Story highlights Peggy Drexler: Hugh Hefner is noted for his contribution to culture, but there is also a dark side to it

His legacy features exploitation of women, and he pushed the notion of women existing for men's pleasure

Peggy Drexler is the author of "Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family" and "Raising Boys Without Men." The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN) In remembering Hugh Hefner, who has died at 91, many are talking about his contributions to American culture. It must be added that -- while those contributions loom large -- they also cast a considerable shadow.

The founder of the Playboy brand was a media pioneer and icon of the left, an early and very vocal advocate for free speech, civil rights and sexual liberation.

There is no question: As an activist, "Hef" paved the way for open talk about sex and sexuality, giving people permission to admit that they too were sexual beings, and enjoyed -- or at least wanted to enjoy -- sex. In the Playboy clubs he opened in the 1960s, he hired black comics at a time when many clubs were de facto segregated. Meanwhile, as a publisher, he pushed boundaries with articles (yes, the famous "articles" that men claimed they sought in Playboy) that were groundbreaking: investigative pieces by writers like Hunter S. Thompson and interviews with heavyweights like Martin Luther King.

He was also a fine example of the American dream, having launched the magazine with $600 of his own and $1,000 borrowed from his mother.

JUST WATCHED Hugh Hefner's most memorable TV moments Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hugh Hefner's most memorable TV moments 01:24

But it's also worth pointing out, in the spirit of the sort of open cultural dialogue he worked his whole life to encourage, that Hefner's egalitarian society was one largely envisioned and created for men.

Read More