Authors: Izabella St. James
We often wondered why he did it at all. Why bother with this whole charade? The words of former President Bill Clinton come to mind: “Because I could.” Hef has the money and influence and charm to get this show to go on, but he must know deep down inside that it is just a show. Hef is trying to live out this fantasy he has been selling to people since 1954. He wants to live up to the Playboy image he created and the expectations people have of him; it wouldn’t be as cool if he slept with only one girl once every few months, like all the other eighty-year-olds. Without the magazine and the wealth, Hef would not be able to attract all of these women, and without the Viagra, there would be no sex nights. In my opinion, Hef is not exactly the irresistible Casanova that he portrays himself to be.
I never saw Hef use condoms. Period. He wiped himself off with a wet bath towel prepared by Holly in advance after he had sex with each girl and before the next; no there was no germicide or anything but warm water on those towels! Doesn’t everyone worry about sexually transmitted diseases? Of course; that is one of the reasons I, and some of the other girls, never wanted to be intimate with Hef after we learned there was no protection. I can honestly say I have never had an STD in my life, but I know some of the girls at the Mansion did, and do, have baggage for life, so to speak.
The thing about the bedroom is, you’re not seduced, and you’re not always there by choice. You’re there because it’s a rule—an unspoken rule. I didn’t go in there for a long time initially because I wasn’t ready to confront whatever awaited me. Hef was always cool and understanding and always repeated, “You’re more than welcome to come along, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. All the girls are clean, and we just have a good time.” The girls assured me that if I didn’t want to do anything I should just keep my panties on (that was a longstanding rule). Eventually my curiosity and drunkenness won and I went in. I kept my panties on for weeks and didn’t have to do anything but watch what was going on in this bizarre, wild, yet peculiarly structured world that was Hef’s bedroom.
The general atmosphere at the Mansion was sexually liberating. By the simple fact that I was living at the Playboy Mansion, I became freer. The walls of that house are greased with sex, the air smells like sex, and sex is always on the menu. There is this mystique, this aura of sexuality. It’s like the house fondly remembers the ’70s, when sex ruled, and it tries to seduce you back into the swing of things. Even if a person is not that sexually open-minded, at the Playboy Mansion he or she can pretend to be. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. We all explored the sexual side of ourselves; we played the role of sexy girls who love sex even though in reality that was not the case for some of the girls. Although fairly traditional, I am comfortable with my sexuality. I always have been. I think I am innately more lustful than romantic. It seems like lust is a natural aspect of being human, while romance is an engineered process, an enlightened and polite way of unleashing the lust. At the Mansion more than any place in the world, you can explore that part of your nature. But things are not nearly as wild as people imagine them to be, unless you consider two nights a week of structured sex to be wild and exciting.
Some sort of a sexual relationship with Hef was inevitable for all of us. And the day my time came, I was ready. I was also drunk, horny, and curious. This man was sex personified; of course I had a desire to know what it is like to sleep with a man regarded as an icon of sexual freedom. But that inquisitiveness was pretty much over with the first experience. The few times I slept with Hef, it was always brief and always the same. After a while, I didn’t bother. And the great thing was that he never brought it up to me like he did with some of the other girls. In my opinion, every girl played a different role in the relationship: Susan was needy and Hef liked that, Emma was fun and outrageous, Bridget had the same likes as Hef, Holly was totally devoted to him, Candy was easygoing, and I was the sensible one with whom he could talk about anything. Living at the Mansion was not about having sex with Hef. If it was, I would not have moved in, nor would I have lasted long after I did. My relationship with him was not based on that. He had a certain respect for me that allowed me to stay in the relationship without being intimate with him. I was the token “brain,” the token smart girl that validated the group in an intellectual way.
Why did I have sex with Hef? The main reason, if there must be a reason, was the fact that I did have a relationship with this man. And there were many times when I had real feelings toward him. Besides the feelings of gratitude, there was also appreciation, respect, and a certain type of love. Not love in the raw sense of true, complete, infinite love. But a love in the sense that you care about someone and what happens to him. There were times when he and I would discuss business or world events and I appreciated his perspective. I loved hearing about the early days of
Playboy
magazine, his trials and tribulations and successes. I tried to learn what I could from him. More than anything I liked when he joked around, when he was silly, especially when he did his dolphin sounds. He was human then, he was lovable. I was also proud of him; I remember when an African-American jazz musician spoke about what Hef did for him and other musicians by having them perform on
Playboy After Dark
and at the Jazz Festival, I could not help but feel pride and joy to be associated with this man. These were the times that I recalled my initial fascination with him—the man who founded
Playboy
magazine and revolutionized sexuality. I looked up to him, and there were times when I felt connected to him.
The problem with the relationship was that there was no intimacy. There was no alone time with Hef; therefore, nothing felt personal. And the sex, more than anything, was impersonal. The few times it did occur, it was in front of an audience and it was brief, no longer than a minute. We never really kissed Hef either; most of the time, it was just a peck on the cheek or a goodnight kiss on the lips, which is not a big deal considering everyone kisses Hef on the lips—female friends, Playmates, any female acquaintance. French kissing between Hef and his Girlfriends was rare; if it occurred, it was mostly in the bedroom. I love kissing; it is my favorite thing to do, and it was just another thing that never happened in my relationship with Hef, and that contributed to my lack of intimate feelings toward him. While I lived there, he never came to our rooms to spend time with us alone, one-on-one. It is unbelievable to think that in two years of living at the Mansion, I shared less than fifteen intimate minutes with Hef. But it is true. And so even if the feelings going into it were genuine, the experience did not feel like it was. Maybe because having sex with Hef was part of the unspoken rules. It was almost as if we had to do it in return for all of the things we had, for sharing his life at the Mansion. I think in his eyes, it was the only way we had of showing our gratitude for all that he did for us. But expectation becomes an obligation, and obligations are not performed out of desire but out of duty. And when I look at it that way, it makes me resentful and makes the whole thing ugly and meaningless. In the end, it always left me with conflicted emotions.
I don’t believe that many of the regular Girlfriends really wanted to have sex with Hef. Some of us always kept our panties on: in fact, we quickly adopted boy-shorts to make things even less intimate. We always had excuses; we had periods that went on for months, and when that excuse got old, we would suddenly get yeast infections. For all the people that speculate and wonder about how the girls feel, I think it’s quite simple really: I just don’t think many were attracted to Hef sexually.
Physically, Hef looks great for his age. His skin is surprisingly soft and supple and so white that he glows in the dark. He doesn’t have any weird veins or skin discoloration, and I would say he looks much younger than he is. All those years of being an eccentric hermit and workaholic, cooped up in his Mansion, has paid off for his skin. But for me, it wasn’t about the way he looked. I just did not have that close, passionate relationship with him, and so I did not want to have sex with him. That is the basic truth. But there were exceptions. Whenever any of the Girlfriends wanted something, he would use it as a major weapon: “You know, you girls never do anything in the bedroom.” He never mentioned it to me, but I would hear about it. It certainly contradicted what he told me in the beginning of our relationship, which was that there was no pressure to participate in anything in the bedroom. Sometimes Emma and I pointed that out to him: “We thought the relationship wasn’t about sex, Hef?” He would get all defensive and say it wasn’t. But we knew what he really wanted. Whenever a Girlfriend wanted something, she would have to participate more in the bedroom. Sex was a weapon, and it was skillfully used by both sides.
The majority of the time we were in the bedroom, it was not that exciting. We were there to unwind after a night out, to hang out while our alcohol buzz wore off, to see what new drama was bound to arise, and to meet his numerical presence requirements. We ordered drinks and snacks while he did his thing. When we were there, we would dance around on the bed and cheer him on as he had sex with whomever, or we did the pseudo-lesbian thing. We got a kick out of making him think we really did it with each other, but mainly it would be Emma plopping down on me and tickling me until I pushed her off me and pinned her down on the bed, or playfully smacked her around with one of the toys. We would get silly. Hef really got excited by watching two girls make out, and so to get a rise out of him, we would pretend sometimes.
Don’t get me wrong, there were times when the sexual vibe was real and strong. We would come home after a night of drinking and dancing, and all that sexual energy needed an outlet. When you have gorgeous young women who are comfortable in their own skin, with bottles of champagne, and surrounded by the mystique of the Playboy Mansion, magical things happen. Many times the other girls who would come up to the bedroom, in addition to the Girlfriends, were models and current Playmates who truly are into girls. When a beautiful Playmate of the Year is trying to climb on top of you and kiss you, and you’re already in that kind of environment, sometimes you go with the flow. It is a very sensual experience to be seduced by a beautiful woman.
I noticed that several times when a truly hot girl came up with us, it was because she wanted to be with the women, not with Hef. And that was fine with Hef. But he did get plenty of action from other girls. One time these two knockouts showed up from Australia, a married girl and her lesbian lover. They basically rocked his world—did all kinds of kinky things with him and had sex with each other so that he could watch. He seemed to become obsessed with them and their blatant sexuality; he eventually made one of them a Playmate and would have made her a Girlfriend, but then he found out they were also sleeping with one of the butlers and they got kicked out.
I remember a time when one of the Girlfriends started to caress me and kiss me and told me to remove my panties. I told her they were on for a reason, but she continued to try to remove them. I finally just said no in a blunt way, and she stopped. After the night’s activities were done and I was walking to my bedroom, she ran after me and started screaming that she was not a lesbian, that she was just trying to be nice and could not believe I was being so mean to her. I was dumbfounded, but wrote it off as her being drunk and high and continued to my room. Next thing I know Hef was in my room to have a “talk” with me because she went to him crying that I rejected her. Now I was in total disbelief. A painful reality check: here I was a law school graduate, getting a talk from my “boyfriend,” because one of his other Girlfriends was hurt that I did to allow her to pleasure me. I could have cried, but I started laughing. It was all so ridiculously absurd that it was actually hilarious. I told him I had my period, had my panties on—as per the obvious rules—and I wasn’t in the mood. Heaven forbid someone not be in the mood at the Playboy Mansion! The truth was she and I had fooled around on other occasions, and I was attracted to her in as much as I can be attracted to a girl. I let her suck my toes a few days later, and she got over the rejection. She was the only Girlfriend I ever did anything with.
Months later, a new girl joined the group who also seemed legitimately interested in girls and she had a thing for me for the longest time, always telling me how she was going to “get me.” Emma and Susan thought it was funny and kept telling her I was ready for her, which of course was not true, so then I had to hide and avoid the girl. I did not think she was an attractive girl in anyway; in fact, I was surprised she became part of the group. But she was one of those quiet, nice girls who didn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers, and Hef let her stick around. One night when I was really drunk, I let her kiss me and it was terrible—sloppy and gross. That was it for me. I had my few experences with gorgeous models, and I had to close the chapter on experimentation with girls while the memories were still pleasant and erotic.
The Mansion has the aura of being this free, uninhibited place, where you are more than welcome to expose your sexuality. You are free to be your true sexual being. And maybe it was like that in the ’70s and ’80s before Hef got married. But it is not so anymore. There are too many unwritten rules, too many power plays, and everyone acts.
13: Boys, Boys, Boys.
“Ten men waiting for me at the door? Send one of them home, I’m tired.”
—Mae West
S
ince no satisfaction was to be gotten in the bedroom or anywhere in the house and since the gates were locked at 9 p.m., our options were limited. But where there is a will there is a way. Like rebellious children, the Girlfriends spent a great deal of time figuring out how to break the rules. With the exception of Holly, who in my opinion was unhealthily obsessed with Hef, most of us had our secret lives and our little flings. That was always one of the most common questions people asked us: Are you allowed to have boyfriends? The answer was no, we were not allowed to have boyfriends—Hef was our “boyfriend.” In most relationships it is implied that you and your partner are monogamous—you do not date others. But because this was not a traditional relationship in any sense, and because I think we were
really
there as publicity props, it was not obvious to us that we should not see anyone else. Hef had to make it an actual rule after a couple of embarrassing situations. Girls “cheated” from the very beginning: the Bentley twins were known to have boyfriends in Las Vegas and were rumored to have dalliances with the staff. As they left and the party posse era began, it got even worse. One of Hef’s favorite ex-Girlfriends, who was also a Playmate, supposedly went on tour with a rock star for a while, and was also involved with a butler. Another had an affair with an actor, which ended up in the tabloids. Girls were seen driving around with their boyfriends in cars that Hef bought them, and countless quickies supposedly occurred between Girlfriends and Mansion staff. And then there was Hef, the self-proclaimed Mr. Romance, praising his relationships in interviews and all the while being made a fool of behind his back. And so it became a definite rule:
No boyfriends
.