However inevitable the sexual disruption of the 1960s and 1970s might have been, a variety of sexually enthusiastic and culturally influential men sought to promote it as a “sexual revolution,” as if it had been somebody’s brilliant idea, probably theirs. John Updike, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer—for such novelists, the trend to more open sexual relations offered new opportunities in culture, art, and society. Hugh Hefner felt the same way. In 1953, he had founded the monthly Playboy, a magazine that included ample political and cultural coverage but was known best for its color photo centerfolds
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