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12/4 Update -Latest AFK Update changed how redemption codes work. I have added a link to the new external webpage for the codes, but as of writing this the website has been under maintenance for some time so I would not recommend starting the offer until the website is working. This post chronicles the Swagbuck Discover game offers that I've played. Information about different games have now been separated into subposts. This was necessary because I was hitting post character limit. Unfortunately you need to do a little more navigating, but maybe it'll be easier to consume. For those who are new to Discover offers or feel less comfortable with mobile games, in the following list I have marked easier offers with "(Beginner)". Items marked with "(Beginner+)" are on the easier side but with a bit more complexity. I also recommend reading this post I made on taking screenshots prior to starting an offer to help in the case of an offer not automatically crediting. Here is a brief list of the games. Click the section header links to navigate to that group's subpost.
I am an Android user. The offers below may only be available for Androids. I will note when they are for Android only when I see that in the disclaimer.
I have not spent any money to complete any of the following games.
I always recommend having accounts with multiple sites that have offer walls to compare offers. Here are some other sites that I have accounts at and have also done offers at:
Full Disclosure:Full Disclosure: I have only used this site for one game so far and have not yet cashed out. They have a low Gift Card and PayPal cashout amount of $5. They sometimes have higher offers then Swagbucks and GG2U, but I do find that they are more of a 'third option' out of the 3.
You may have already seen this, but Swagbucks has recently launched a new way to earn SB that is only accessible via the Swagbucks App and currently only the Android version. This new feature is called Playtime Rewards. It awards you SB for just playing games. There are no levels to reach or achievements to collect. This feature looks to have just come out a couple days ago, but here's what I know so far:
YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A NEW USER
This is SUPER important because it means that you can do a Discover Offer for a game, uninstall the game, reinstall the game through the Playtime Rewards, and earn more SB for playing the game more. If you download a game via the Playtime Rewards that you haven't done a Discover Offer for, you become ineligible for the Discover Offer. Order is important!
The apps available varies from user to user
The apps available seems to be based on the games you currently have installed and how much time you have played them. It uses a "similar to your favorite games" rating. When I first opened Playtime Rewards, the two games offered to me were Coin Master and Pop Slots. My husband only had State of Survival, which he was bummed about. He downloaded some casino games he had already completed offers for, put in some time on them, and is now getting some other casino games on his list (but not Pop Slots which is frustrated about).
The amount of SB earned will change as you play the game
The rewards start really good at something like 4 SB for each minute. It wont stay that good for long and will become less per minute. Still, in one day I made over a dollar playing Pop Slots pretty minimally, so not bad.
And that's all I know so far. Swagbucks doesn't even have Playtime included on their Help page last I looked. I had been considering picking up Mistplay recently, and I am glad that I don't need to do that now. How To Access: Make sure you have the latest version of the app. Go to Discover and you will see a Playtime Rewards tab. For me it replaced the Fyber offers tab.
These are some games that others have commented are easy and worth doing. They are on my To Do list.
Final Fantasy
Scatterslots
oh joy....another casino game....but I'll do it....eventually....
Neverland Casino
sounds like this one is like Club Vegas where you can't put it on autospin and need to have some interaction now and then. Not sure if I can handle doing that for the huge level 500 offer, but maybe I'll tackle a level 200 or 300 offer...
Games I've Been Advised to Avoid
There are some games that are generally not worth the time and effort or are near impossible without spending money. This is a list of those games based on the Swagbucks sub:
This game might be removed from this list. Most offers are currently for Lvl 21 stronghold and it seems like this is do able given the provided timeframe (see post). If you are interested in this offer, I would recommend looking at GG2U since currently their offer is $5.50 more to reach the same level (see post on new GG2U offers)
I have not removed this from the list as of yet because I recently saw someone post that there isn't a way to redeem offer codes anymore.
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How to buy a small bus for sale to startup your own transportation business?
https://preview.redd.it/4kzyifggxio51.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b4cc4a22159f8c0c404f4820811394f69f5065a The primary aim of any startup business is to make money and loads of it. These dollars can be earned either by selling a product or a service that is in high demand. Of course to make some money one needs to spend some initially, so entrepreneurs or wantrepreneurs should have a budget to get started. There are hundreds of businesses that one can get started with but which one to start with depends on how much money does one wants to make? One can set up a shop on the street to make ends meet or set up a big business to get listed with millionaires and billionaires. The former will make profits by serving people in the local community whereas the latter will make profits by selling its products or services to a wide audience that is spread across city and state boundaries. Demand is the key to success in any business. If there is a big demand for something and you can fulfill that demand at a reasonable price, then your startup is ready to get started. In this answer, I want to show a way where people can make thousands of dollars with a small investment. When one searches for startup ideas online, chances are other people have also read the same articles that you are reading and the competition is already building up. But one of the most neglected industries is that of public transportation. As the population of humans increases, year after year in every country so does the demand for transportation. People in every city are ready to pay a small fee to get transported from one location to another. City centers may not be the ideal place to start a transportation business because there are several modes of transportation that already exist and moreover there may be local laws that will prevent the entry of newcomers to prevent congestion etc. But one can get started in the suburbs. Travel to a location that is far away from the city center and gets down on the streets to know how people travel. Educated people are always in need of transportation because they need to travel to distant locations to reach their place of employment. But the local self-employed people need transportation too so does the housewife in every apartment. Purchase a 15 seater small bus for sale, park it in a densely populated region and offer a jitney service for a small fee. Jitney bus services transport people from point A to point B for a small fee. So you can offer to transport people from their home area to:
Their place of employment.
Other big transportation nodes like a bus depot, railway station, or airport.
Local markets.
Cinema hall.
Places of worship.
Shopping malls
School or Colleges etc etc etc
Buses can be huge and their cumbersome size can be a big hurdle in operating such a transportation business. Hence one should start with a small bus for sale because they have a small turning radius and can easily navigate through busy streets and narrow lanes due to their small size. As one travels beyond the city limits, its not impossible to find people asking for a ride from passing vehicles. The idea is to pick up these people and drop them off to their desired location for a small fee that they are comfortable paying for. Often times people will be ready to pay twice or even three times the average amount just to reach their destinations on time. According to the American Bus Association, tours make up to 40% of the total revenue generated by bus companies, however, they have noted that regions lacking public transportation are also stronger markets to start a transportation business. Believe it or not but this is the fact of life in every country. The situation is worse in 3rd world countries and buses play a vital role in transporting people and their country's economic survival. I will advise you to start a new business of transporting people for a small fee. Start by purchasing a small bus for sale because they can seat up to 15 passengers and can be operated with a regular license. One can start with his bike or car too but in the transportation industry, profits are made by transporting the largest number of people on a single trip. So to keep the profit margins high, one has to transport more people. A car can carry only 4 passengers, a van will ferry just 10 because they become vulnerable to accidents if they carry more. A small bus on the other hand can carry 15 passengers and maybe 5 to 10 more in the standing position. Drop these people quickly to nearby locations and you have made some quick bucks instantly without shedding a sweat. As more and more people are moved from one location to another, the entrepreneur will find out some hot destinations to ride their bus. Small buses are never a problem but check with the local Department of Transportation if special licenses are needed to drive a bus on the selected route. There will be other expenses like driver fees, parking fees, insurance, EMI's, fuel cost, and regular maintenance. Research has found that the biggest expense transportation companies face is the cost of fuel. They spend 40% of their revenues on fuel and another 20% on repairs. The remaining 40% is used to pay employees, office rent, etc. A small bus for sale can be of two types new and preowned. The buyer needs to decide where to get started. I will personally advise them to start with a used bus for sale because they are 60% cheaper than new buses. So a new bus worth $50,000 can be purchased at $20,000 if it already been used for 5 years or up to 100,000 miles. These small buses last well over 300,000 miles and will still have 200,000 miles that the new buyer can monetize upon. The story will be more or less the same in every country around the world. Once the startup has managed to find "SUCCESS" in this business of transporting people, then they can scale up by buying more small buses and increasing their fleet line. This business becomes more lucrative when the startup can tie-up with other businesses and organizations to fulfill their transportation requirements. This venture will give them a fixed income every week or month. For example, a church will need to pick up and drop its congregation every Sunday. A Casino will need to do the same every weekend. A hotel will need a bus to pick up and drop guests to and from the airport, they will also need a bus to take guests to sightseeing spots and popular tourist destinations. A college will need a bus to pick up and drop its students every day. A company will need a bus to help its executives reach corporate events on schedule, they may even offer home pickup and drop services to their employees every day or they can offer parking lot pickup and drop services to employees living in distant locations. I hope you can see the potential in the transportation industry. Everybody needs a bus to transport their group a few meters away to a neighboring block or maybe up to 100 miles. Buses are also required for special events like birthday parties, marriages, overnight trips, and weekend holidays. College sports teams always travel in a bus so that ever member reaches his destination on time so that events are neither delayed nor postponed. The possibilities are endless, all you need to do is purchase a small bus for sale to get started. A buyer should be aware that a bus that has been on the road for several years is bound to be defective, have severe wear and tear, and malfunctioning electrical, mechanical or hydraulic equipment. Often these buses may not be safe for the roads and need to be repaired. A buyer can fix the bus by himself or he can avoid the hassle and the headache by buying the bus from a licensed used bus dealership. The reason is that these licensed dealerships are required by the law to fully inspect and recondition the bus from bumper to bumper before selling them to the next buyer. The reconditioning process is rigorous involving the inspection of more than 400 components in the vehicle and any part that fails the inspection is either repaired or replaced. This entire process gives a new life to the used bus. Dealerships will also repaint the bus if needed to fix any blemishes thus giving the vehicle a brand new look. The reconditioning process is so thorough that a buyer will never be able to differentiate between a new bus and a used reconditioned bus until he has asked someone or checked out their documents. These reconditioned buses may cost more but will give the peace of mind that they will not break down unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere. There are private individuals who try to resell their bus by listing them as fully reconditioned just to make a quick sale. Such individuals should be avoided at all costs because they simply change the seats and repaint the bus to make it look new but they neither have the knowledge, nor the expertise, nor the budget to fully recondition a used bus for sale as mention above. Such practices are considered as fraudulent in the bus industry. But there may be people who are already deep into the transportation business and want to know when to buy a new bus and when to buy a second hand bus for sale. The general rule is, if the bus will travel more than 20,000 miles then it should be purchased new and if it will travel less than 20,000 then it should be purchased preowned. Similarly, if a bus will be used for more than 5 years then it should be new but if it will be used for less than 5 years then it should be purchased second hand. A bus that is employed by a transit company and severs a fixed route every day will put up as many as 25,000 miles on its odometer in a single year. It's advisable the transit company should purchase a new bus for such a heavy-duty usage. However, if the bus will be used occasionally like a church bus which operates merely twice or thrice in a week, then the buyer should opt for a used bus for such light use. A church bus never adds more than 5,000 miles in a single year, which is way below the optimal level of 20,000 miles. Hence a church should always increase its fleet line with used buses for sale. Why purchase a brand new bus when it will never be used to its fullest potential? Transportation companies also buy a used bus as a replacement if in case their new buses break down and need time to get back on the road. Finally, a bus should be maintained on regular schedules every six months just to make sure its in proper working condition. Every vehicle needs regular maintenance and buses need a little bit more than other smaller vehicles. Contract with a good repair shop that will fix and repair your bus on-demand at a reasonable price. Find a repair shop first before buying the bus because these shops are just not located everywhere. Moreover, opt for a gasoline-powered small bus because they are the dominant engine type in North America, and finding a good mechanic to fix them is never difficult. A gas-powered bus can cost $4,000 to $8,000 less than a diesel-powered bus. One may argue that diesel engines offer better fuel economy but that's not true with used buses for sale. With good and regular maintenance, a bus with a gasoline engine will deliver the same performance as that of a diesel engine. Check out our inventory and learn more about how a small bus for sale can help startups find success in the transportation industry by visiting our website here and call us at 516-333-7483 today! https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-good-startup-ideas/answeCharles-Kaufman-8 Small bus for sale, public transportation, start a transportation business, 15 seater small bus for sale, American Bus Association, Department of Transportation, used bus for sale, new buses, used bus dealership, used reconditioned bus, second hand bus for sale, church bus, used buses for sale, gasoline-powered small bus, North America, gas-powered bus, diesel-powered bus.
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Mission Name: Edifice Complex Synopsis- While in Detroit, another contract is given to the ICA. 47 is sent to a long-abandoned high-rise building that is currently undergoing renovations to be converted into high class lofts and business offices. 47 must eliminate the corrupt Site Inspector, the shady Real Estate Mogul, and the devious, eccentric, panic-attack prone billionaire bankrolling the money laundering and drug trade operation that this building is going to be a part of. Setting- A high rise office building built in the 1920's and abandoned in 1983. Currently the top 2 floors, including penthouse, have been fully renovated so that primary tenant may take up residency as the rest of the building is finished. The ground floor up to the second floor are undergoing renovation, the fourth floor is being used as temporary equipment and supply storage, the fifth through 29th floors remain in their abandoned, decayed state (though only floors 5, 6, 28 and 29 are accessible- the rest are unable to be accessed by elevator at this time). The roof and helipad are also accessible. Disguises- Worker: Various combinations of cargo pants or blue jeans, t-shirts or cut offs, safety glasses, ball caps or hard hats. As most workers for jobs of this nature are independent contractors, it should be easy to fit in without drawing suspicion, just don't get too close to the foreman. Allowed anywhere construction is taking place and can blend in with most tools and equipment. Leasing Agent: A Leasing Agent is on site to take photos of the finished office space on the 30th and 31st floors. He is allowed anywhere on those floors and those floors alone. Catch him in the lobby or miss your shot to get his disguise. Client: A potential client of the property, visiting to get a look at some of the office spaces available for rent. Several of these show up in a group, 47 can blend in with them wearing any of his suits. Maintenance Staff: Has access to all finished floors, but must face pat-down before entering the penthouse suite. Security Officer: Site security on patrol. Safety Agent: From the Worker's Safety Coalition, wanders around inspecting safety devices on equipment and observes workers to make sure they're following safety guidelines. Will discover if safety systems have been disabled and re-enable them - you'll want to get rid of him before you set up any accidents. Disguise can be used to tamper with safety devices un-suspiciously. Squatter: An unauthorized resident of the building, hiding out on one of the abandoned floors. This disguise does not grant you any access but is included for unique challenges. Items/Weapons- Rebar - A piece of steel meant for providing support for poured concrete walls and foundation. The sharpened end from where it was cut off a larger piece makes this a lethal melee weapon. Paint Can - Can be used as a distraction or a non-lethal melee weapon. A worker wouldn't look out of place carrying one. Sledge Hammer - Lethal two-handed blunt melee weapon. Nail Gun - If the safety mechanism is defeated, this battery-operated framing tool will launch a construction nail about 50ft through the air. Useful for long-distance distractions. Can be lethal at point blank range. Shovel, Screw Driver, Hammer, Crow Bar, Propane Tank, Fire Extinguisher, etc - most tools and items make an appearance here. Challenges Just Like Jimmy: Push the Mogul into a hole and then cover him up with concrete from the Mixer. Shish Kabob: Kill the Mogul by causing him to fall onto the protruding Rebar. Fire in the Hole!: Detonate an explosive inside the Cement Mixer when The Inspector is looking inside. Nailed: Kill a Target with the Nail Gun. Hammered: Kill a target with the sledge hammer. House of Cards: Collapse the scaffolding onto the Inspector. Inside Man: Induce the Billionaire into a panic attack and kill him while dressed as his body guard. Fly Swatter: Use the crane to knock down the Billionaire's escape helicopter as he flees. Eminent Domain: Kill all 3 Targets while disguised as the Squatter.
Next...
Mission Name: Bet On Your Life Synopsis: 47 travels to a world-famous high roller Casino Hotel in China to eliminate 3 key members of an international human trafficking ring and disrupt operations permanently. One of the targets is the Casino Owner himself. The other two key members are visiting the Casino to conduct business, but will certainly be partaking in their fair share of pleasure as well. Targets:Bao Jiang, owner of the Jiang Dynasty Casino and one of the 3 pillars of the international trafficking ring, an extremely professional and paranoid man who surrounds himself with a well trained security staff at all times. Keith Morrow, operating out of Detroit, Michigan, United States - a compulsive gambler with a penchant for fits of rage when faced with a loss, even of the minor sort. Angel Lopez, operating out of Cancun and heavily into gambling on illegitimate fighting competitions which are usually fixed in his favor. Key Opportunities: Angel Lopez- An illegitimate street-fight will be taking place in one of the sub levels of the Casino and Angel will be sure to be putting a large sum of money on a particular fighter - but 47 uncovers information which suggests that Angel plans on rigging the fight, as he has apparently done many times in the past, by doping the opponent. 47 can intercept the drug and instead dope the fighter that Angel has bet on, causing Angel to lose his money. 47 can also steal the payment briefcase that was taken as collateral (in order to be allowed to bet) with a similar case full of forged bills, so when the fight runner goes to count Angel's bet and sees the money is gone, he'll no doubt have Angel disposed of on account of fraud. Keith Morrow- 47 learns that the ill-tempered Keith Morrow will be sticking to his favorite game - Texas Hold 'Em. While Keith is a skilled Poker player, he's no match for Agent 47's ability to count cards. 47 can disguise himself as one of the other players in the Poker game and give Keith a literal run for his money. When Keith loses the game, he will become so angry that he will decide to personally murder 47 to get his money back. 47 can use this opportunity to lure Keith into his own demise. Bao Jiang- Not much will get Bao to leave his well secured office penthouse - not even a building evacuation. Bao has several plans in place in the event of an evacuation - his safe room, in the event of a hostile attack, his escape helicopter, or the express elevator to the basement parking garage. 47 can sabotage one of these 3 escape plans and then trigger an evacuation (fire alarm, shooting, etc) to determine which route Bao will take. He drop a radio/satellite antenna (by shooting the mount) onto the helicopter as it prepares to take off (nod to Max Payne), defeat the safety brake system on the elevator and break the cable as it descends, or put a bomb in the armored vehicle. Expose the Operation- Although the 3 key players in the trafficking ring will be dead, the operation needs to be exposed to the world so that federal law enforcement agencies and sweep up what remains. This may seem at odds with the notion of covertly eliminating these 3 men, but it's an unwritten agreement that when the ICA gets involved in matters such as these, federal agencies tend to look past the details of their deaths. 47 will need to enter the highly secured server room and install an ICA provided WiFi uplink to connect Jiang's secure server to the internet and trigger a mass upload of its contents. Once the data is out there on the internet, it will be there for forever. Killing all 3- Exposing the Operation will send the targets into a panic situation. They will likely attempt to meet and figure out a plan, but Jiang's paranoia will cause him to distrust the other two and the meeting will surely be highly volatile. 47 can push Jiang over the edge by planting evidence on Angel and Keith, causing Jiang to other them both to be killed. Of course, Keith and Angel's personal body guards will return fire. If 47 is in the right place at the right time, as the bullets are flying, he can deliver a fatal dose of lead to Jiang himself and slip out undetected in the chaos- otherwise he will still have to eliminate Jiang via one of his escape routes. Of course, all 3 targets can be eliminated using more traditional methods, but, especially in the case of Bao Jiang, it may not be as easy to get them alone as other targets have been in the past. Mission-Specific Items:ICA Uplink - This device, when plugged into any computer, will establish a connection to the nearest WiFi network and bypass any security. This is intended to bring offline systems online, giving the ICA- or anyone else, for that matter- access to data stored on closed-networks. Poker Invitation - Not just anybody can sit down at a high stakes poker table. You need an invitation, and that’s something that can only be obtained through a large down-payment (or by taking it off someone who has one). You don't* need to take their disguise as well, but you can if you want to. Penthouse Keycard - Unlocks doors on the penthouse level. Room 1301 Keycard - Allows access to 47’s reserved room on the 13th floor. 1st, 2nd, 11th, 12, and 13th floor Keycards -Allows access to all doors on their respective floors. Maintenance Keycard - Unlocks all doors in the sub levels, all elevators, all maintenance areas on accessible floors, and rooftop access. Portable Defibrillator - Carried by Casino Medical Staff. Can start-or stop a human heart. 2-Way Rad*io - Carried by most Casino staff. Disguises - Jiang’s Special Security - Unlimited Access to entire Casino and Hotel, but all other Special Security will not be fooled by this disguise - nor will Jiang.* Casino Security - Mostly unlimited access to entire building, with the exception of the Penthouse and sub levels. Maintenance Staff - Allows access to sub levels and maintenance areas as well as all public spaces. Bellhop - Allows access to all public spaces and restricted areas of the casino area. Room Service - Allows access to all public spaces, restricted areas of the casino area, and all guest rooms on all floors - except the penthouse level. Poker Player, - Wears an old fashioned translucent poker visor, polo shirt and khaki pants. Access to all public spaces and room 1337 only. May blend in at any game or table until asked to leave (for not playing). Fight Referee, - Access to sub level fight arena area only. Referees are non-partial parties paid to fly in from various places, so nobody should be familiar with his appearance. Allowed into the locker room pre-fight to inspect fighters lockers. Janitor - Allowed anywhere on the property, but limited access to restricted areas, such as the sub levels or penthouse - must be called up via radio to fix a problem and be allowed access. Casino Enforcer - Jiang's junkyard dogs assigned to extract payment (or sacrifice) from delinquent gamblers. Casino Fire Crew - The Casino has its own fire crew to respond to fires while waiting for the fire department to arrive. Stealing a fire crew disguise and then causing a small fire might allow an opportunity to get behind the scenes. Casino Medic - The Casino has its own medical staff to treat injuries or medical emergencies while EMT's are en route. Agnolo D’Alvade - A VIP of the hotel and close personal friend of Bao Jiang. Allowed unlimited access to the entire building. Just don't get too close to Jiang or his Special Security Team, or other key members of Casino staff. Sheikh Zanzib*ar - A frequent high roller VIP guest of the Casino given Lower Penthouse Accomodations (Penthouse level just below the top Penthouse/Jiang's Penthouse). Has a master key for all floors except the top Penthouse and sub levels. Assassination OpportunitiesFight and Flight - Rig the fight so Angel Lopez loses his bet, and swap his bet money with counterfeit bills to put him in the crosshairs of Casino enforcers. Kill him as he flees or let the enforcers do your dirty work. A Long Drop and a Sudden Stop* - Arrange events so that Bao Jiang attempts to escape via Express Elevator, and cause the Elevator to crash down.* Texas Fold 'Em - Beat Keith Morrow at the Poker Match and lure him into seclusion, then kill him. Payneful Turbulence - Cause Jiang's escape chopper to crash. Shock to the Heart - Sedate Keith Morrow and respond as Medical Crew to kill him with the Defibrillator. Fire! - Start a fire to trigger the automated evacuation and kill Jiang as he flees. Unsafe Ro*om - Trigger a lockdown and kill Jiang inside his safe room.
Next...
Mission Name: Enemies Within Note: I'm not a Hitman Lore expert so please forgive any inaccuracies. Without knowing how the Providence story line will shake out, let's just say it happens that Soders wasn't the only person within the ICA who was on Providence's payroll, and over time it becomes apparent to Diana that there are sleepers still working within the ICA, laying low since Soders' death and apparently waiting for the right opportunity to resume operations. This will turn out to be 47's most difficult mission yet, as not only is he tasked with infiltrating a highly secured building full of people that know what he looks like, but one that also contains a number of expert agents who not only know Agent 47's common methods, but are specifically trained in them. 47 has 6 targets to eliminate among the various divisions of the ICA HQ. Soders' Former Assistant- Not trained in field work in any way but has a dangerous amount of knowledge regarding 47's operations. While Soders was out on medical leave, the Assistant has been at the helm handling Soders' official ICA dealings, as well as his secret, illegitimate involvement with Providence. Since Soders' death, his Assistant has been at work secretly covering his own tracks, attempting to clear himself of any connection to Providence at all. Head of ICA Research & Development- With Soders on their Payroll, Providence has been making use of the ICA's extremely advanced R&D department to provide special equipment to key players across the glove. Under the table, of course. The Head of the R&D department is willfully complicit, and she must be eliminated. Field Operative Trainer- Among the wide ranging efforts of Providence to utilize the ICA for their own nefarious deeds, the Agent who trains new ICA Operatives is a direct plant of Providence, replacing the former trainer after a freak accident left him physically disabled. The new Field Operative Trainer has been tasked specifically with training the new operatives to subvert the methods used by the ICA's top operative - Agent 47, since Agent 47 is a wildcard that Providence is unable to compromise. The new operatives are being trained, ultimately, to beat 47 at his own game, and take him out of the picture once and for all. ICA Trainee 1- See Below ICA Trainee 2- Top level recruits being trained in the methods of Agent 47 with the ultimate goal of defeating him. Defeating this recruit will be difficult, as they will be more aware of 47's movements and traps. It would be wise to target the Trainees first and foremost, because even if 47 is able to eliminate the other targets in accidents, these Trainees will surely pick up on the strange circumstances of multiple accidental deaths within a short time span. Gamma Agent- The Gamma Agent is the ICA's top agent under 47, who has been trained and groomed to know 47's methods inside and out. Defeating her will be 47's greatest challenge of his career, as she will not only be wary of disguises, traps, or outright assaults - but will be actively utilizing these same methods to eliminate 47. 47 will need to be careful not to find himself falling victim to his very own methods, and will need to watch out for suspicious behaviors, objects that appear out of place, suspiciously vacant areas, hidden, unclothed bodies, and other telltale signs that an Agent utilizing 47's own tricks of the trade is possibly nearby. Unique Items The Research and Development Division will have a number of experimental gadgets and items that 47 may find useful. Note: These items can be unlocked through mastery of this final mission. The idea behind these particularly crazy items being unlocked in the FINAL mission is to not break the entire game prior to this mission, but to allow players to have fun screwing around and experimenting with these items after they've beaten the game. Hallucinogenic Poison- In Syringe and Vial form, this Hallucinogenic Drug is the same experimental drug used by Ezra Berg. Neither he nor the ICA were able to get the formula down perfectly, however the most recent sample in possession of the R&D department has shown the most consistent results. Research notes suggest that the subject's initial mental state tends to play the biggest role regarding what effect the drug has on them. A calm person may simply be put into a relatively sedate condition, becoming less aware of their surroundings. A paranoid person may see their fears become manifested in the form of hallucinations, an aggressive person may become unpredictably volatile (security guards may attack people nearby, regular civilians will just become lethargic, certain key characters will have unique responses) Remote EMP Device- A small yet highly conspicuous disposable EMP device activated via remote. Although useful in certain situations, the overall effectiveness of this device was not seen as important enough to warrant mass production. This device can be used to discreetly disrupt any electronics within a 10ft radius. This can be used as a distraction, to erase hard drives, shut down cameras, and more. "EMP" Rubber Duck- A blue rubber ducky originally designed as a discreet EMP device, but faulty design has barred it from authorization for field use. The requirement of a high powered battery yielded many obstacles in its design and ultimately resulted in this failure of a device which, despite its supposedly water-proof housing, became a lethal electrocution device whenever it came into contact with water due to the rapidly overheating battery burning through the rubber housing within seconds of being activated. May be useful for other purposes, however. ICA Smart Rifle- Deemed unsuitable for field use despite being an overall well-functioning device, this Smart Rifle is designed to be fired remotely. The Rifle is build into a fairly bulky case that. The case transforms into a mount/stand for the rifle. When the Rifle is armed, it awaits a signal from the Transmitter - a small, button-sized device upon which the Rifle will focus automatically. The user would plant the Transmitter onto a target - for example, on a human, the transmitter would be stuck to their back between their shoulder blades - and when the LED on the remote turns green, the rifle has acquired a direct line of sight to the target, and may be fired. The Smart Rifle was ultimately deemed impractical and unsuitable for field use due to the cost of production outweighing its overall usefulness - a manually fired sniper rifle would be just as effective, without requiring the shooter to return and take down the rifle after the shot has been fired. The Transmitter is discreet enough that it can be discreetly placed on a target even in the middle of a crowd. 47 will gently place his hand on the target's back as if accidentally bumping into them. ICA Remote Explosive Decoy Gun- A dummy pistol modeled after the Bartoli 75R. Except under extreme scrutiny, appears to be an ordinary pistol, but in reality there is an integrated explosive charge that can be activated remotely or by pulling the trigger. This device was deemed unfit for field usage after a number of reported incidents involving Agents getting it mixed up with the real Bartoli 75R service weapon. This could be used similarly to the remote explosive duck, or in certain cases, by swapping an individual's own sidearm with the decoy and allowing them to blow themselves up. Opportunities The Assistant- Sabotage with Hallucinogenic Poison and he will succumb to his paranoia and commit suicide by jumping from the window. Swap Soder's "desk gun" with the Explosive Decoy Gun and watch him blow himself up when he attempts to shoot 47. The R&D Head- Plant a transmitter on her, then activate the 3 dormant Smart Rifles on display in her office, and place a call to the phone on her desk. Use the EMP device to wipe her security badge data when she enters the armory. When the system recognizes a human occupant with no badge, it will trigger the automatic lock down protocol and release non-lethal knock-out gas, which of course you've already sabotaged by switching the feed line to nearby propane tanks, which will inevitably cause a massive deadly fireball when she fires her pistol trying to shoot out the glass to escape the room. (will have to work on some ideas for the other targets)
Bonus Mission...
Mission Name: House of the Devil House of the Devil is an amalgamation of the Blood Money levels A House of Cards and Dance with the Devil, intended as a standalone bonus/DLC mission. Map Design - The Shamal Hotel featured in A House of Cards will be the main structure of the map, but will now also include the parking garage, sub-basement, and top floor penthouse as seen in the Shark Club building in* A Dance with the Devi*l. The front entrance to The Shamal will remain mostly the same, albeit with the modern Hitman flair - more NPC's, more details, more freedom. It will be expanded and redesigned to look more elegant and classy. Around the side of the building is the entrance to the parking garage. This will look similar to the parking garage entrance in the Blood Money version, and the layout will be mostly the same, however the first floor lobby and security desk will not be included. The sub-basement features the Hell party, a masquerade type party with a demonic theme. The penthouse suite on the top floor features the Heaven party. The main floor of the building features a casino and a middle-eastern themed restaurant, just as its Blood Money counterpart did, except the casino is on the same level as the lobby instead of down a flight of stairs. the sub-basement, parking garage, lobby, floor 7, floor 8, and the penthouse are all accessible via elevator. The Story - There are 5 targets in this mission. Anthony Martinez, Vaana Ketlyn, Henrik Schmutz, The Sheikh, and Tariq Abdul Lateef. Schmutz was a former Ether employee and stole vital DNA samples and research. He intends to sell this research to Ether's number one competitor - APEX International. APEX's CEO, The Sheikh, will be arriving in person to field the purchase of Schmutz's stolen DNA samples and research. The Sheikh's head scientist, Tariq Abdul Lateef, will also be present to inspect the samples and research prior to handing over the payment. The three are expected to meet at some point this evening at the Shamal Hotel, but there is a complication. Anthony Martinez, a corrupt CIA agent working multiple angles for his own financial gain, is attending a masquerade party at the Shamal as cover - he plans to hijack the DNA research, and well as the payment, and sell it on the international black market. In order to accomplish this, he has enlisted the help of Vaana Ketlyn, a major player in global black trade, who will help him fence the research in exchange for half The Sheikh's intended payment. The two have a history together of mixing business with pleasure. Our client is a third party who wants the DNA research recovered and destroyed before it falls into the wrong hands. What you do with The Sheikh's payment is entirely up to you. The client also wants The Shiekh, Lateef and Schmutz eliminated, which will deliver a major blow to unethical DNA The Mission - Apart from the inclusion of two extra characters and a number of new opportunities, the House of Cards portion of the mission will play out largely the same. The Sheikh, Schmutz and Lateef will play out very similar routines, with a few modifications to fit with the updated game play of the new title. Martinez will at some meet with Ketlyn in the sub-basement to discuss plans on how to acquire the research and money. Opportunities The Jaws of Defeat - Vaana Ketlyn has spared no expense with her Heaven and Hell themed raves, but the real spectacle is the live shark swimming around in the water tanks surrounding the dance floor in the sub-basement. As a former world-renowned circus performer, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for Ketlyn to perform a death-defying stunt. Perhaps there is an opportunity to up the stakes? - Vaana will perform a stunt routine involving the Shark. Rig the safety equipment to cause her to fall into the shark tank and be devoured. Her opioid-impaired party goers may very well think it's all part of the show. A Dance with the Devil - Anthony Martinez and Vaana Ketlyn have a decade-long history of business relationships, with plenty of pleasure mixed in. Apparently, it has been two years since they last saw each other in person, and judging by their recent phone calls, their reunion may be an emotional moment. Nevertheless, they are both professionals and will likely focus on the job at hand... unless they can be persuaded. Catching them in the moment might be a good opportunity to eliminate them both at once. Spike Martinez's drink with an aphrodisiac, and send flowers to Ketlyn. During their meeting, set the sound system to play a slow romantic song. They will issue security staff to clear the dance floor for a private dance. Dispose of them in any way you see fit (dropping the lighting rig is one option). Poor Reception - The Sheikh has been complaining that his phone calls are being dropped due to poor reception inside the building, and that he is tired of walking outside to take calls. This may be a chance to get him right where you want him.Acquire and use Lateef's cell phone to call The Sheikh, and kill him when he goes outside to take the call. You can carry the cell phone with you and call him from anywhere, but if you prefer remaining true to the original, you can snipe him from Lateef's hotel room. Room Service - Lateef will need to thoroughly examine the DNA samples and research that Schmutz plans to sell to The Sheikh, but since The Sheikh insists that he and Lateef are not seen together, Schmutz will visit Lateef in Lateef's hotel room with the briefcase, but they apparently have never met and do not know what each other looks like. Posing as Room Service may give you an opportunity to slip into the room ahead of their meeting and prepare for Schmutz's arrival. Getting a Room Service disguise and an 8th floor Master Keycard will grant you access to Lateef's room. Lateef will insist that he did not call for room service, but 47 will make up some excuse about expired dairy product in the mini-fridge and needing to check the expiration dates. From there, you can either distract Lateef so you can hide in the room, or kill him and take his disguise. Eventually, Schmutz will show up and you can either examine the briefcase and let him go, examine the briefcase and discreetly plant a remote bomb and then let him go, examine the briefcase, stand up and kill him right there, or jump him the moment he walks in the door.. among any other number of things. No Deal - The Sheikh is not a trusting man, and does not completely buy into Schmutz's claim that he has betrayed Ether by stealing the DNA research. As far as corporate espionage goes, this would be a deadly game for Schmutz to play, were he to double-cross The Sheikh. Schmutz has every intention on following through with the deal - his loyalty is to the highest bidder, and nobody will bid higher than The Sheikh. But, sabotaging the DNA samples and research and allowing the meeting to go through will no doubt cause The Sheikh to have Schmutz eliminated. Sneak into Schmutz's room, ruin the DNA samples (poison) and then allow Schmutz to meet with Lateef. Lateef will appear surprised that the samples are no good, but will pretend like everything is ok. When Schmutz leaves the room, Lateef will call The Sheikh and inform him that Schmutz is lying. The Sheikh will have his guards intercept Schmutz and lead him to an outside area to kill him. You can; kill Lateef after he calls The Sheikh, kill The Sheikh before he walks back inside after taking the phone call (only possible with a sniper rifle), and allow The Sheikh's men to kill Schmutz.
Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner's Legacy, Trump's Masculinity and Feminism's Sex Phobia - by Jeanie Pyun (Hollywood Reporter) 2 Oct 2017
The pro-sex feminist, cultural critic and author tells THR why Hef's art of seduction is needed today and how Gloria Steinem is not a role model for young women. With the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Sept. 27, cultural historian and contrarian feminist Camille Paglia spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive interview on topics ranging from what Hef's choice of the bunny costume revealed about him to the current "dreary" state of relationships between the sexes. Have you ever been to a party at the Playboy Mansion? No, I'm not a partygoer! [laughs] So let me just ask: Was Hugh Hefner a misogynist? Absolutely not! The central theme of my wing of pro-sex feminism is that all celebrations of the sexual human body are positive. Second-wave feminism went off the rails when it was totally unable to deal with erotic imagery, which has been a central feature of the entire history of Western art ever since Greek nudes. So let’s dig in a little — what would you say was Playboy’s cultural impact? Hugh Hefner absolutely revolutionized the persona of the American male. In the post World War II era, men's magazines were about hunting and fishing or the military, or they were like Esquire, erotic magazines with a kind of European flair. Hefner re-imagined the American male as a connoisseur in the continental manner, a man who enjoyed all the fine pleasures of life, including sex. Hefner brilliantly put sex into a continuum of appreciative response to jazz, to art, to ideas, to fine food. This was something brand new. Enjoying fine cuisine had always been considered unmanly in America. Hefner updated and revitalized the image of the British gentleman, a man of leisure who is deft at conversation — in which American men have never distinguished themselves — and with the art of seduction, which was a sport refined by the French. Hefner’s new vision of American masculinity was part of his desperate revision of his own Puritan heritage. On his father's side, he descended directly from William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower and was governor of Plymouth Colony, the major settlement of New England Puritans. But Hefner’s worldview was already dated by the explosion of the psychedelic 1960s. The anything-goes, free-love atmosphere — illustrated by all that hedonistic rolling around in the mud at Woodstock in 1969 — made the suave Hefner style seem old-fashioned and buttoned up. Nevertheless, I have always taken the position that the men's magazines — from the glossiest and most sophisticated to the rawest and raunchiest — represent the brute reality of sexuality. Pornography is not a distortion. It is not a sexist twisting of the facts of life but a kind of peephole into the roiling, primitive animal energies that are at the heart of sexual attraction and desire. What could today's media learn from what Hef did at Playboy? It must be remembered that Hefner was a gifted editor who knew how to produce a magazine that had great visual style and that was a riveting combination of pictorial with print design. Everything about Playboy as a visual object, whether you liked the magazine or not, was lively and often ravishing. In the early 1990s, you said that Hugh Hefner "ushered in a revolution in American sexual consciousness. Some say that the women in Playboy come across as commodities, like a stereo, but I think Playboy is more an appreciation of pleasure of all kinds." What would you add to his legacy today, if anything? I would hope that people could see the positives in the Playboy sexual landscape — the foregrounding of pleasure and fun and humor. Sex is not a tragedy, it's a comedy! [laughs] What do you think about the fact that Trump's childhood hero and model of sophisticated American masculinity was Hefner? Before the election, I kept pointing out that the mainstream media based in Manhattan, particularly The New York Times, was hopelessly off in the way it was simplistically viewing Trump as a classic troglodyte misogynist. I certainly saw in Trump the entire Playboy aesthetic, including the glitzy world of casinos and beauty pageants. It's a long passé world of confident male privilege that preceded the birth of second-wave feminism. There is no doubt that Trump strongly identified with it as he was growing up. It seems to be truly his worldview. But it is categorically not a world of unwilling women. Nor is it driven by masculine abuse. It's a world of show girls, of flamboyant femaleness, a certain kind of strutting style that has its own intoxicating sexual allure — which most young people attending elite colleges today have had no contact with whatever. I instantly recognized and understood it in Trump because I had always been an admirer of Hefner's sexual cosmos. I can certainly see how retrograde and nostalgic it is, but at the same time I maintain that even in the photos that The New York Times posted in trying to convict Trump of sexism, you can feel leaping from these pictures the intense sizzle of sexual polarization — in that long-ago time when men were men and women were women! My 1960s generation was the gender-bending generation — we were all about blending the genders in fashion and attitude. But it has to be said that in terms of world history, the taste for and interest in androgyny is usually relatively brief. And it comes at late and decadent phases of culture! [laughs] World civilizations predictably return again and again to sexual polarization, where there is a tremendous electric charge between men and women. The unhappy truth is that the more the sexes have blended, the less each sex is interested in the other. So we’re now in a period of sexual boredom and inertia, complaint and dissatisfaction, which is one of the main reasons young men have gone over to pornography. Porn has become a necessary escape by the sexual imagination from the banality of our everyday lives, where the sexes are now routinely mixed in the workplace. With the sexes so bored with each other, all that's left are these feminist witch-hunts. That's where the energy is! And meanwhile, men are shrinking. I see men turning away from women and simply being content with the world of fantasy because women have become too thin-skinned, resentful and high maintenance. And American women don't know what they want any longer. In general, French women — the educated, middle-class French women, I mean — seem to have a feminine composure, a distinct sense of themselves as women, which I think women in America have gradually lost as they have won job equality in our high-pressure career system. Trump has certainly steadily hired and promoted women in his businesses, but it has to be said that his vision of women as erotic beings remains rather retrograde. Part of his nationwide support seems to be coming from his bold defense of his own maleness. Many mainstream voters are gratified by his reassertion of male pride and confidence. Trump supporters may be quite right that, in this period of confusion and uncertainty, male identity needs to be reaffirmed and reconsolidated. (And I’m speaking here as a Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein!) Ultimately every culture seems to return to sexual polarization because it may be in the best interest of human beings, whether we like it or not. Nature drives every species to procreate, although not necessarily when there's overpopulation! Gloria Steinem has said that what Playboy doesn't know about women could fill a book. What do you think about that? What Playboy doesn't know about well-educated, upper-middle-class women with bitter grievances against men could fill a book! I don't regard Gloria Steinem as an expert on any of the human appetites, sexuality being only one of them. Interviews with Steinem were documenting from the start how her refrigerator contained nothing but two bottles of carbonated water. Steinem's philosophy of life is extremely limited by her own childhood experiences. She came out of an admittedly unstable family background. I’m so tired of that animus of hers against men, which she’s been cranking out now for decade after decade. I come from a completely different Italian-American background — very food-centric and appetite-centric. Steinem, with that fulsomely genteel WASP persona of hers, represents an attitude of malice and vindictiveness toward men that has not proved to be in the best interest of young women today. So would you say that her other comment — that women reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual — is just an expression of her animus toward men? Oh Lord, how many times is Gloria Steinem going to play the Nazi card? What she said about me in the 1990s was: "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying he’s not anti-Semitic.” That’s the simplistic level of Steinem's thinking! Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, all of those relentlessly ideological feminists are people who have wandered away from traditional religion and made a certain rabid type of feminist rhetoric their religion. And their fanaticism has poisoned the public image of feminism and driven ordinary, mainstream citizens away from feminism. It’s outrageous. I hugely admired the early role that Steinem played in second-wave feminism because she was very good as a spokesperson in the 1970s. She had a very soothing manner that made it seem perfectly reasonable for people to adopt feminist principles. She normalized the image of feminism when there were a lot of crazy feminists running around (like Valerie Solanas, who shot Andy Warhol). That was Steinem’s great contribution, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I credit her for co-founding Ms. magazine and thereby contributing that very useful word, Ms., to the English language, which allows us to refer to a woman without signaling her marital status. I think that's a tremendous accomplishment. But aside from that, Steinem is basically a socialite who always hid her early dependence on men in the social scene in New York. And as a Democrat, I also blame her for having turned feminism into a covert adjunct of the Democratic party. I have always felt that feminism should transcend party politics and be a big tent welcoming women of faith and of all views into it. Also, I hold against Steinem her utter, shameless hypocrisy during the Bill Clinton scandal. After promoting sexual harassment guidelines, which I had also supported since the 1980s, Steinem waved away one of the worst cases of sexual harassment violation that can ever be imagined — the gigantic gap of power between the President of the United States and an intern! All of a sudden, oh, no, it was all fine, it was “private.” What rubbish! That hypocrisy by partisan feminist leaders really destroyed feminism for a long time. So now feminism has rebounded, but unfortunately it's a particularly virulent brand of feminism that’s way too reminiscent of the MacKinnon-Dworkin sex hysteria of the 1980s. Is there anything of lasting value in Hugh Hefner’s legacy? We can see that what has completely vanished is what Hefner espoused and represented — the art of seduction, where a man, behaving in a courtly, polite and respectful manner, pursues a woman and gives her the time and the grace and the space to make a decision of consent or not. Hefner’s passing makes one remember an era when a man would ask a woman on a real date — inviting her to his apartment for some great music on a cutting-edge stereo system (Playboy was always talking about the best new electronics!) — and treating her to fine cocktails and a wonderful, relaxing time. Sex would emerge out of conversation and flirtation as a pleasurable mutual experience. So now when we look back at Hefner, we see a moment when there was a fleeting vision of a sophisticated sexuality that was integrated with all of our other aesthetic and sensory responses. Instead, what we have today, after Playboy declined and finally disappeared off the cultural map, is the coarse, juvenile anarchy of college binge drinking, fraternity keg parties where undeveloped adolescent boys clumsily lunge toward naive girls who are barely dressed in tiny mini skirts and don't know what the hell they want from life. What possible romance or intrigue or sexual mystique could survive such a vulgar and debased environment as today's residential campus social life? Do men need a kind of Hefner for today to give an example of how to interact with women in a sophisticated manner? Yes. Women's sexual responses are notoriously slower than men's. Truly sophisticated seducers knew that women have to be courted and that women love an ambiance, setting a stage. Today, alas, too many young women feel they have to provide quick sex or they’ll lose social status. If a guy can't get sex from them, he'll get it from someone else. There’s a general bleak atmosphere of grudging compliance. Today’s hook-up culture, which is the ultimate product of my generation’s sexual revolution, seems markedly disillusioning in how it has reduced sex to male needs, to the general male desire for wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am efficiency, with no commitment afterwards. We're in a period of great sexual confusion and rancor right now. The sexes are very wary of each other. There’s no pressure on men to marry because they can get sex very easily in other ways. The sizzle of sex seems gone. What Hefner's death forces us to recognize is that there is very little glamour and certainly no mystery or intrigue left to sex for most young people. Which means young women do not know how to become women. And sex has become just another physical urge that can be satisfied like putting coins into a Coke machine. This may be one reason for the ferocious pressure by so many current feminists to reinforce the Stalinist mechanisms, the pernicious PC rules that have invaded colleges everywhere. Feminists want supervision and surveillance of dating life on campus to punish men if something goes wrong and the girl doesn't like what happened. I am very concerned that what young women are saying through this strident feminist rhetoric is that they feel incapable of conducting independent sex lives. They require adult intrusion and supervision and penalizing of men who go astray. But if feminism means anything, it should be encouraging young women to take control of every aspect of their sex lives, including their own impulses, conflicts and disappointments. That's what's tragic about all this. Young women don't seem to realize that in demanding adult inquiry into and adjudication of their sex lives, they are forfeiting their own freedom and agency. Young women are being taught that men have all the power and have used it throughout history to oppress women. Women don't seem to realize how much power they have to crush men! Strong women have always known how to control men. Oscar Wilde said women are complex and men are simple. Is it society or is it nature that is unjust? This was the big question that I proposed in Sexual Personae, where I argued that our biggest oppressor is actually nature, not society. I continue to feel that my pro-sex wing of feminism, which does not see sexual imagery or men in general as the enemy, has the best and healthiest message for young women. There is a big push/pull happening in the entertainment industry about female voices and representation around directors in Hollywood. Surely there's nothing wrong with that, right, in your opinion? All this constant complaining by women in Hollywood, I really don't understand it. I’m disturbed by women acting as if the world owes them opportunities, when there are so many hugely rich women stars in movies and music who should be using their millions to fund the creation of production companies precisely for the kind of hiring that they want. All those wealthy performers with their multiple houses — how about selling one of them? And let them do whatever feminist projects they want and see if they can sell it to the general public. Look at the way you had George Lucas and Steven Spielberg coming together when they had nothing — they were just young men with a dream, with a vision, and they made an enormously successful series of films with global impact. Look at how many young male billionaires dropped out of college, and you got the Apple computer and Facebook. I blame women for their own lack of imagination. There was a period when there were so many really unique and memorable films by women. Lisa Cholodenko's High Art is an example. That’s an amazing film. And what about Donna Deitch's Desert Hearts? A knock-out film with vivid characters and a wonderful sense of place. But I know how difficult it is to get the funding for films. It can be like a five-year process, and it saps people’s creative energies. And it's kind of a double whammy — when women are able to produce movies that bring in big bucks on the international stage, that’s when woman directors will get more chances. But women can certainly cut their teeth by making really important, low-budget films. I want to see them! Show us. Show us the quality of your mind and your work, okay? At a certain point, it’s counterproductive when you're claiming that someone else always has to open doors for you. You have discussed the issue of imagery — what are your thoughts about the Playboy bunny costume? Feminists of that period were irate about it — they felt that it reduced women to animals. It is true it’s animal imagery, but a bunny is a child's toy, for heaven's sake! I think you could criticize the bunny image that Hefner created by saying it makes a woman juvenile and infantilizes her. But the type of animal here is a kind of key to Hefner's sensibility because a bunny is utterly harmless. Multiplying like bunnies: Hefner was making a strange kind of joke about the entire procreative process. It seems to me like a defense formation — Hefner turning his Puritan guilts into humor. It suggests that, despite his bland smile, he may always have suffered from a deep anxiety about sex. There are all kinds of complex currents in men’s relationship to women that feminism refuses to acknowledge. The main one is men’s often very unstable or ambivalent relationship with their mothers. That's what I see in Hefner's notorious lifestyle in the Playboy Mansion, where he stayed and worked in his bedroom all day long, dressed in pajamas and a robe. It's a blatant regression to the womb world exactly as Elvis Presley evidently desired. Elvis’s wife Priscilla complained that all he wanted to do was stay in his bedroom all day long in the dark, watching TV and having hamburgers brought in. There was a strange kind of craving there for maternal nurturance. I think feminism is wildly wrong when it portrays men as the oppressor, when in fact men, as I have argued in my books, are always struggling for identity against the enormous power of women. Hefner created his own universe of sexuality, where there was nothing threatening. It’s a kind of childlike vision, sanitizing all the complexities and potential darkness of the sexual impulse. Everybody knows that Hefner’s sexual type was the girl next door, in other words, the corn-fed, bubbly American girl who stays at the borderline of womanhood but never crosses it. The limitations in Hefner's erotic system can be seen when one compares Playboy to the other great magazine that it inspired, Penthouse: Its U.S. editor, Bob Guccione, was then married to a very stylish British woman, Kathy Keeton, who gave her particular cosmopolitan perspective to Penthouse. It projected an adult vision of sexuality in a highly sophisticated urban environment — people flirting in limousines, glamorous women who were as free and dominant as a man about town. When we look back at Hefner's girl next door, we see that she's kind of like a high-school cheerleader or the ingenue in a postwar musical comedy like Oklahoma. Hefner was a Midwesterner who took a very long time to change his residence from Chicago to Los Angeles, where he was suddenly moving in the fastest currents of American culture. Hefner’s women may have been uncomplex as personalities, but they were always warm and genuine. I never found them particularly erotic. I much preferred the Penthouse style of women, who were more femme fatales. Hefner’s bunnies were a major departure from female mythology, where women were often portrayed as animals of prey — tigresses and leopards. Woman as cozy, cuddly bunny is a perfectly legitimate modality of eroticism. Hefner was good-natured but rather abashed, diffident, and shy. So he recreated the image of women in palatable and manageable form. I don’t see anything misogynist in that. What I see is a frank acknowledgment of Hefner’s fear of women’s actual power. For ideological feminists to go on and on about how we cannot have women treated as sex objects is so naive, so uncultured. It shows a total incomprehension of the history of art, which flows into the great Hollywood movies and sex symbols of the 20th century. The whole history of art is about objectification. That's what an art work is: it's an artifact, an object. Because of our advanced brains, it is the nature of human beings to make sex objects — objects of worship. Turning a person into a beautiful thing does not automatically dehumanize her. All you have to do is look at the long history of the gay male world, beginning in classical Athens. No gay man has ever said when gazing at a beautiful young man with a perfect body, “I am making him passive beneath my gaze.” That would be stupid beyond belief. Every gay man knows that youth and beauty are supreme principles that deserve our admiration and veneration. When we worship beauty, we are worshipping life itself. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-hugh-hefners-legacy-trumps-masculinity-feminisms-sex-phobia-1044769
Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner's Legacy, Trump's Masculinity and Feminism's Sex Phobia - by Jeanie Pyun (Hollywood Reporter) 2 Oct 2017
The pro-sex feminist, cultural critic and author tells THR why Hef's art of seduction is needed today and how Gloria Steinem is not a role model for young women. With the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Sept. 27, cultural historian and contrarian feminist Camille Paglia spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive interview on topics ranging from what Hef's choice of the bunny costume revealed about him to the current "dreary" state of relationships between the sexes. Have you ever been to a party at the Playboy Mansion? No, I'm not a partygoer! [laughs] So let me just ask: Was Hugh Hefner a misogynist? Absolutely not! The central theme of my wing of pro-sex feminism is that all celebrations of the sexual human body are positive. Second-wave feminism went off the rails when it was totally unable to deal with erotic imagery, which has been a central feature of the entire history of Western art ever since Greek nudes. So let’s dig in a little — what would you say was Playboy’s cultural impact? Hugh Hefner absolutely revolutionized the persona of the American male. In the post World War II era, men's magazines were about hunting and fishing or the military, or they were like Esquire, erotic magazines with a kind of European flair. Hefner re-imagined the American male as a connoisseur in the continental manner, a man who enjoyed all the fine pleasures of life, including sex. Hefner brilliantly put sex into a continuum of appreciative response to jazz, to art, to ideas, to fine food. This was something brand new. Enjoying fine cuisine had always been considered unmanly in America. Hefner updated and revitalized the image of the British gentleman, a man of leisure who is deft at conversation — in which American men have never distinguished themselves — and with the art of seduction, which was a sport refined by the French. Hefner’s new vision of American masculinity was part of his desperate revision of his own Puritan heritage. On his father's side, he descended directly from William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower and was governor of Plymouth Colony, the major settlement of New England Puritans. But Hefner’s worldview was already dated by the explosion of the psychedelic 1960s. The anything-goes, free-love atmosphere — illustrated by all that hedonistic rolling around in the mud at Woodstock in 1969 — made the suave Hefner style seem old-fashioned and buttoned up. Nevertheless, I have always taken the position that the men's magazines — from the glossiest and most sophisticated to the rawest and raunchiest — represent the brute reality of sexuality. Pornography is not a distortion. It is not a sexist twisting of the facts of life but a kind of peephole into the roiling, primitive animal energies that are at the heart of sexual attraction and desire. What could today's media learn from what Hef did at Playboy? It must be remembered that Hefner was a gifted editor who knew how to produce a magazine that had great visual style and that was a riveting combination of pictorial with print design. Everything about Playboy as a visual object, whether you liked the magazine or not, was lively and often ravishing. In the early 1990s, you said that Hugh Hefner "ushered in a revolution in American sexual consciousness. Some say that the women in Playboy come across as commodities, like a stereo, but I think Playboy is more an appreciation of pleasure of all kinds." What would you add to his legacy today, if anything? I would hope that people could see the positives in the Playboy sexual landscape — the foregrounding of pleasure and fun and humor. Sex is not a tragedy, it's a comedy! [laughs] What do you think about the fact that Trump's childhood hero and model of sophisticated American masculinity was Hefner? Before the election, I kept pointing out that the mainstream media based in Manhattan, particularly The New York Times, was hopelessly off in the way it was simplistically viewing Trump as a classic troglodyte misogynist. I certainly saw in Trump the entire Playboy aesthetic, including the glitzy world of casinos and beauty pageants. It's a long passé world of confident male privilege that preceded the birth of second-wave feminism. There is no doubt that Trump strongly identified with it as he was growing up. It seems to be truly his worldview. But it is categorically not a world of unwilling women. Nor is it driven by masculine abuse. It's a world of show girls, of flamboyant femaleness, a certain kind of strutting style that has its own intoxicating sexual allure — which most young people attending elite colleges today have had no contact with whatever. I instantly recognized and understood it in Trump because I had always been an admirer of Hefner's sexual cosmos. I can certainly see how retrograde and nostalgic it is, but at the same time I maintain that even in the photos that The New York Times posted in trying to convict Trump of sexism, you can feel leaping from these pictures the intense sizzle of sexual polarization — in that long-ago time when men were men and women were women! My 1960s generation was the gender-bending generation — we were all about blending the genders in fashion and attitude. But it has to be said that in terms of world history, the taste for and interest in androgyny is usually relatively brief. And it comes at late and decadent phases of culture! [laughs] World civilizations predictably return again and again to sexual polarization, where there is a tremendous electric charge between men and women. The unhappy truth is that the more the sexes have blended, the less each sex is interested in the other. So we’re now in a period of sexual boredom and inertia, complaint and dissatisfaction, which is one of the main reasons young men have gone over to pornography. Porn has become a necessary escape by the sexual imagination from the banality of our everyday lives, where the sexes are now routinely mixed in the workplace. With the sexes so bored with each other, all that's left are these feminist witch-hunts. That's where the energy is! And meanwhile, men are shrinking. I see men turning away from women and simply being content with the world of fantasy because women have become too thin-skinned, resentful and high maintenance. And American women don't know what they want any longer. In general, French women — the educated, middle-class French women, I mean — seem to have a feminine composure, a distinct sense of themselves as women, which I think women in America have gradually lost as they have won job equality in our high-pressure career system. Trump has certainly steadily hired and promoted women in his businesses, but it has to be said that his vision of women as erotic beings remains rather retrograde. Part of his nationwide support seems to be coming from his bold defense of his own maleness. Many mainstream voters are gratified by his reassertion of male pride and confidence. Trump supporters may be quite right that, in this period of confusion and uncertainty, male identity needs to be reaffirmed and reconsolidated. (And I’m speaking here as a Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein!) Ultimately every culture seems to return to sexual polarization because it may be in the best interest of human beings, whether we like it or not. Nature drives every species to procreate, although not necessarily when there's overpopulation! Gloria Steinem has said that what Playboy doesn't know about women could fill a book. What do you think about that? What Playboy doesn't know about well-educated, upper-middle-class women with bitter grievances against men could fill a book! I don't regard Gloria Steinem as an expert on any of the human appetites, sexuality being only one of them. Interviews with Steinem were documenting from the start how her refrigerator contained nothing but two bottles of carbonated water. Steinem's philosophy of life is extremely limited by her own childhood experiences. She came out of an admittedly unstable family background. I’m so tired of that animus of hers against men, which she’s been cranking out now for decade after decade. I come from a completely different Italian-American background — very food-centric and appetite-centric. Steinem, with that fulsomely genteel WASP persona of hers, represents an attitude of malice and vindictiveness toward men that has not proved to be in the best interest of young women today. So would you say that her other comment — that women reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual — is just an expression of her animus toward men? Oh Lord, how many times is Gloria Steinem going to play the Nazi card? What she said about me in the 1990s was: "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying he’s not anti-Semitic.” That’s the simplistic level of Steinem's thinking! Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, all of those relentlessly ideological feminists are people who have wandered away from traditional religion and made a certain rabid type of feminist rhetoric their religion. And their fanaticism has poisoned the public image of feminism and driven ordinary, mainstream citizens away from feminism. It’s outrageous. I hugely admired the early role that Steinem played in second-wave feminism because she was very good as a spokesperson in the 1970s. She had a very soothing manner that made it seem perfectly reasonable for people to adopt feminist principles. She normalized the image of feminism when there were a lot of crazy feminists running around (like Valerie Solanas, who shot Andy Warhol). That was Steinem’s great contribution, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I credit her for co-founding Ms. magazine and thereby contributing that very useful word, Ms., to the English language, which allows us to refer to a woman without signaling her marital status. I think that's a tremendous accomplishment. But aside from that, Steinem is basically a socialite who always hid her early dependence on men in the social scene in New York. And as a Democrat, I also blame her for having turned feminism into a covert adjunct of the Democratic party. I have always felt that feminism should transcend party politics and be a big tent welcoming women of faith and of all views into it. Also, I hold against Steinem her utter, shameless hypocrisy during the Bill Clinton scandal. After promoting sexual harassment guidelines, which I had also supported since the 1980s, Steinem waved away one of the worst cases of sexual harassment violation that can ever be imagined — the gigantic gap of power between the President of the United States and an intern! All of a sudden, oh, no, it was all fine, it was “private.” What rubbish! That hypocrisy by partisan feminist leaders really destroyed feminism for a long time. So now feminism has rebounded, but unfortunately it's a particularly virulent brand of feminism that’s way too reminiscent of the MacKinnon-Dworkin sex hysteria of the 1980s. Is there anything of lasting value in Hugh Hefner’s legacy? We can see that what has completely vanished is what Hefner espoused and represented — the art of seduction, where a man, behaving in a courtly, polite and respectful manner, pursues a woman and gives her the time and the grace and the space to make a decision of consent or not. Hefner’s passing makes one remember an era when a man would ask a woman on a real date — inviting her to his apartment for some great music on a cutting-edge stereo system (Playboy was always talking about the best new electronics!) — and treating her to fine cocktails and a wonderful, relaxing time. Sex would emerge out of conversation and flirtation as a pleasurable mutual experience. So now when we look back at Hefner, we see a moment when there was a fleeting vision of a sophisticated sexuality that was integrated with all of our other aesthetic and sensory responses. Instead, what we have today, after Playboy declined and finally disappeared off the cultural map, is the coarse, juvenile anarchy of college binge drinking, fraternity keg parties where undeveloped adolescent boys clumsily lunge toward naive girls who are barely dressed in tiny mini skirts and don't know what the hell they want from life. What possible romance or intrigue or sexual mystique could survive such a vulgar and debased environment as today's residential campus social life? Do men need a kind of Hefner for today to give an example of how to interact with women in a sophisticated manner? Yes. Women's sexual responses are notoriously slower than men's. Truly sophisticated seducers knew that women have to be courted and that women love an ambiance, setting a stage. Today, alas, too many young women feel they have to provide quick sex or they’ll lose social status. If a guy can't get sex from them, he'll get it from someone else. There’s a general bleak atmosphere of grudging compliance. Today’s hook-up culture, which is the ultimate product of my generation’s sexual revolution, seems markedly disillusioning in how it has reduced sex to male needs, to the general male desire for wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am efficiency, with no commitment afterwards. We're in a period of great sexual confusion and rancor right now. The sexes are very wary of each other. There’s no pressure on men to marry because they can get sex very easily in other ways. The sizzle of sex seems gone. What Hefner's death forces us to recognize is that there is very little glamour and certainly no mystery or intrigue left to sex for most young people. Which means young women do not know how to become women. And sex has become just another physical urge that can be satisfied like putting coins into a Coke machine. This may be one reason for the ferocious pressure by so many current feminists to reinforce the Stalinist mechanisms, the pernicious PC rules that have invaded colleges everywhere. Feminists want supervision and surveillance of dating life on campus to punish men if something goes wrong and the girl doesn't like what happened. I am very concerned that what young women are saying through this strident feminist rhetoric is that they feel incapable of conducting independent sex lives. They require adult intrusion and supervision and penalizing of men who go astray. But if feminism means anything, it should be encouraging young women to take control of every aspect of their sex lives, including their own impulses, conflicts and disappointments. That's what's tragic about all this. Young women don't seem to realize that in demanding adult inquiry into and adjudication of their sex lives, they are forfeiting their own freedom and agency. Young women are being taught that men have all the power and have used it throughout history to oppress women. Women don't seem to realize how much power they have to crush men! Strong women have always known how to control men. Oscar Wilde said women are complex and men are simple. Is it society or is it nature that is unjust? This was the big question that I proposed in Sexual Personae, where I argued that our biggest oppressor is actually nature, not society. I continue to feel that my pro-sex wing of feminism, which does not see sexual imagery or men in general as the enemy, has the best and healthiest message for young women. There is a big push/pull happening in the entertainment industry about female voices and representation around directors in Hollywood. Surely there's nothing wrong with that, right, in your opinion? All this constant complaining by women in Hollywood, I really don't understand it. I’m disturbed by women acting as if the world owes them opportunities, when there are so many hugely rich women stars in movies and music who should be using their millions to fund the creation of production companies precisely for the kind of hiring that they want. All those wealthy performers with their multiple houses — how about selling one of them? And let them do whatever feminist projects they want and see if they can sell it to the general public. Look at the way you had George Lucas and Steven Spielberg coming together when they had nothing — they were just young men with a dream, with a vision, and they made an enormously successful series of films with global impact. Look at how many young male billionaires dropped out of college, and you got the Apple computer and Facebook. I blame women for their own lack of imagination. There was a period when there were so many really unique and memorable films by women. Lisa Cholodenko's High Art is an example. That’s an amazing film. And what about Donna Deitch's Desert Hearts? A knock-out film with vivid characters and a wonderful sense of place. But I know how difficult it is to get the funding for films. It can be like a five-year process, and it saps people’s creative energies. And it's kind of a double whammy — when women are able to produce movies that bring in big bucks on the international stage, that’s when woman directors will get more chances. But women can certainly cut their teeth by making really important, low-budget films. I want to see them! Show us. Show us the quality of your mind and your work, okay? At a certain point, it’s counterproductive when you're claiming that someone else always has to open doors for you. You have discussed the issue of imagery — what are your thoughts about the Playboy bunny costume? Feminists of that period were irate about it — they felt that it reduced women to animals. It is true it’s animal imagery, but a bunny is a child's toy, for heaven's sake! I think you could criticize the bunny image that Hefner created by saying it makes a woman juvenile and infantilizes her. But the type of animal here is a kind of key to Hefner's sensibility because a bunny is utterly harmless. Multiplying like bunnies: Hefner was making a strange kind of joke about the entire procreative process. It seems to me like a defense formation — Hefner turning his Puritan guilts into humor. It suggests that, despite his bland smile, he may always have suffered from a deep anxiety about sex. There are all kinds of complex currents in men’s relationship to women that feminism refuses to acknowledge. The main one is men’s often very unstable or ambivalent relationship with their mothers. That's what I see in Hefner's notorious lifestyle in the Playboy Mansion, where he stayed and worked in his bedroom all day long, dressed in pajamas and a robe. It's a blatant regression to the womb world exactly as Elvis Presley evidently desired. Elvis’s wife Priscilla complained that all he wanted to do was stay in his bedroom all day long in the dark, watching TV and having hamburgers brought in. There was a strange kind of craving there for maternal nurturance. I think feminism is wildly wrong when it portrays men as the oppressor, when in fact men, as I have argued in my books, are always struggling for identity against the enormous power of women. Hefner created his own universe of sexuality, where there was nothing threatening. It’s a kind of childlike vision, sanitizing all the complexities and potential darkness of the sexual impulse. Everybody knows that Hefner’s sexual type was the girl next door, in other words, the corn-fed, bubbly American girl who stays at the borderline of womanhood but never crosses it. The limitations in Hefner's erotic system can be seen when one compares Playboy to the other great magazine that it inspired, Penthouse: Its U.S. editor, Bob Guccione, was then married to a very stylish British woman, Kathy Keeton, who gave her particular cosmopolitan perspective to Penthouse. It projected an adult vision of sexuality in a highly sophisticated urban environment — people flirting in limousines, glamorous women who were as free and dominant as a man about town. When we look back at Hefner's girl next door, we see that she's kind of like a high-school cheerleader or the ingenue in a postwar musical comedy like Oklahoma. Hefner was a Midwesterner who took a very long time to change his residence from Chicago to Los Angeles, where he was suddenly moving in the fastest currents of American culture. Hefner’s women may have been uncomplex as personalities, but they were always warm and genuine. I never found them particularly erotic. I much preferred the Penthouse style of women, who were more femme fatales. Hefner’s bunnies were a major departure from female mythology, where women were often portrayed as animals of prey — tigresses and leopards. Woman as cozy, cuddly bunny is a perfectly legitimate modality of eroticism. Hefner was good-natured but rather abashed, diffident, and shy. So he recreated the image of women in palatable and manageable form. I don’t see anything misogynist in that. What I see is a frank acknowledgment of Hefner’s fear of women’s actual power. For ideological feminists to go on and on about how we cannot have women treated as sex objects is so naive, so uncultured. It shows a total incomprehension of the history of art, which flows into the great Hollywood movies and sex symbols of the 20th century. The whole history of art is about objectification. That's what an art work is: it's an artifact, an object. Because of our advanced brains, it is the nature of human beings to make sex objects — objects of worship. Turning a person into a beautiful thing does not automatically dehumanize her. All you have to do is look at the long history of the gay male world, beginning in classical Athens. No gay man has ever said when gazing at a beautiful young man with a perfect body, “I am making him passive beneath my gaze.” That would be stupid beyond belief. Every gay man knows that youth and beauty are supreme principles that deserve our admiration and veneration. When we worship beauty, we are worshipping life itself. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-hugh-hefners-legacy-trumps-masculinity-feminisms-sex-phobia-1044769
Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner's Legacy, Trump's Masculinity and Feminism's Sex Phobia - by Jeanie Pyun (Hollywood Reporter) 2 Oct 2017
The pro-sex feminist, cultural critic and author tells THR why Hef's art of seduction is needed today and how Gloria Steinem is not a role model for young women. With the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Sept. 27, cultural historian and contrarian feminist Camille Paglia spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive interview on topics ranging from what Hef's choice of the bunny costume revealed about him to the current "dreary" state of relationships between the sexes. Have you ever been to a party at the Playboy Mansion? No, I'm not a partygoer! [laughs] So let me just ask: Was Hugh Hefner a misogynist? Absolutely not! The central theme of my wing of pro-sex feminism is that all celebrations of the sexual human body are positive. Second-wave feminism went off the rails when it was totally unable to deal with erotic imagery, which has been a central feature of the entire history of Western art ever since Greek nudes. So let’s dig in a little — what would you say was Playboy’s cultural impact? Hugh Hefner absolutely revolutionized the persona of the American male. In the post World War II era, men's magazines were about hunting and fishing or the military, or they were like Esquire, erotic magazines with a kind of European flair. Hefner re-imagined the American male as a connoisseur in the continental manner, a man who enjoyed all the fine pleasures of life, including sex. Hefner brilliantly put sex into a continuum of appreciative response to jazz, to art, to ideas, to fine food. This was something brand new. Enjoying fine cuisine had always been considered unmanly in America. Hefner updated and revitalized the image of the British gentleman, a man of leisure who is deft at conversation — in which American men have never distinguished themselves — and with the art of seduction, which was a sport refined by the French. Hefner’s new vision of American masculinity was part of his desperate revision of his own Puritan heritage. On his father's side, he descended directly from William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower and was governor of Plymouth Colony, the major settlement of New England Puritans. But Hefner’s worldview was already dated by the explosion of the psychedelic 1960s. The anything-goes, free-love atmosphere — illustrated by all that hedonistic rolling around in the mud at Woodstock in 1969 — made the suave Hefner style seem old-fashioned and buttoned up. Nevertheless, I have always taken the position that the men's magazines — from the glossiest and most sophisticated to the rawest and raunchiest — represent the brute reality of sexuality. Pornography is not a distortion. It is not a sexist twisting of the facts of life but a kind of peephole into the roiling, primitive animal energies that are at the heart of sexual attraction and desire. What could today's media learn from what Hef did at Playboy? It must be remembered that Hefner was a gifted editor who knew how to produce a magazine that had great visual style and that was a riveting combination of pictorial with print design. Everything about Playboy as a visual object, whether you liked the magazine or not, was lively and often ravishing. In the early 1990s, you said that Hugh Hefner "ushered in a revolution in American sexual consciousness. Some say that the women in Playboy come across as commodities, like a stereo, but I think Playboy is more an appreciation of pleasure of all kinds." What would you add to his legacy today, if anything? I would hope that people could see the positives in the Playboy sexual landscape — the foregrounding of pleasure and fun and humor. Sex is not a tragedy, it's a comedy! [laughs] What do you think about the fact that Trump's childhood hero and model of sophisticated American masculinity was Hefner? Before the election, I kept pointing out that the mainstream media based in Manhattan, particularly The New York Times, was hopelessly off in the way it was simplistically viewing Trump as a classic troglodyte misogynist. I certainly saw in Trump the entire Playboy aesthetic, including the glitzy world of casinos and beauty pageants. It's a long passé world of confident male privilege that preceded the birth of second-wave feminism. There is no doubt that Trump strongly identified with it as he was growing up. It seems to be truly his worldview. But it is categorically not a world of unwilling women. Nor is it driven by masculine abuse. It's a world of show girls, of flamboyant femaleness, a certain kind of strutting style that has its own intoxicating sexual allure — which most young people attending elite colleges today have had no contact with whatever. I instantly recognized and understood it in Trump because I had always been an admirer of Hefner's sexual cosmos. I can certainly see how retrograde and nostalgic it is, but at the same time I maintain that even in the photos that The New York Times posted in trying to convict Trump of sexism, you can feel leaping from these pictures the intense sizzle of sexual polarization — in that long-ago time when men were men and women were women! My 1960s generation was the gender-bending generation — we were all about blending the genders in fashion and attitude. But it has to be said that in terms of world history, the taste for and interest in androgyny is usually relatively brief. And it comes at late and decadent phases of culture! [laughs] World civilizations predictably return again and again to sexual polarization, where there is a tremendous electric charge between men and women. The unhappy truth is that the more the sexes have blended, the less each sex is interested in the other. So we’re now in a period of sexual boredom and inertia, complaint and dissatisfaction, which is one of the main reasons young men have gone over to pornography. Porn has become a necessary escape by the sexual imagination from the banality of our everyday lives, where the sexes are now routinely mixed in the workplace. With the sexes so bored with each other, all that's left are these feminist witch-hunts. That's where the energy is! And meanwhile, men are shrinking. I see men turning away from women and simply being content with the world of fantasy because women have become too thin-skinned, resentful and high maintenance. And American women don't know what they want any longer. In general, French women — the educated, middle-class French women, I mean — seem to have a feminine composure, a distinct sense of themselves as women, which I think women in America have gradually lost as they have won job equality in our high-pressure career system. Trump has certainly steadily hired and promoted women in his businesses, but it has to be said that his vision of women as erotic beings remains rather retrograde. Part of his nationwide support seems to be coming from his bold defense of his own maleness. Many mainstream voters are gratified by his reassertion of male pride and confidence. Trump supporters may be quite right that, in this period of confusion and uncertainty, male identity needs to be reaffirmed and reconsolidated. (And I’m speaking here as a Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein!) Ultimately every culture seems to return to sexual polarization because it may be in the best interest of human beings, whether we like it or not. Nature drives every species to procreate, although not necessarily when there's overpopulation! Gloria Steinem has said that what Playboy doesn't know about women could fill a book. What do you think about that? What Playboy doesn't know about well-educated, upper-middle-class women with bitter grievances against men could fill a book! I don't regard Gloria Steinem as an expert on any of the human appetites, sexuality being only one of them. Interviews with Steinem were documenting from the start how her refrigerator contained nothing but two bottles of carbonated water. Steinem's philosophy of life is extremely limited by her own childhood experiences. She came out of an admittedly unstable family background. I’m so tired of that animus of hers against men, which she’s been cranking out now for decade after decade. I come from a completely different Italian-American background — very food-centric and appetite-centric. Steinem, with that fulsomely genteel WASP persona of hers, represents an attitude of malice and vindictiveness toward men that has not proved to be in the best interest of young women today. So would you say that her other comment — that women reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual — is just an expression of her animus toward men? Oh Lord, how many times is Gloria Steinem going to play the Nazi card? What she said about me in the 1990s was: "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying he’s not anti-Semitic.” That’s the simplistic level of Steinem's thinking! Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, all of those relentlessly ideological feminists are people who have wandered away from traditional religion and made a certain rabid type of feminist rhetoric their religion. And their fanaticism has poisoned the public image of feminism and driven ordinary, mainstream citizens away from feminism. It’s outrageous. I hugely admired the early role that Steinem played in second-wave feminism because she was very good as a spokesperson in the 1970s. She had a very soothing manner that made it seem perfectly reasonable for people to adopt feminist principles. She normalized the image of feminism when there were a lot of crazy feminists running around (like Valerie Solanas, who shot Andy Warhol). That was Steinem’s great contribution, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I credit her for co-founding Ms. magazine and thereby contributing that very useful word, Ms., to the English language, which allows us to refer to a woman without signaling her marital status. I think that's a tremendous accomplishment. But aside from that, Steinem is basically a socialite who always hid her early dependence on men in the social scene in New York. And as a Democrat, I also blame her for having turned feminism into a covert adjunct of the Democratic party. I have always felt that feminism should transcend party politics and be a big tent welcoming women of faith and of all views into it. Also, I hold against Steinem her utter, shameless hypocrisy during the Bill Clinton scandal. After promoting sexual harassment guidelines, which I had also supported since the 1980s, Steinem waved away one of the worst cases of sexual harassment violation that can ever be imagined — the gigantic gap of power between the President of the United States and an intern! All of a sudden, oh, no, it was all fine, it was “private.” What rubbish! That hypocrisy by partisan feminist leaders really destroyed feminism for a long time. So now feminism has rebounded, but unfortunately it's a particularly virulent brand of feminism that’s way too reminiscent of the MacKinnon-Dworkin sex hysteria of the 1980s. Is there anything of lasting value in Hugh Hefner’s legacy? We can see that what has completely vanished is what Hefner espoused and represented — the art of seduction, where a man, behaving in a courtly, polite and respectful manner, pursues a woman and gives her the time and the grace and the space to make a decision of consent or not. Hefner’s passing makes one remember an era when a man would ask a woman on a real date — inviting her to his apartment for some great music on a cutting-edge stereo system (Playboy was always talking about the best new electronics!) — and treating her to fine cocktails and a wonderful, relaxing time. Sex would emerge out of conversation and flirtation as a pleasurable mutual experience. So now when we look back at Hefner, we see a moment when there was a fleeting vision of a sophisticated sexuality that was integrated with all of our other aesthetic and sensory responses. Instead, what we have today, after Playboy declined and finally disappeared off the cultural map, is the coarse, juvenile anarchy of college binge drinking, fraternity keg parties where undeveloped adolescent boys clumsily lunge toward naive girls who are barely dressed in tiny mini skirts and don't know what the hell they want from life. What possible romance or intrigue or sexual mystique could survive such a vulgar and debased environment as today's residential campus social life? Do men need a kind of Hefner for today to give an example of how to interact with women in a sophisticated manner? Yes. Women's sexual responses are notoriously slower than men's. Truly sophisticated seducers knew that women have to be courted and that women love an ambiance, setting a stage. Today, alas, too many young women feel they have to provide quick sex or they’ll lose social status. If a guy can't get sex from them, he'll get it from someone else. There’s a general bleak atmosphere of grudging compliance. Today’s hook-up culture, which is the ultimate product of my generation’s sexual revolution, seems markedly disillusioning in how it has reduced sex to male needs, to the general male desire for wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am efficiency, with no commitment afterwards. We're in a period of great sexual confusion and rancor right now. The sexes are very wary of each other. There’s no pressure on men to marry because they can get sex very easily in other ways. The sizzle of sex seems gone. What Hefner's death forces us to recognize is that there is very little glamour and certainly no mystery or intrigue left to sex for most young people. Which means young women do not know how to become women. And sex has become just another physical urge that can be satisfied like putting coins into a Coke machine. This may be one reason for the ferocious pressure by so many current feminists to reinforce the Stalinist mechanisms, the pernicious PC rules that have invaded colleges everywhere. Feminists want supervision and surveillance of dating life on campus to punish men if something goes wrong and the girl doesn't like what happened. I am very concerned that what young women are saying through this strident feminist rhetoric is that they feel incapable of conducting independent sex lives. They require adult intrusion and supervision and penalizing of men who go astray. But if feminism means anything, it should be encouraging young women to take control of every aspect of their sex lives, including their own impulses, conflicts and disappointments. That's what's tragic about all this. Young women don't seem to realize that in demanding adult inquiry into and adjudication of their sex lives, they are forfeiting their own freedom and agency. Young women are being taught that men have all the power and have used it throughout history to oppress women. Women don't seem to realize how much power they have to crush men! Strong women have always known how to control men. Oscar Wilde said women are complex and men are simple. Is it society or is it nature that is unjust? This was the big question that I proposed in Sexual Personae, where I argued that our biggest oppressor is actually nature, not society. I continue to feel that my pro-sex wing of feminism, which does not see sexual imagery or men in general as the enemy, has the best and healthiest message for young women. There is a big push/pull happening in the entertainment industry about female voices and representation around directors in Hollywood. Surely there's nothing wrong with that, right, in your opinion? All this constant complaining by women in Hollywood, I really don't understand it. I’m disturbed by women acting as if the world owes them opportunities, when there are so many hugely rich women stars in movies and music who should be using their millions to fund the creation of production companies precisely for the kind of hiring that they want. All those wealthy performers with their multiple houses — how about selling one of them? And let them do whatever feminist projects they want and see if they can sell it to the general public. Look at the way you had George Lucas and Steven Spielberg coming together when they had nothing — they were just young men with a dream, with a vision, and they made an enormously successful series of films with global impact. Look at how many young male billionaires dropped out of college, and you got the Apple computer and Facebook. I blame women for their own lack of imagination. There was a period when there were so many really unique and memorable films by women. Lisa Cholodenko's High Art is an example. That’s an amazing film. And what about Donna Deitch's Desert Hearts? A knock-out film with vivid characters and a wonderful sense of place. But I know how difficult it is to get the funding for films. It can be like a five-year process, and it saps people’s creative energies. And it's kind of a double whammy — when women are able to produce movies that bring in big bucks on the international stage, that’s when woman directors will get more chances. But women can certainly cut their teeth by making really important, low-budget films. I want to see them! Show us. Show us the quality of your mind and your work, okay? At a certain point, it’s counterproductive when you're claiming that someone else always has to open doors for you. You have discussed the issue of imagery — what are your thoughts about the Playboy bunny costume? Feminists of that period were irate about it — they felt that it reduced women to animals. It is true it’s animal imagery, but a bunny is a child's toy, for heaven's sake! I think you could criticize the bunny image that Hefner created by saying it makes a woman juvenile and infantilizes her. But the type of animal here is a kind of key to Hefner's sensibility because a bunny is utterly harmless. Multiplying like bunnies: Hefner was making a strange kind of joke about the entire procreative process. It seems to me like a defense formation — Hefner turning his Puritan guilts into humor. It suggests that, despite his bland smile, he may always have suffered from a deep anxiety about sex. There are all kinds of complex currents in men’s relationship to women that feminism refuses to acknowledge. The main one is men’s often very unstable or ambivalent relationship with their mothers. That's what I see in Hefner's notorious lifestyle in the Playboy Mansion, where he stayed and worked in his bedroom all day long, dressed in pajamas and a robe. It's a blatant regression to the womb world exactly as Elvis Presley evidently desired. Elvis’s wife Priscilla complained that all he wanted to do was stay in his bedroom all day long in the dark, watching TV and having hamburgers brought in. There was a strange kind of craving there for maternal nurturance. I think feminism is wildly wrong when it portrays men as the oppressor, when in fact men, as I have argued in my books, are always struggling for identity against the enormous power of women. Hefner created his own universe of sexuality, where there was nothing threatening. It’s a kind of childlike vision, sanitizing all the complexities and potential darkness of the sexual impulse. Everybody knows that Hefner’s sexual type was the girl next door, in other words, the corn-fed, bubbly American girl who stays at the borderline of womanhood but never crosses it. The limitations in Hefner's erotic system can be seen when one compares Playboy to the other great magazine that it inspired, Penthouse: Its U.S. editor, Bob Guccione, was then married to a very stylish British woman, Kathy Keeton, who gave her particular cosmopolitan perspective to Penthouse. It projected an adult vision of sexuality in a highly sophisticated urban environment — people flirting in limousines, glamorous women who were as free and dominant as a man about town. When we look back at Hefner's girl next door, we see that she's kind of like a high-school cheerleader or the ingenue in a postwar musical comedy like Oklahoma. Hefner was a Midwesterner who took a very long time to change his residence from Chicago to Los Angeles, where he was suddenly moving in the fastest currents of American culture. Hefner’s women may have been uncomplex as personalities, but they were always warm and genuine. I never found them particularly erotic. I much preferred the Penthouse style of women, who were more femme fatales. Hefner’s bunnies were a major departure from female mythology, where women were often portrayed as animals of prey — tigresses and leopards. Woman as cozy, cuddly bunny is a perfectly legitimate modality of eroticism. Hefner was good-natured but rather abashed, diffident, and shy. So he recreated the image of women in palatable and manageable form. I don’t see anything misogynist in that. What I see is a frank acknowledgment of Hefner’s fear of women’s actual power. For ideological feminists to go on and on about how we cannot have women treated as sex objects is so naive, so uncultured. It shows a total incomprehension of the history of art, which flows into the great Hollywood movies and sex symbols of the 20th century. The whole history of art is about objectification. That's what an art work is: it's an artifact, an object. Because of our advanced brains, it is the nature of human beings to make sex objects — objects of worship. Turning a person into a beautiful thing does not automatically dehumanize her. All you have to do is look at the long history of the gay male world, beginning in classical Athens. No gay man has ever said when gazing at a beautiful young man with a perfect body, “I am making him passive beneath my gaze.” That would be stupid beyond belief. Every gay man knows that youth and beauty are supreme principles that deserve our admiration and veneration. When we worship beauty, we are worshipping life itself. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-hugh-hefners-legacy-trumps-masculinity-feminisms-sex-phobia-1044769
Restaurants on the Run pay their "Employees" far Below Minimum Wage
I recently lost my job working valet at a casino and began drawing unemployment. I then discovered an ad on CL for Restaurants on the Run (ROTR) and applied. Their ad stated that their drivers are Independent Contractors (IC) and maintain flexibility in schedule and can make lots of money delivering food from classy restaurants to customers. Everything sounded great to me. I figured a few hours a day will be plenty for me to maintain the standard of living I once had while working my previous job. After I rode around with another driver for 3 hours (and watching him make nearly 80.00 and driving about 25 miles total), I was pretty happy about the setup. You get paid $3.00 per delivery if you deliver to a business and $4.00 for delivering to residential areas. On top of that, there is a forced gratuity of 10% or $4.00, whichever is more. They have 2 different shifts available: Lunch - 9:30 - 12 or 1pm. . . Dinner: 4-9 on Weekdays and 3-9 on Weekends (no day shift on weekends). In order to apply, I had to contact DDI (Delivery Drivers Inc.). DDI is a company that offers payroll services. DDI simply cuts you a check at the end of the week, keeps track of income from ROTR, and then sends you this information at the end of the year. They say they help with filing taxes, but did not say they did anything other than give 'advice'. DDI charges $.50 per delivery. So, I fill out the contract, post proof of insurance through DDI, and agree to background checks ($25.00 and then $15.00 for each county you've lived in for last 7 years). That's all fine with me except for the expense of a background check. But, whatever. . . a small price to pay for a job that is easy to do and flexible. Then I see that ROTR charges me $3.00 per shift to use their supplies (the only supplies they offer is a "hot-bag" that the food is to be transported in). Mind you, the contract I signed stated that I am not to be forced to use any of ROTR's equipment, nor can they dictate how I transport the food as long as it is in a "safe and efficient manner." I figured, what the hell, I'll pay for it for two weeks or so and then purchase my own (which I found online for 20.00 apiece). So, during the first shift, I ran two deliveries in 4.5 hours. The first delivery brought me nearly $30.00 (270.00 order plus the 3.00 delivery fee). I did, however, drive about 17 miles all around, which is nearly a gallon of gas (I drive a civic but I'm driving around a congested metropolitan city and figure 24 mpg is pretty accurate for in-town). The second delivery was to a house and was under $40.00, so I received the minimum for a house, which is $8.00 total. Unfortunately, the restaurant was 7 miles from my previous delivery and 13 miles from the restaurant, so I used close to another gallon of gas. So, that day, I worked 4.5 hours, and made $38.00. With just the 'delivery' mileage, I used up 37 miles worth of gas. That's 1.5 gallons of gas, which cost me $4.50, plus the $3.00 fee for their bags, so I earned $30.50 for 4.5 hours of work. That's $6.77 per hour. Hey, not bad right? Well, seeing that minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and I didn't take into account any formula for calculating maintenance cost per mile. Hell, the reimbursement for mileage is around $.56 per mile for tax purposes, which is supposed to cover gas and maintenance. Until today, that's the best shift I've worked because it has been the least amount of miles driven since I began working there (I made more money in total on other shifts, but worked more hours and drove 3 times as many miles every night). Today, I drove 87 miles, and made $47.00 from 3 deliveries and worked 4.5 hours again. Subtracting for gas, that's 3.625 gallons, which comes to $10.88, then add the $3.00 bag fee, and I actually only made $33.12. That's a whopping $7.36 per hour. . . FINALLY. . . I broke minimum wage. WooHoo! Since I started working I've made (after gas and their fee) $177.04 but I've worked 32 hours. That's $5.32/hr. So, is that the life of an IC? Well, no, because an IC is supposed to be able to negotiate terms, fees, and prices. An IC isn't told what clothes to wear (I have to wear their uniform). An IC isn't forced to use sub-par hot-bags when he can purchase them (as a construction worker would purchase his own hammer) and use them however he sees fit. An IC would also be allowed to use the payroll department of his choice, but as a delivery driver for ROTR, am I? Nope. I inquired about switching payroll companies (after the one I use, DDI, threatened to delay my check because the insurance policy I sent them was due to expire a few days after I began working). Granted, I have never had a lapse in insurance, it's just that they send cards for 6 months - 1yr at a time and my 6 month period happened to be up that day. So now, if I don't send verification, I don't get paid. So, my complaint here is that this company -- ROTR -- is incorrectly naming their 'employees' as 'independent contractors' in order to avoid paying the employer portion of all taxes and providing benefits, unemployment, etc. The worst part for me is that there are drivers that allow this to happen. Instead of fighting for better pay (because an Independent Contractor is NOT going to work for less than minimum wage unless he/she is an illegal), they just conform and keep allowing a company to pay them crap wages. Granted, you can make probably 500 per week but you're looking at working 11 hours per day for 7 days a week if you wanted to obtain that kind of a paycheck. I will give it another week to see if something changes -- maybe I've just been having a bad week, but after that. . . gone. I won't subject myself to that kind of pay, working two shifts 7 days a week just to come out with a $500 paycheck before saving gas for the next week. It's just that the greed in this country is so rampant and is becoming the norm. The worst part is that even if the customers of ROTR were to realize how ROTR lies about employee status to stiff the government out of money, they would still buy the service because they too do not care about other people and whether or not the services rendered will provide a life for someone or not. And then the drivers. . . how the f---- do they do it? How are they okay with the situation? I mean, you make 5 bucks an hour, put 800-1k miles on your car every week, and have bills, kids, etc. . . . wth? And, I know you guys aren't going to give a shit (just like the rest of the sheep of the earth), and you'll tell me to "get a real job" or "if you don't like it, go find something else." Trust me, I fully intend to find a job and move on from this craziness, but that's beside the point. As a wealthy nation (as we know the US is with its billionaires, multi-millionaires and all the middle-class people), how can we be okay with this? What is so hard about us coming together and telling companies like this to go fuck off? What's wrong with asking customers to pay more for a luxury service such as this? I mean, we aren't delivering pizzas. . . we're delivering gourmet food from high-quality, very expensive restaurants. It's just so disturbing to me. On top of that, I've since lost my unemployment because of this job and can't use the 4 years I spent with the last job back as a reason to file for unemployment again. Hell, I was only on unemployment for 3 weeks. TL;DR Restaurants on the Run pays their drivers about $5-7.00 per hour, yet pays no employment taxes, no unemployment insurance whilst forcing their so-called "Independent Contractors" to use a specific payroll company, lease their 'hot-bags for a nominal fee', and are forced to wear the company's uniform.
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