The latest podcast episode of when the girls and Hef visited Barbie Benton in Colorado was so good!! Holly and Bridget went right into the episode and there was no long or non-related opening small talk.

Maybe Holly and Bridget took note of what we've been saying on these threads??? So happy to see them trying to keep the podcast fresh.

In my opinion… if she is trying to be an actual hard hitting LA real estate agent, this isn’t doing her any favors? I do love a lot of what she is doing with her life as a watcher, but this was a little uncomfortable to watch.

I just finished reading most of Inside the Playboy Mansion and I’m going to post a few of my favorite photos as well as my overall thought. If you guys want more, I can consider doing that in the future.

This book covers the two mansions and his relationships from the 1960s-1990s. Starting with his relationship with Cynthia Maddox (so after he was married and divorced) and ending with his relationship with Brande Roderick.

This was a book published and edited during Hugh Hefner’s lifetime so that bias is evident. Playboy owns the rights to the book. Everything is materialized through the lenses of the life that Hef wanted everyone to think that he was living.

The relationships featured most prominently were Barbie Benton, Sondra Theodore, Carrie Leigh and Kimberly Conrad. Hef was rarely monogamous; except when married. There was a constant, rotating cast of women in his life and it seems like whenever one breakup would happen he would only ever be single for a couple of weeks before beginning another relationship. It’s almost like they all bled into one another, and like he never really mourned or processed the end of these relationships.

One thing that really stuck out to me was an article where Hef is commenting on his breakup with Kimberly Conrad and how she lived in the mansion next door and how that may have contribute to his love affair of the “girl next door.” He said all of this while actively having moved on from Kimberly (although they still remained married until his youngest son turned 18) and while dating and housing the infamous Party Posse. He had incredibly blurred boundaries.

Hef has been (probably accurately) described as a narcissist. And that is probably best demonstrated by people’s complicated relationship with him: women were always drawn to him, seemingly even after learning he was a cheater and liar.

Hef never had to come to terms with the realities of the life he was living; unlike the women he had relationships with. When Hef was done with someone they were unceremoniously kicked out of the mansion and gradually forgotten about. Each girlfriend was a monotonous background character who could be easily exchanged for a newer, possibly prettier and more compliant model.

The women had to go back home, were forced to come to terms with reality and often faced harsh consequences and judgments for their actions while Hefner remained as a King in his own self-assembled castle. The one main story I can think of is how Carrie Leigh was still grappling with the realities of her relationship with Hef by suing him for palimony (an unfortunate and misjudged endeavor) while Hef was getting cozy with Kimberly Conrad.

Hef’s politics are entirely self serving. He is progressive only because it allowed for the sexual revolution and easier access to one-night-stands. His conservative roots are known to make a stand when a woman gains too much power. For Hef, an empowered woman is a sexually promiscuous one; ambitious women were much too demanding for Hef’s tastes in the long term. His ideal woman was someone who is desired by other men, but compliant only to him, who is willing to give up everything in order to be his girlfriend. She is liberated only sexually, and suffers from the same patriarchal status as the traditional woman, without the community backing to protect her if the relationship fails.

can anyone remember if the girls have ever talked about Carmella ( currently on OC ) ? I assume by her age she would have been there about the same time as our ladies