My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people, with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home.

Hefner frames his upbringing as morally earnest but emotionally constrained: “prohibitionist” signals a household shaped by temperance-era Protestant values, where virtue is associated with restraint and bodily discipline. By stressing the absence of physical affection—“no hugging and kissing”—he suggests that repression was not only sexual but also interpersonal, affecting everyday warmth and intimacy. In the larger arc of Hefner’s public persona, the remark functions as an origin story: it implies that his later celebration of pleasure and erotic openness was, in part, a reaction against a childhood environment that equated desire and touch with impropriety. The quote thus juxtaposes moral standards with emotional deprivation, inviting readers to consider how cultural strictures can shape adult identity and rebellion.