular freedoms. We have enjoyed freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion. These need not be incompatible. No one should have to subjugate their religious freedom, and no one should have their personal freedoms infringed. This is America and we must protect the rights of all Americans.
It may be hard to imagine that the old man with the much too young "girlfriends," who are clearly nothing more than window dressing used to buoy an image that he has worked a lifetime to promote, was once on the cutting edge of the sexual revolution in this country. But he was.
So despite what your opinion is of the man, you still have to recognize that he certainly knows what he is talking about. And what's more his observations of what is happening to our country, something that he apparently predicted nearly fiftieth years ago, is dead on.
