Hugh Hefner

The myth doesn't stop with the company. Hef himself has gotten generations to acknowledge his charm, to revere his lifestyle and even to call him by his high school nickname. He's successfully transfigured himself from a man into a cultural icon. His silk pajamas, his Diet Pepsi at breakfast, his insistence on working from bed -- these constitute a folklore few can generate. A species of rabbit even hops around in the man's honor: Sylviligus palustris hefneri.

Bottom line, the guy's likable. It's a likability inextricably linked to his controversy, the kind that can only accompany 47 years of monthly nude centerfolds; we like him in spite of himself. Something in his air, or perhaps in the utter ridiculousness of a lifelong obsession with sex, begs forgiveness. His friendly smile, his candor, his unselfconscious cheer -- these put him in a separate league from the strident, post-lapsarian Larry Flynt types. Whatever moral criticisms we have, Hef convinces us to also enjoy his persona. Like any great creator of characters, he imbued his with both flaw and humanity.

It's an act, of course. Hefner has manufactured himself, his life, his mystique and our reverence. Long ago he created a swinging bachelor that would stir the world's imagination, then did the same with a married one. Now he's put his finger on that place in America's heart for the unapologetic old horn-dog. He has tapped into the country's need to at once adore and chuckle at a rejuvenated firebrand, to relive and rejigger a relationship it began nearly half a century ago.

Hef manufactured all this, and he'd be the first to admit it. With a Dickensian grasp of archetypes, he made a career of cooking up characters the world would love, or love to hate. From that first reinvention of himself in high school, the birth of "Hef," he's always extolled the benefits of a good makeover. And it's this kind of honesty that tends to anticipate and occasionally ward off criticism. During a recent radio interview, when "Fresh Air's" Terry Gross read him something of a riot act, it rang superfluous: Hefner has always been the first to admit his limitations, his flaws, his naked-lady obsessions.

And now Hefner's back. Having recently ended his famous decade of domesticity (Kimberly Conrad still lives next door with their two children) Hef has again invented himself as America's favorite bachelor. Hollywood again comes to parties at his mansion, and the floaty toys that had temporarily clogged the steamy grotto out back have made way for bathing beauties. An unabashed proponent of Viagra, Hef is doing his best Peter Pan act these days. And he's doing it with Mandy, Brandy, Sandy and Jessica.

If America's fascination with Hefner has indeed been rekindled as he claims, this rekindling is not so concerned with accuracy. In the great Playboy tradition, the icon has been airbrushed. The Hef we get is the swinger, the bachelor, the tycoon, the eccentric. He's the guy who always gets the girl, and she's the girl next door who just happens to have a killer bod and a deep commitment to sexual adventure. With Hef we get the apparel of the man -- the lounging, the martinis, the sex -- but not the man himself, and in this case, the man is actually interesting.

A new release from Grove Press sends the point home. Written by longtime Playboy columnist James Petersen and edited by Hefner, "The Century of Sex: Playboy's History of the Sexual Revolution, 1900-1999" chronicles America's relationship with sex over the last 100 years. More than that, it testifies to what is perhaps Hefner's greatest gift to his country: an impressive understanding of how sex has shaped 20th century America, and a commitment to share it. "Sex is the primary motivating factor in the course of human history," Hef writes in the book's foreword, "and in the twentieth century it has emerged from the taboos and controversy that have surrounded it throughout the ages to claim its rightful place in society."

The rightful part will always be up for debate. Hef is just happy there's a debate -- and that he's got four young naked women beside him to witness it.

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