This list, while flawed, beautifully illustrates my earlier proposal that we should place sex at the imaginative center of feminism, not politics. Every one of the figures below is a rich subject for nuanced feminist thought–though not for rubber stamping “good” or “bad”. You’ll see that self-identified and honorary feminists both feature prominently in the list below. Playboy, as usual, offers up some dynamic food for thought.

1 Alfred Kinsey

2 Dr. John Rock

3 Hugh Hefner

4 Alex Comfort

5 Marilyn Monroe

6 Monica Lewinsky

7 The Rolling Stones

8 Timothy Berners-Lee

9 Peter Dunn and Albert Wood

10 Madonna

11 Helen Gurley Brown

12 Charles Ginsburg

13 Ruth Westheimer

14 Elvis Presley

15 Masters and Johnson

16 Howard Stern

17 Ed Meese

18 Brigitte Bardot

19 Estelle Griswold

20 Bo Derek

21 Catharine MacKinnon

22 Vladimir Nabokov

23 Anita Bryant

24 Farrah Fawcett

25 Erica Jong

26 Barney Rosset

27 Germaine Greer

28 Christine Jorgensen

29 Pamela Anderson

30 Frank Sinatra

31 Nancy Friday

32 Jenna Jameson

33 William O. Douglas

34 Philip Roth

35 Charles Keating Jr.

36 Candace Bushnell

37 Dr. Mary Calderone

38 Beverly Whipple

39 Alberto Vargas

40 Potter Stewart

41 Linda Lovelace

42 Mike Nichols

43 Betty Dodson

44 Dr. David Reuben

45 Ian Fleming

46 Lenny Bruce

47 Gloria Steinem

48 Robert Mapplethorpe

49 Danni Ashe

50 J. Edgar Hoover

51 Gay Talese

52 Rock Hudson

53 Bernardo Bertolucci

54 Dell Williams

55 Rudi Gernreich