Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself

by Crystal Hefner

Everything had changed, but I shoved the pain down. Because I was a woman now, and that’s what women do. I didn’t know much, but I already knew that.

There were, at that point, more than three thousand scrapbooks documenting Hef’s life. He always said he was doing it for posterity. For history. In his mind, he was so legendary and iconic, future historians were going to need this incessant documentation of his life. He had no idea what was coming, in terms of the sea change in public opinion toward men like him.

I thought about everything in the world that told me I was only valued because of my looks, that pushed me to be sexually available, and then punished me for being sexually available. Where did I learn that beauty is a tool to get ahead, and men hold all the power?

I am slowly building more friendships with women and learning how much more power there is in having a close circle of women around you. Not naked in a bed covered in whipped cream and posing for a camera, but women who have your back. Who cheer for your successes and commiserate with your setbacks. Women who share opportunities and want to collaborate rather than compete.

What do you have to do to get in the mansion? You have to lose yourself, Mackenzie, you have to give up everything about you that makes you unique and special. You have to give up your mind and your opinions and any belief in choosing your own future. But mostly you have to get really, really small. So small you don’t leave a trace. So small you don’t cast a shadow. So small and so quiet that even if you are screaming you can’t hear it.