Chase not the Chaste

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Behind the Green Door at Chase Bank

It made national headlines when Chase Bank shut down the bank accounts—business and personal—of a handful of people who work in adult entertainment, with the media jumping at the chance to talk about porn. But the truth is, it could happen to anyone. Banks can pretty much do whatever they want to you; more important than that, they’re obligated to scrutinize you. See, the banking industry used to be a much more personal business. You’d be friends with the local banker, and he would choose to do business with you based on what you did for a living, your character, and whether he liked you—or he’d choose not to do business with you based on those same things, or because he was racist. Now, you might know one of the tellers at your local branch, but you don’t know the people who are deciding whether or not to do business with you. So how do they decide?

Say you go to buy a gun. You know the dealer is going to do a background check. He tells you he’s going to do it, and he makes you sign a form saying you consent to it. The same goes for plenty of other things, like applying for a job. There is no such overt request for permission at the bank when you open an account, but for every account you’ve opened, there has been a thorough background check through several different systems. And it’s not just your social security number being run through some computer to see if a red flag comes up saying you’ve worked for Al Qaeda. It’s done by a team of people who determine where your money is coming from, what you do for a living, where you do it, and who pays the people who pay you.

Why, you might ask, do banks have the latitude to just go ahead and do all this? Well, it’s because of the Banking Secrecy Act (known as BSA to the people in the business), and its sister, the Anti–Money Laundering Act, which came out of our old friend the Patriot Act. Oh, yeah, that one. Almost forgot that was still on the books. But the Bank Secrecy Act started in 1970 and has been continually ratified as time has gone on. So what’s different now?

We’re in an era of banking in which the institution is so large that we feel it doesn’t matter what we do or where our money comes from, so long as we pay our fees and let the bank use our money for its own investments while it holds it. In reality, the current incarnation of the banks is close to the original model, and the idea that your banking transactions are private or secret is an illusion. Not only is it in the banks’ power to scrutinize every transaction you make, and to do research to see where your money is coming from, it is their fiduciary responsibility to do so.

This makes sense on one level: The banking industry wouldn’t do too well if it were to offer huge loans to people without doing some sort of risk assessment—as we all saw when the housing market crashed. But what exactly do the banks have to lose if someone holds a checking account and might be financially unsound in some way? Well, check fraud is really the last old-school hustle that still works. In fact, most of the facial recognition software in production is being developed to combat that particular trick. Who can blame the banks for wanting to protect themselves from fraud?

But if someone has had a checking account for years, with a good record, what exactly is the bank risking? Or, for that matter, even if a client has a lousy record, what does the bank stand to lose? Plenty of its income comes from overdraft fees, most of that from those who have the least financial stability and are likely to be the clients with the worst records.

When you open a bank account, you’re given a nice folder full of pamphlets that you probably end up never looking at. There’s a good reason why they give them to you, though. That supplementary material informs you that by signing your ATM card, you’ve agreed to a very long list of things that would have horrified you, had you bothered to read it. One relevant clause of Chase’s version opens: “We may close your account at any time for any reason or no reason. We are not required to close your account on your request.”

The information from Chase also includes these ominous statements:

  • We may record or monitor any of our telephone conversations with you.
  • We may decline or prevent any or all transactions to or from your account.
  • We may remove funds from your account.
  • We may cancel your card at any time with no notice.
  • We may refuse any transaction.
  • You authorize us to share information about you and your account with affiliates and third parties.

When I started looking into the Chase situation, I decided to see what the process was for opening an account. I went into a local branch asking about the possibility of opening an account, and after suggesting that I might have a lot of capital to drop into that account, I made my way up the chain of personal bankers until I was introduced to the bank’s premier service, Chase Personal Client. I was talking with the top personal banker at the branch, a very polite gentleman who clearly was very good at his job. I finally dropped the bomb.

“So, there’s a delicate matter here that I need to broach, but I’m not quite sure how.” I then related that I work for the adult entertainment industry and was concerned by stories circulating about the personal accounts of adult-film stars being closed without warning or explanation. “Yeah, it was in the papers,” the banker said, before quickly assuring me, “but for personal accounts, it doesn’t matter what you do for a living.”

Yeah, it had been in the papers. Everyone from the ultraliberal Mother Jones magazine to the super-conservative Fox News had run stories about it. Business Insider, Huffington Post, CNBC, New York’s Daily News, New York Post … everyone had jumped on the bandwagon. But no one had a real handle on why it occurred, or even what had occurred. Most of the articles merely covered the fact that the account closures were occurring. A few stories, however, made a hypothesis that it was the result of Operation Choke Point, an Obama-administration executive order allegedly designed to wage war on the porn industry.

Operation Choke Point was actually designed to curb small-scale fraud, which is a fairly large sink on the economy, and worth trying to stop. Among its many measures, the order says that banks should be cautious about doing business with fraud-prone companies. Among the dozen or so types of businesses listed, the adult-entertainment industry does appear. But this is far from a holy war on the industry as a whole, even if the porn industry was turned down for bailout money in 2009.

However, account closures are not being done by any other bank. In fact, other banks, including Wells Fargo, have taken out ads welcoming adult performers. Additionally, Chase is not closing the personal accounts of people in any of the other named industries. So what’s going on? Does Chase have some official agenda to deny financial services to members of the porn business?

Looking at the occurrences, there’s no temporal or geographic centrality. These were singular incidences in different places, at different times. It seems unlikely that this was the result of an agenda to shut down every account connected with the porn industry, or a regional manager who wanted to clean up his area of the country. So what did happen?

As often happens with buzz-building stories of this type, one article had a small amount of information, and things grew out of proportion very fast. For instance, these “facts”:

  • Hundreds of porn stars all over the world had their accounts shut down.
    Actually, no. There were fewer than a dozen closed accounts. [No idea, but businesses were hit harder than hell. -Ed.]
  • The accounts were all closed on the same day.
    Also false. A few happened one month, several happened the following month, and one had happened years previously. Things work on a cycle in banks, so it’s not surprising that the letters issued were dated the same day, and then the same day of the following month. [All the business accounts were closed on the same day as far as we know. -Ed.]

So, again, what is going on?

The only logical explanation left is that someone way up the food chain at Chase feels guilty when they masturbate, and is trying to absolve themselves by putting a bump in the road of the “sinners.” Who could this be?

It would have to be someone sufficiently high up that nobody is tapping them on the shoulder after reading the articles in the paper, asking what they think they’re doing. Whoever it is would also seem to be someone at the national level, with no answerability. Who has the power to execute a unilateral anti wet dream like this? Not many people. There’s the C-suite, and there’s the board of directors. That’s about it.

There are 11 members of the JPMorgan Chase & Company board: Linda B. Bammann, James A. Bell, Crandall C. Bowles, Stephen B. Burke, James S. Crown, Timothy P. Flynn, Laban P. Jackson Jr., Michael A. Neal, Lee R. Raymond, and William C. Weldon. And of course the board includes the CEO, James Dimon.

If one looks at the bios of each of these people, they read much as one would expect, and might give others a pang of envy that they weren’t born into a similarly charmed life, and didn’t cultivate type-A personalities. But one guy stands out in a few ways, which is not atypical; companies will often bring in an iconoclastic element to avoid groupthink. This was done very pointedly in the case of recruiting Lee R. Raymond to the board, who was hired with the express intention of being a balancing force against James Dimon. He is sufficiently frightening and headstrong, and has been nicknamed “Iron Ass.” He’s devoutly Christian and has openly discussed his views on the intersection of Christianity and capitalist practices.

Raymond is a fascinating figure: a self-made man who started out as an academic and migrated to business almost by chance. He began his corporate career as a chemical engineer, then built Exxon up into the giant it became, and spearheaded its merger with Mobil. He also dealt with the blowback over the Exxon Valdez spill. Additionally, he publicly espoused his disbelief in global warming during his time running Exxon Nuclear.

So was it Raymond who made a few calls and had the accounts of the perpetrators of moral turpitude shut down? It’s impossible to know for sure, but he gets my vote.

Even if it were none of the people on the board and instead someone else on the national level, it’s clear that someone is wielding too much power, and abusing it without repercussion. And how does that happen? Why hasn’t there been an internal investigation to try to stop the flurry of bad press? Simple: Chase has bigger fish to fry. A company that gives loans to the Department of Defense could care less if a few thousand porn lovers boycott its checking services.

It’s easy to say that Chase is just a company like any other, and it should be able to exercise its right to refuse service to whomever it likes. But the same differences that obligate banks to scrutinize the lives of their customers must be balanced by the banking industry’s fiduciary responsibility to act impartially, and to not use its privileged status unilaterally to make the survival of specific persons or businesses difficult. The bankers are holding all the keys; they are guarding all the doors. They must be forced to act fairly. Banking is trust. When we open a checking account, we are entrusting the use of our money to an institution. We trust that if we need our money, we will be able to retrieve it. We trust that it will not be invested recklessly and lost. We trust that we will be paid interest on the savings we give them to hold. Above all, we trust that our bank will not shut down our accounts, freeze our assets, or block our transactions without good reason.

Chase has a long road ahead to re-earn my trust.

Originally publishing just over a decade ago now, many of us in the industry remember that Chase purge all too clearly, no matter what this author thinks. Might a fine fellow with a fancy degree. Flat wrong in this case. Particularly when you run a business, it can be a major hassle to change banks. Businesses almost never have just one account, you see, and when you go to the next bank to try to start up this process again, they always ask why your last bank closed the accounts. You can tell them that you have no idea, and you can tell them that you have not bounced a check in the 20 years you were with Chase, but this new bank may not believe you. After all, why would they close all your accounts for no reason? … Although legal and undoubtedly more accepted than it was back before the Internet took over distribution, working in this industry can still be difficult when life requires you to go out and interact with the “civilian” world. Heck we’d never be brave enough to talk like our current President does just in some random social media post. … By the way, we still get shadow-banned on social media too. … And we still sneer at Chase commercials. (Some of us will even boo out loud.)

Soldier On … TOP

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Action in Action

War is hell on your sex life. Just ask the young men and women of our armed forces whose libidos are shack led by two wars, frequent deployments, long hours, and the ever-present possibility of being surgically excavated by a roadside bomb.

Add in the isolation of living in the depressed, sequestered communities that play host to so many of our military bases, the sexual politics of rank structure, restrictive policies against fraternization, and a puritanical opinion that maintains fellatio as a punishable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and well … it all seems to suggest collusion against the men and women of our armed forces from exercising their God-given right to get some ass while they’re protecting our country.

But our troops, exhibiting that same derring-do they display on the battlefield, resist abstinence. In fact, sex is rampant in the U.S. military. From the rugged mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan to the squalid barracks in military bases throughout the U.S., our military personnel are increasingly easing the strains of war by stripping off the camouflage and getting down and dirty, as we found when we talked recently with several men and women scattered throughout a military worn from perpetual use.

Meet Staff Sergeant Bobby Danzi, a former Army infantry soldier who’s built like an NFL linebacker, and his acolyte and best friend Sergeant Steve Rendez, a former Denver-area firefighter who joined up after 9/11 (all names in this article have been changed except where the individuals specifically requested their real names be used). Their sexual exploits are considered legendary by soldiers in their unit, and — despite the desperate wishes of nice guys everywhere who can only dream of such exploits — their stories are real.

Part of their legend is derived from Operation: Spring Break 2003 — a monthlong fuck-fest where the two Rangers-in-training drove almost 400 miles roundtrip each night, often high on ecstasy, from Fort Benning, Georgia, to Panama City, Florida, all within the 12-hour window between formations. Once in Panama City, they would feast upon waves of nubile young coeds looking for the type of spring-break fling that only a Ranger on the run could provide. Each night it was one, two, or sometimes three girls. And then back again to Georgia each dawn, beating the clock and stumbling into formation.

“Getting laid is status in the military,” Rendez says. “If you don’t get laid, you don’t get respect. Sex is how you separate yourselves from one another.”

“Most military bases are huge sausage fests,” Danzi explains, referencing the dearth of female troops (making up only 15 percent of the active-duty Army, for example). “So, of course, there’s a fierce competition to get laid. There are so few women, it becomes this hugely important thing.”

Dan Ryan, an X-ray technician in the Michigan Army Reserves and a former infantry soldier, argues that an additional reason sex matters so much is that the future is never certain. “You’re always on training missions,” he says. “You never know when you’ll be deployed and forced into celibacy for a year.… There’s this desperate need to fill up your reservoirs while you can.”

The Soldier and Sex Overseas

You’d think fighting a war wouldn’t lend itself to amorous relations — what with all the explosions and the threat of imminent death — but it’s also the sort of environment that can send one’s sex drive into overtime. And for good reason: Combat creates testosterone, the same body chemical that powers sex drive.

But while most troops are forced into stolid celibacy or, at best, masturbation, some soldiers are getting lucky as women troops increasingly serve beside men in combat-related roles. “In Vietnam they were allowed to visit prostitutes; we’ve got female soldiers,” says Specialist 4 Steve, a soldier who lays claim to a hurried desperate fuck outside the protective walls of a remote firebase in Afghanistan. “It probably wasn’t very safe, but it was the only place where there was a blind spot.”

Sergeant Danzi has his own story of combat coupling: “I was stuck overnight in Kirkuk at the airfield, and I stumbled across these two smoking-hot, hard-bodied Air Force chicks who were water-purification specialists. They had constructed this hot tub out of an old crate, a tarp, and PVC piping. By the end of the night, I was fucking two chicks in a hot tub — in Iraq. Who in their wildest dreams ever thinks that’s going to happen?”

George Brown, a Marine sergeant, tells of a modern-day comfort soldier who welcomed back troops returning from leave in Afghanistan. “She was this cute little brunette with this tight little body,” he says. “She was some guy’s wife who was somewhere else in-theater. And every day, one after another, she’d take guys to some supply shed. She’d even double team you … and she really was attracted to rank.” As all military personnel know, rank is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Scoring with a high-ranking officer is the civilian equivalent of sleeping with a supermodel.

“Being deprived makes you go crazy,” seaman Michael Rob-bins says. And he should know. As a sailor he often endured long stints at sea, buried in the metallic bowels of huge aircraft carriers. He went months without not only sex, but fresh air. “When we pulled into port in Sydney, Australia, within one hour my bunkmate was at the local red-light district coming all over a prostitute’s face. I think it was some sort of record.”

As Michael explains, when it comes to sex, basic market economics of supply and demand often invite creative problem-solving. “On one ship,” he says, “there was one woman who started selling blowjobs for 60 bucks a pop. The petty officer first class in charge of her was her pimp, and they’d go into one of the storage areas at night, post a guard — it was closer to the surface, so the ocean would disguise the noise — and the men would just line up, one after the other, and she’d go down on them in succession until they came. For another 20 bucks you’d get to come on her face. And this would go on for hours. When she was arrested, they found an entire duffle bag filled with rolls of 20-dollar bills.”

The Soldier and G.I. Jane

The motivation to integrate the sexes in the armed forces started with an appropriately principled premise: Women have the right to serve their country on an equal footing with men. The proponents of integration argued that strict guidelines prohibiting fraternization and good old-fashioned military discipline with a touch of professionalism would keep the panties from flying off.

They were wrong.

“They’re doing it everywhere!” Laughs Amy, an Army reservist from California. “In the field, tents, Humvees, storage closets — and two people from my company Were caught in a port-a-potty.”

Despite the faint distant echo of wailing feminists, women troops, though smaller in number than men, are aggressively leveling the playing field in both enthusiasm and libido. Consider the following statistic: From August 2003 to August 2004, gynecologists at Camp Doha in Kuwait found that four percent of all female service members who were screened had become pregnant, most in-theater. A failed policy? Not if you’re finally getting laid before heading out on a convoy route laden with improvised explosive devices.

Kendra Davis, an Air Force lieutenant who works classified intelligence projects, recounts her “fresh from boot camp” arrival at the Presidio in Monterey, California. “They moved a barracks of Marines right next door to the female dorms,” she says. “Right away they started flashing one another in the windows; it was constant penis and boobies. Everyone started hooking up left and right.… It was just nonstop sex.

Specialist Amy, a California Army reservist attached to a signal division, offers tales of constant and consummate relations among her classmates, while in garrison and during field-training exercises.

During basic training, she said, one female soldier even got it on with her drill sergeant. “It was real early in the morning and they were just out there on the bleachers.”

When asked where soldiers are finding the space to have illicit rendezvous in tightly controlled privacy-free environments, Amy laughingly dismisses the question as silly, saying, “Everywhere! In the field, tents, Humvees, storage closets — and two people from my company were caught in a port-a-potty.”

But not all military sexual relations can be categorized as a fun frisky fling between mutually consenting partners. Amy explains, “Ninety percent of the guys hit on you as soon as you walk through the door. They don’t care that another 20 are trying at the same time. It’s a contest — most Army chicks are ugly and they get this syndrome like they are beauty queens. They just got out of basic and a lot of them aren’t used to so much male attention. They start to lose themselves … get carried away.”

She tells the story of a prior roommate whose boyfriend was in Iraq: “She slept in the bunk under me. One night this guy crawls in through the window, and when he leaves, about a half hour later, one of the other guys crawls in through the window.… He leaves, and the third comes about an hour after that … and then the fourth about 20 minutes later. But the nasty thing is, between them, she never got up, never washed up, and didn’t use a condom.”

Of course, these women are the exception.

Most women in the military are just trying to do their jobs, and like anyone else, have the occasional sexually fulfilling union — a position made almost entirely untenable at times by the constant sexual harassment and double standards imposed by their male counterparts. “If you file a claim of sexual harassment, you’re considered a troublemaker,” Amy says. “It goes into a file and halts your career. If you give it up, you’re a whore. If you abstain, you’re a bitch — and then they just make up rumors anyway. We just learn to deal with it. But there is one bright side,” she adds with a giggle. “At least I never have to carry anything.”

“Marriage Doesn’t Mean Anything”

With divorces on the rise and relationships increasingly buckling under the rigorous demands of the war on terror, it’s becoming apparent that despite the Army’s pro-family veneer, military life and relationships aren’t necessarily mutually compatible. “Having a monogamous relationship is hard even in the civilian world,” explains Kristina, a former instructor at a classified Army school where she started dating a student who eventually became her husband. “In the military, everything’s exaggerated. Even when you’re back in the States, 12-hour workdays are fairly normal.

Then there’s lots of training exercises where it’s weeks away from home. And if you’re in an integrated unit, that’s a lot of time with others of the opposite sex who are not your spouse. There’s opportunity.”
Katrina, an Air Force Master Sergeant and one of the few to experience a relatively calm, healthy relationship, adds, “Not only is there opportunity, but most people in the military are young, so they’re inexperienced with relationships.”

Ryan, the Georgia X-ray technician (who insisted we use his real name) agrees. “We went to this training deployment at West Point to teach cadets, and most of the guys were married or supposed to be in a steady relationship. I know two — two fucking dudes — who kept their pants on.” Pressed to explain, he adds, “It’s kind of a culture of infidelity. Everyone does it, so there’s no one around you to tell you it’s a bad idea.”

And Michael McClure (also his real name), a soldier who refused to even consider a relationship while in the Army, preferred a string of one-night stands. When asked how many people in the military had cheated, his response is immediate: “Everyone I knew, minus three.”

But it’s not just the troops who are flagrantly unfaithful. Ryan, who was stationed at Fort Stew art, Georgia, during a large-scale deployment of most base personnel, became intimately acquainted with a carefully guarded secret of support troops everywhere: Army wives. “They have nothing to do,” Ryan says. “Their men are deployed, and they’re stuck in these shit towns. They get bored. Fifteen months is a long time to go without sex, and most of them are young and inexperienced. They come in waves, and the ‘permanent party guys’ [the support units who are not deployed overseas] just have a feeding frenzy. First, it’s the wives in rocky relationships — they’re at the bar the day after their husbands deploy. Then about six months in, you start seeing the wives who were in good relationships.” He pauses to think, then adds, “They all end up at the bar. It’s part of the Army culture. Everyone’s cheating, so it becomes more acceptable.

“I was fucking this one girl, well, actually, four of us were — real hottie, auburn hair, blue eyes, big ol’ titties with these perfect little round nipples. Her boyfriend was in Iraq with the Third [Infantry Division], and there was his picture on the bed stand behind us — him with his arm around her, looking all sweet on some trip they had taken together. I used to stare at that picture as I fucked the shit out of her. He looked like a decent guy.”

Sergeant Rendez, whose own wife was caught in an illicit liaison with several high-ranking officers, has been on both ends. “Marriage doesn’t mean anything in the Army,” he says. “I’ve slept with more married women than women who weren’t married.”

And, of course, there are plenty of soldiers who don’t ask, and don’t tell, whose sex drives don’t always stay in the closet.

Bobby, a soldier with the 101st infantry division, recalls the initial invasion of Iraq, when they had just completed an intensive burning assault through the desert. “We didn’t even think about sex,” he says. “When we settled in Mosul and had our first chance for a rest, it all caught up with us. There was this airplane hangar with a back blast shield, and you could crawl under there. I went down looking for a place to get some privacy and jerk off, and there were these two infantry soldiers — dudes — just going at it, butt-fucking. They really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I guess they were trying to relax after all that had happened.”

Definitely not to form, we have no soldiering frame of reference to comment one way or the other about the facts as laid out — so to speak — in this article, so we will simply note that the author is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. His memoir, Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green, was published earlier [in 2008] by Presidio Press. His next book, Border Crosser, [was] published by Random House in 2009. … Still, it could not have come as much of a surprise to the military that if you put men and women together for long enough, a good number of them are going to want to have sex. Pretty sure the “environment” has less to do with things than biology.

Pet of the Year 2024

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Renee Olstead, Pet of the Year 2024

Renee Olstead personifies an undeniable duality — a striking redhead with both “kind” and “intimidating” used as terms to describe her. Though she prefers the former, the balance of warmth and edge comprises the essence of what makes her compelling. With an irresistibly sexy allure and razor-sharp intellect — complete with a Master’s degree in clinical psychology — Renee blends beauty and brains effortlessly in every room she enters.

Our Pet of the Year 2024 has interests reflect that same range. In prose, Renee gravitates toward political non-fiction, from the biography on Lee Atwater Bad Boy to Kim Kelly’s Fight Like Hell. In the moving picture genre, Renee will just as passionately enjoy Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 cult classic Showgirls, a film she quotes regularly and jokingly hints that she may have even referenced during her on-set interview, if you catch it. In Renee’s world, highbrow analysis and playful pop culture coexist with ease.

Off camera, has routines both intentional and personal. Ideal mornings begin with iced coffee and an hour untouched by notifications. When a meaningful moment or milestone comes along, she’ll record it on little slips of paper to store in a cookie jar and open on each New Year’s Eve as a way to reflect back. At home, she’s joined by her two dogs and a cat to rule her household and receive plenty of spoiled affection — and Renee wouldn’t have it any other way.

Insightful, spirited, and deliberate, our Pet of the Year 2024 navigates life with charm and purpose — embracing her passions and everything life has to offer, all while aspiring, as she says, “to be some part of the Penthouse legacy,” a mission she continues to fulfill beautifully.

In Depth with Renee

We could think of no reason that anyone would was less insight into the Renee, so we quick-quick came up with another dozen or so questions designed to probe her psyche of this Pet of the Year 2024. (We have to keep our probing respectable around the office, after all.)

Do you prefer texting or face-to-face conversations?

Face to face is always better, though I’m admittedly more reliant on texts these days.

What is one word that describes you?

Ok, so the two words I hear most frequently used to describe me are “kind” and “intimidating”. I’m not sure how to reconcile that exactly? I prefer the former.

What’s your ideal morning look like if you’re not rushed?

On an ideal morning, I’ll give myself an hour before I look at my phone notifications. A little iced coffee, some time with my dogs… perfect way to start the day.

Tell us about your pets, as much as you’re willing to share publicly anyway.

I have two dogs and a cat, Ume, Oscar, and Persephone. They absolutely run my life and get everything they want.

What makes you happy?

Feeling productive, doing things that feel meaningful, time with my family.

What item in your closet have you had the longest?

Definitely some of my mom’s old clothes. There’s a pair of her jeans that I’ve had since high school.

What was the last book you read? We know you love to read.

Ooo, I’m a big reader! I hate having to pick just one — especially since I often have more than one book going at a time. Lately, I’ve found myself drawn to political non-fiction — Lee Atwater’s biography “Bad Boy”, Liz Smith’s more contemporary, “Any Given Tuesday”, and more general accounts of the polictical/labor landscape, like Kim Kelly’s “Fight Like Hell”.

What TV shows or movies are you currently watching? And is there a line in a movie that always gets you?

I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to explore new filmmakers, but I love documentaries, foreign films, and, as always, Verhoeven’s underrated 1995 masterpiece,Showgirls. Showgirls is probably the movie I quote most frequently. I think I may have even slipped in a reference during my on-set interview? I wonder how many people will catch that 🙂

You mentioned before that you wished you could time travel, can you tell us where you would travel to first, and why?

See, this sounds like a good idea on the surface, but if it were actually possible, I’m certain I’d just end up running and rerunning major historical events, trying to get “in the room”, trying fix things, and inevitably making everything slightly worse with each new attempt.

What is the best invention of the decade?

The Facebook Marketplace of Ideas (for those that don’t know me well, that’s sarcasm)

Is there a skill you’ve always wanted to pick up but haven’t gotten around to yet?

Math, lol.

What’s a little tradition you have that others might find quirky?

Throughout the year, I write down all of my favorite moments on little slips of paper. Big wins, sentimental stuff, you name it. I store them all in a little cookie jar that I crack open on NYE. It’s a great way to look back on the year.

Any advice for future Pets?

So, I love sharing my Penthouse story with new models. When I went for my final interview with Penthouse, I showed up with a full storyboard for my dream shoot — and the Penthouse team made it happen. It’s just a reminder that every shoot is an opportunity for the model to live out their fantasy. I love seeing models make the most of their moment and really make it their own!

Should you wish to impress our Pet of the Year 2024 when you meet her in person, you can still bone up on both Fight Like Hell and Bad Boy via your friendly neighborhood Amazon. Not to supercede Renee’s choices or anything, but particularly these days it seems like maybe Wag the Dog — which you can find in both book and movie versions — might capture both concepts more succinctly. Regardless, you will have a lot more fun just thinking about Renee, though. That tends to be the decision around here. The news can be depressing.

Again with Celebrity

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Celebrity Star Bores

In a world where Telly Savalas speaks and people applaud; all things are possible. I have seen sack dresses. I have met the Captain and Tenille.

A lady told me of a man who took her out one night. He was a handsome, fashionable man. They ate at a Chinese restaurant, and he talked of the Five Flavors. After dinner they returned to his apartment, where he played a Linda Ronstadt album and invited the lady to share his Thai stick. Later he played a Chick Corea album and mixed vodka gimlets, as only he knew how. She browsed through his books. There were books about films and books about orgasms and books by people with Gallic names. Between two large volumes was a paperback edition of Are You Running with Me, Jesus?

“Someone must have laid that on me as a goof,” he grinned tentatively.

She rifled through the pages. A photograph fell to the floor. It was a picture of him, proud and crewcut, doing the Watusi in madras shorts.

His hand trembled, and he never called her again.

In the silence of this poor soul’s penance there was truth: the wages of gaucherie are death. To be trendy, you must be wary. Burn your Che posters behind you; scatter your witty T-shirts to the wind. There is no defense from the sneer within. You saw it in the Voice? Yes, but that was months ago. Think twice, frail earthling, before you next eat frozen yogurt. And answer me this: What ever happened to Quadraphonic?

Now the loud adoration like an ocean in their ears. Now the money and nice metaphors like petals at their feet. But soon they will be taken over the lea, to that place where Joey Heatherton reclines and symbolic poets seek redress, where Connie Francis and Eldridge Cleaver maunder in the wind. Over there, by the tulip tree: Jack Paar and Erica Jong embrace ziplessly. There even the sunsets are bland.

Soon Farrah Fawcett-Majors will stand before the mirror and, like Schopenhauer, wonder why. A bionic hand will reach out to console her, as her pennyweight breasts dwindle in the dusk. The twelve-year-old boys who discard her will recall her in later years. “Farrah. Oh, I remember her. She was the one with the freeze-dried hair and the paralytic grin. Seemed like if you stuck an icicle up her ass, it wouldn’t melt.”

But have faith, Farrah, for there are possibilities to be explored. Perhaps, like Twiggy, you can make an album of modern Country­and-Western music.

Good-bye, Fonzie. It is sad to see the world’s oldest teenager fall from grace. Yes, we know all about it. There is a person in there, a gifted actor, Henry Winkler. Yes, we know all about it. Russ Tamblyn said the same thing.

They waken with a jolt and sniff anxiously at their armpits for the scent of obsolescence. Orson Welles makes Citizen Kane and is embraced and hallowed by the handmaids of culture. Days pass, and he discovers that he has become NBC’s court fatso, shuttling his bulk and his airs from “The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast” to “Hollywood Squares.”

It happens so fast. I encountered two young girls browsing through the bins of a Los Angeles record store last year. One girl held out a copy of Magical Mystery Tour and called to her friend, “Hey, look! Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.”

Fame, said Matthew Arnold in one of his more lurid moments, is a hussy. Mark Spitz, I am sure, would agree. Where is Carroll Baker, who, in 1964, was to be the hottest hunk of Hollywood flesh since Marilyn Monroe? I am sure that I saw her comparing six-pack prices in an Altadena supermarket in 1973, but I may be mistaken. Of the current whereabouts and doings of the Singing Nun, I dare not even hint.

Joseph Heller would have been wise if he had never published Something Happened. He could have gone on forever as the brooding-genius author of Catch-22. Instead, he has been turned away as a one-shot writer, a sort of literary Petula Clark. In his New England woods, J.D. Salinger smiles, humming “Downtown” as he endorses his royalty checks.

Not even revolutionaries are immune. The next time you see Bernadette Devlin — if you ever see her again — she’ll probably be bouncing fatso jokes off Orson Welles on “Hollywood Squares.” Jerry Rubin is just another short person with a receding hair­line. Six will get you ten that Huey Newton isn’t even on Leonard Bernstein’s Christmas-card· list anymore. Mark Rudd gave himself up last summer in New York, but few could recall what for. If Bernadine Dohrn had a party, would Angela Davis come? Does Meyer Kahane do alterations? If Timothy Leary tries to fuck with your molecular structure, tell him to take a bus.

I sincerely hope that Lance Loud is doing well, and that he is hard at work on his craft. Remember, Lance: Ars longa, vita brevis.

Sometimes a person’s spiritual essence falls from vogue, and this situation is truly pathetic. Be aware, born-again putti of all denominations, that you have had your day. And with you, the lapdogs of est. To see and hear Valerie Harper and Cloris Leachman on “Dinah!” as they tell rapturously how est changed their lives is an experience not unlike watching refried beans coagulate on someone’s face during lunch. Next time you feel the urge to be reborn, please do so somewhere else. Do it over the lea, in that place of primal screams and poodle-faced maharishis and Dianetics. Anyone who has ever referred to How to Be Your Own Best Friend as “The Book” should be forced to read aloud from Kiss Me Deadly under threat of severe hostility displacement. Little mercy shall be shown, for it is believed that anyone found underlining in Passages deserves his fate.

Do not invest heavily in punk rock. Those New York groups with the Tzara-like names are losing what little power they had. In two years, all that will remain of punk rock will be a handful of embarrassing memories and Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators. He will enjoy a career more illustrious than the combined careers of Louis Prima and Jim Morrison. C.B.G.B. will be reclaimed by the Bowery and become once again the great skid-row bar it was until 1970.

Another musical trend that would be wise to begin checking its pulse is that part of country music that consists of stale metaphorical references to half-warm beer (usually Lone Star), cowboy hats, pickup trucks, faded jeans, and your warm and tender body close to mine. Surely these people can find day jobs. Deportation to 1967 is imminent. Jerry Lee Lewis will rise again. (Think about it, darlin’.)

No one will ever again utter the words roots, thrust, aesthetic, macho, rip-off, or orientation. Nothing will ever again be referred to as the pits. Those little mechanical people who read the news on television may be forced by acts of terrorism (picture your local TV newsman; now picture him bald) to stop speaking that gray-cardboard English taught at the College of Android Knowledge. No one will ever again relate to anything. There will be no more phenomena.

Perhaps we have already seen the last of those movies that portray microcosmic life at the razor’s edge of Los Angeles. We will not suffer being told again that Los Angeles is a dark, glowing metaphor of something eternal and indomitable in the American soul. Robert Altman will move to the great Northwest, because people can breathe there. Jack Webb, the true film auteur of Los Angeles, will regain power.

There will be no more Third World Art — whatever it was to begin with. Notice to all environmental artists: Get a job.

Stay away from the work of all hip novelists. Hip novelists are people who cannot write well, so they write hip, even though they’re usually not hip or even hep. The typical hip novel is one that seems to have been written several years ago but wasn’t. Burn your copy of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues while there is still time. Or hide it. (Wherever you keep your beatnik poetry will do fine.) Also stay away from all hip journalists, previously known as new journalists. These are people who think The White Negro was an important work. They favor such titles as “The New Numbness” and travel in packs. Their consciences give off an odor, which perceptive noses can detect.

When a trend dies, a new one takes its place. We eat goldfish today, carry Free Speech placards tomorrow, wear. safety pins the day after that. When a cultural hero wakes up, looks in the mirror, and, much to his sadness, sees Sammy Davis, Jr., there is a new hero to take his place. (How else is one to explain not merely the success but the very existence of John Denver?) They come; they go. In the calm and secure center of all these metamorphoses, all this flux, are the mercenaries of hype, those whose sacred and lucrative duty it is to breed and nurture and testify for the vogues and heroes of the day.

These are the people who told us in 1968 that the Boston sound (or, as at least one of them had it, the Boss-Town Sound) was going to be the next big thing in rock ’n’ roll. These are the people who told us in 1972 that Jonathan Livingston Seagull would change our lives. These are the people who gave us Pat Boone and heavy metal. These are the people who gave us monotheism. They have been with us always, and they always will be. They were there when man first raised a Hula Hoop to the northern light and saw that it was good. They will be there to hand out two-drink tabs when the first stage is built on the moon. They are the brokers, the keepers.

“Lou Reed, down three and a quarter. Ralph Nader, up an eighth. High-fiber diets, no change. If Steve Martin hits ten, throw a press party.”

One girl held up a copy of Magical Mystery Tour and called to her friend, “Hey, look! Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.”

Publicity is stranger than fiction. The mercenaries of hype will look you in the eye and tell you that they would still rave about Roy Clark even if he weren’t a client. Mystified, they will ask how it possibly could be that you don’t want to have lunch with Marvin Hamlisch. They will cast pity upon you, wondering aloud how a writer could pass up a chance to essay the scented sea that is Nick Nolte’s soul. They will obscenely expose their Master Charge cards and entice you to follow them into clubs where sensitive young creatures strum guitars and rhyme abstract nouns.

They begin to infest your days, your hours, your minutes on earth. They will circulate your name and number among their eerie race. One morning a new publicist, one fresh from the miasma of Ur-publicity, will call to tell you that Bo Diddley is into some heavy new trips. You express a morbid interest, and already it is too late. The next thing you know, you are locked in a room without windows and Mr. Diddley is telling you all about it. To paraphrase Milton: One can run, but one cannot hide. You might escape Bo Diddley today, but what of tomorrow and the impending pain of drinks with some human you have been excitedly told is the Rod McKuen of Scotland?

I recall being woken one wintry morning by the ringing of my phone. A fast, squeaky sound, like talons of ice, came to me with disarming intensity. It was a voice.

“Bloontz is dying to meet you,” the voice said.

These words struck my sleepy mind as being quite supernatural. With as much fear as distaste, I whisked away the squeaky voice, as one might whisk away a menacing insect. On two occasions after this, I experienced little nightmares in which pale ectomorphs closed around me in a stifling ring of publicity flesh, chanting endlessly that slobbering, bloated, fecal syllable, Bloontz.

A year later, in a different city, in a chilly room filled with tables and large, condescending avocado plants, a publicist approached me from the larboard, took my wrist, and said, “Bloontz would still like to meet you, darling.” The last I heard of Bloontz was in the form of a telegram: PLEASE COME TO BLOONTZ PARTY.

When the short publicist and I next met, I spoke first. “I am ready. Take me to Bloontz.” I breathed Tullamore Dew and hostility upon the head of the short person.

“Forget Bloontz,” the short person said. “I’m doing Neil Sedaka now. You’ll love him; he’s one of those rare people.”

“But I want Bloontz.”

Sloughed off by the Polack joke of pop, Bloontz has not survived, but the publicist has — undying, sovereign, short.

Walk carefully in the forest of vogue, lest you be found with Bloontz on your hands, flagrante delicto. Within every fiery idol is a Frankie Avalon waiting to get flushed down the bowl. Make one wrong move and you’ll end up in a work shirt at a Free Tom Hayden rally, or fettered to a buck-fifty seat at a Chad Mitchell hootenanny, or engaged in dialogue with a viable cross section. Where are Mort Sahl’s fans, Eugene McCarthy’s supporters? And what have they done to Yoko Ono, who only wanted to sing? The implications are fearsome.

You can act cool. You can say that marijuana just puts you to sleep, and that you haven’t read a book in seven years. You can say that you don’t listen to anything but Bach and the Doors. You can say that you judge movies by their camera angles. You can say whatever you will, but in the end you’ll slip, and Marshall McLuhan won’t be there to catch you. Just keep telling yourself, as you walk through the valley of the shadow of gauche: Marilyn Monroe died for my sins.

There is something beyond cool, however. Bad taste is timeless and the best way to avoid being caught culturally out-of­sync. Get in touch with your preternatural slob-soul. Next time a friend sniffs a wine cork at dinner, tell him that he looks stupid. Use the word scumbag at your next job interview. When people around you talk about movies, tell them that you heard Aldo Ray’s got a new one coming out. And, of course, do the Watusi.

To be honest, we did not know exactly what to expect when this assignment dropped into the queue. Whatever we expected, though, it was not “wages of gaucherie are death.” … Granted, things have changed as much in the literary world over the past 50 years as they have everywhere else, but where we sit today seems less like evolution and more like interstellar travel. … In fairness, this does happen to be an article about people and fads that were presumably forgotten in 1978, but if anyone tried this writing style these days, our copy editor might throw books at them — if our copy editor could find a physical book anywhere.

For those of you that did not bother to look it up, “ars longa, vita brevis” means roughly, “Art is long. Life is short.” … at least according to an official literary source. It sure does not seem like much in the official literary category happens much on social media, right? … Maybe if celebrity-types tried that they’d last longer … again.

Shifting Focus with Ashleigh

Posted on by Team Penthouse

An Ashleigh Skies Conversation

I’m sitting here with Ashleigh Skies, Penthouse Pet of the Month.

Ashleigh: Yay! [laughs]

How do you deal with creative blocks or moments of self-doubt?

Ashleigh: Hmm … That’s a good one. I feel like everyone gets those hate comments — or like push back on what they’re doing. … I even told my friend earlier who came here with me, I deal with them just by pushing past them. Tell yourself ten good things to the one bad thing that happened that day, or that you’re telling yourself. It can really change a lot about how you feel about yourself, or how you project yourself to other people … or even how they feel about themselves. Women sync up their periods. That means we can sync up emotions. I was thinking about that the other day. It’s like a tree. If you grow good roots yourself, you’ll plenish good fruits for other people.

I love that. As someone in the public eye, how do you manage the responsibility that comes with influence?

Ashleigh: I would say public influence is one of the most important things that you can do when you are viewed by so many people, and you just have to take rateability with what you really believe in and not try to skew it — not just in a way where people might understand you, but to where people might find you on a personal level … where you relate to them and how you are a real person, and how you deal with things because everybody deals with stuff differently.

100%. Great answer! What would you like your next big breakthrough to be?

Ashleigh: [laughs] I’ve been talking about this so much lately, actually. I’ve been swapping a lot more to more of a wholesome type content, right? Obviously, we all have to get our sexual energy out in the open where people can feel comfortable with it, but we also have to feel comfortable with ourselves and what we project ourselves to be. So, maybe we’re more modest about it, or maybe we’re more open about it, but me personally … Women are so different to where every year we change what we want and how we want to be loved — how we want to show our sexual animal. Every year I feel like I change. This year, I more so want to show my home ec, housewife type sexuality — not just pure I want to jump your bones, more let me cook for you and then let’s see where things go. So, I’m changing gears as to less people porn, more food porn. [laughs]

I love that. That’s a great one. Imagine if you could erase one memory from your past, would you? Or is there something you would want to relive?

Ashleigh: I would probably want to relive a moment. Every moment makes us who we are, so I wouldn’t take anything away necessarily, but I would definitely add more of a good moment and that moment would definitely be where I fell out of love with what I truly liked and loved and resonated with and could study and rabbit hole in which was my faith. Doing what I do now kind of took me away from that but realizing that I could also be who I am and believe in what I do really got me further into what I am doing next. So, leaning into my faith has been one of the things that has been really monumental. I’m living this way and, yes, I do porn, but at the same time, I want people to know that they can do this and also turn it into something that is beautiful and not just looked as at one type of way. As a society, we can accept each other for who we are and truly just love what we love — not judge each other, just help each other our journey. We’re all just Polly Pockets trying to get through life.

What would you do if you woke up one morning and no one knew or recognized your name?

Ashleigh: I would get a regular job, and I would probably be pretty happy about it. Yeah! Honestly, it’s a fresh start! It’s like a restart at life. I already consider myself to have lived like one life already. This is a second life. That would be a third life. So, it’s like restarting. It’s really nice. That’s a fresh start. I would embrace it.

I love that answer. If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Ashleigh: Read more books. Read more books and learn about other people’s experiences before you experience it yourself. Ask more questions. Seek out more answers from people who are older than you. Listen to your grandparents. Wow, can I keep going? [laughs]

Yeah! [laughs]

Ashleigh: I mean there’s so many things you want to ask when you’re growing up, and you don’t have answers to that you just … education. Educate yourself. Never stop learning. Never think you know everything, cause you don’t. Just learn everything about whatever you want to learn. Don’t be a … good at everything but a master of nothing. Learn and hone in on what you truly love and believe in and don’t lose your passion for it.

Can you recall a time that you had to make a difficult decision that went against the grain?

Ashleigh: Yes. Constantly in camming, you have a lot of decisions to make: who you’re going to work with and who you trust with your wallet. I would say that was one of the biggest things that affects you personally, so you have to look at finance — who you trust, and who you want to build the trust with.

So, with all that being said … all the women and the people in the industry here are choosing to go with certain media or influence. You have to pick what models you the best and how you feel about yourself, where you want your brand to go. The hardest part is picking people who align with that in this business. So, where you want to go with your life, and what you want to do with it right now.

Image is very important when it comes to the internet, because it’s forever. And … a lot of people like to joke and say “Oh, good thing the internet’s not forever!” But it is. So, you have to pick the people that you trust the most with that and, for me, the hardest decision that I’ve had to pick as far as to steer my life, and how I want my image pursued … or portrayed in the future, would be put in the hands of my future and image. Your likeness is the biggest thing that you have here and, unless you’re willing to give all of that up and become somebody else, you have to pick somebody who models that. For me, myself, it has just been me. I haven’t picked anybody, because nobody knows you how you know yourself.

So, my biggest decision has been to step back from the mainstream having somebody do your stuff for you and stepping up and doing myself, which is very hard. Maybe it loses a little bit of money, but at the same time, you … what do you gain? You gain yourself, your image, and you have your own likeness in your hands. That’s been a big thing for me for like five years now. This will be the 5th year.

Wow … Great answer!

Ashleigh: Thank you!

What’s a misconception about your life or career that you wish you could dispel?

Ashleigh: Who I really am. What I really do for fun and what I really am about … I feel like Hannah Montana. I’m living one life, but truly everything that makes me happy is the complete opposite, and you know it’s fun that people know one image of me, and then I get to go home and be myself. Um … There’s a lot of things, but that would be one of them. [laughs]

That’s amazing. How do you define happiness, and what does it mean to you personally?

Ashleigh: Happiness … Happiness isn’t just a feeling; it’s a verb. It’s what you do, because what you do can mentally change how you are and how you react to every situation, just like love. Both of them are verbs. It’s what you choose to do, and it can affect you in so many ways. It can affect your mentality. It can affect your friends around you, your group. You are the five people you hang around with most, so if those people have the best energy, you will be a ball of energy and be able to give that to the people around you.

That’s good. Ok. Social medias … What’s your socials?

Ashleigh: So, I changed my handles a little. I felt like it was time for a little upgrade on that, although my OnlyFans is still badbabysitter because I am for hire. [laughs]

As we understand recent events, and even as hinted to here, Ashleigh has changed her focus a bit over the past few months and — surprised though some may be — we wish her peace and happiness on her new journey. People change over time, and really only in retrospect might we determine whether they evolved or devolved, but either way, we each choose our own paths. If you have forgotten, feel free to compare and contrast. … We love doing that. For our part, at the very end we simply hope we can say, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” … Also, we might need to reconsider the five people we hang around with most.

A Cash Register’s Ka-CHING!

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Pink Floyd’s Cash Register

Did you know that the cash register in Pink Floyd’s “Money” was also used for The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine”? That is so weird to me. Both songs were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and apparently they have a cash register in their quiver of instruments. It was first employed by The Beatles during the recording of “Yellow Submarine” amid the cacophony of noise at about the 1:30 mark of the song where the lads attempted to create the atmosphere of a submarine (“Full speed ahead, Mr. Parker, full speed ahead!”). The Beatles apparently had a rollicking good time banging on shit to make this part.

“At one point,” Bob Spitz writes in The Beatles: The Biography, “the studio cupboard was hijacked for any and all special effects which included chains, a ship’s bell, tap dancing mats, a tin bath filled with water, whistles, wind and thunderstorm machines, and a cash register. That cash register would later become royalty in pop music when it was later used for the recording of Pink Floyd’s ‘Money.’”

The cash register, as you know, plays a much more prominent role in Pink Floyd’s composition. “The intro was recorded by capturing the sounds of an old cash register on tape,” says songfacts.com, “and meticulously splicing and cutting the tape in a rhythmic pattern to make the cash register loop effect.” This was, additionally, one of the first and most successful instances of looping, an effect we now take for granted.

I’m not a hoarder and I don’t collect anything, but I want that cash register. What a weird object.

How is this thing not a National Treasure in The British Museum, or on display in a Hard Rock Cafe? It was employed by two of the greatest bands on the planet, in two of the most popular songs ever written. It would be a magnificent centerpiece for any gentleman’s cabinet of curiosities. I decided to go to the source and contacted Abbey Road Studios.

“A cash register wasn’t actually used in ‘Yellow Submarine,’” Kayla, from Abbey Road Studios, said in her reply to my email, “but you are correct about Pink Floyd’s ‘Money.’ What did you want to find out? I’ll see if we can help.”

I politely explained to Kayla that she was mistaken because the internet says that the same cash register was employed by both bands in their respective songs. “So cut the crap, lady,” I said, “and show me the cash register!” I didn’t say that, but I did send her a sampling of the evidence I had uncovered.

“Well what about all this then, huh?”

“The sound of the cash register probably came from the old EMI sound effects tape library,” Kayla replied. When bands found out about the library, they would often raid the collection looking for weird and wonderful sounds.”

No, no, no, I replied to Kayla, surely you’re mistaken. EVERYONE says there’s a cash register. There is no mention of sound effects. I pointed out that even the Abbey Road Studios website itself boasts of a cash register: “…They followed this up with their masterpiece, Dark Side of the Moon. Using everything from cash registers to the Abbey Road doorman Gerry O’Driscoll…”

“Unfortunately,” Kayla replied, “all the staff that would have worked on those sessions aren’t with the company anymore.”

Phooey! I said. I decided Kayla didn’t know what she was talking about. So I did the unthinkable and looked at page 3 of my search. Crazy, I know. And that’s where I found this quote from Pink Floyd’s drummer, Nick Mason: “Roger and I constructed the tape loop for ‘Money’ in our home studios and then took it to Abbey Road. I had drilled holes in old pennies and then threaded them onto strings; they gave one sound on the loop of seven. Roger had recorded coins swirling around in the mixing bowl Judy used for her pottery, the tearing paper effect was created very simply in front of a microphone, and the faithful sound library supplied the cash registers.”

The faithful sound library. Goddamn you internet, goddamn you to Hell. I, of all people, should know that the internet is total bullshit. According to the internet, for instance, I invented the word “bromance”: some anonymous kid in Australia wrote it in his blog, and then Otto4711 cut and pasted that into his Wikipedia entry for “bromance,” and now everyone from GQ Magazine to MSNBC takes this as fact: Dave Carnie invented the word “bromance.” I’m not going to dispute it, but I will say that it’s only half true. Much like Pink Floyd’s cash register.

I shared Nick Mason’s quote with Kayla and apologized for doubting her. As conciliation, I offered Abbey Road Studios my own sound effects library: a 45-minute cassette tape filled with recordings of my farts. “Maybe the bands will enjoy these weird and wonderful sounds?” I said.

Interesting how bitter looks good on absolutely no one, right? We will say that a YouTube short tells a wonderfully fun story about the cash register, although to be perfectly honest, we still think Kenna makes for a much better illustration of pretty much anything. … Oh! And we did pull this from a 2016 issue of the magazine, so at least we were consistent on the decade part. We credit Kenna for that too.

The War of Art

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Art, War, and the Human Condition

As I sit down to write this month’s column, it’s 13 years to the day that the American military invaded Iraq.

That invasion, and the subsequent nine years of war and occupation, irrevocably ruptured the lives of millions of Iraqis, as well as hundreds of thousands of American service-members and their families. The war still isn’t over for Iraq, nor is the fallout from the war even close to seeing its end back here. And now it looks like we’ll be a part of whatever comes next in Iraq — though how much we’re involved, and for how long, has not yet been determined.

Which brings me to the crossroads of War and Art. Since at least the time of the Iliad, war has been an artist’s subject. It is one of life’s great ironies that one of the most destructive human endeavors can lead to creations of utter poignancy and beauty. Yet anyone who’s ever walked along the black panels of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, or gazed up at Picasso’s Guernica, or sat down with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, intuitively understands this contradiction. Each of those experiences are fucking DEEP … and connects with the human condition in ways that are somehow both universal and specific.

Now, 13 years after the beginning of the Iraq War, a new moment in the arts is upon us: one in which that war and war stories are penetrating our cultural consciousness. From story collections like Phil Klay’s Redeployment to Hollywood blockbusters like American Sniper to the paintings of Iraqi artists like Qasim Sabti, art is again proving to be a salvation from the destruction human beings have wrought upon the world.

What does it mean? Does it affect the wider culture at all, or is it just nothing but an expression for the self-selected part of the citizenry already engaging in these issues of war and peace? How will it shape the future, or can art ever do such a thing so grandiose? Hell if I know. I just work here. But while these questions may not have clear answers, they’re still worth considering. Though perhaps I’m a bit biased considering my own soldier-to-artist transition.

The futility of war must be related anew in every generation.

Like many writers and artists whose work touches upon war and armed violence, and the effects of that armed violence upon human communities and individual souls, I wrestle with issues of message and fears of glorification. After all, Full Metal Jacket is a stridently antiwar film — yet nearly every soldier and Marine of my generation could quote it verbatim. (And with good reason — it’s a film filled with fantastic lines.)

But ignorance of something done in our collective name hardly seems the answer, either. So one writes, and tries to write well, and be purposeful about it. One wants to keep it real, and be emotionally truthful to the moment and experience, but do so in a way that doesn’t cheat the subject matter. The late, great E.L. Doctorow said, “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

That’s sound advice for all creatives and seekers, I think, not just novelists. The feel of something can be slippery, but when a story or piece of art gets it right, the reader/viewer/observer feels it right back, interpreting and internalizing in a variety of ways.

“How is contemporary war literature different from the war literature of the past?” This question was posed to me recently at a college. It was an earnest question, and deserved an earnest response, though there was a certain undertone to it: “Why should we care?” There’s an earnestness to that undertone, too, I suppose, though there was also bite to it. I took a deep breath and did my best.

I talked about how every American service member who served in Iraq and Afghanistan at one point volunteered for duty. That needs to be explored, not just in individuals, but what it means for our military at large, how it conducts itself in warfare, and how it impacts us all as Americans, soldier and citizen.

Then I talked about how more and more contemporary war lit is finding realized and dimensional local perspectives — “the others” to use a literary term, “the enemy” to use a military one. Maybe this is due to the nature of counterinsurgency operations. Maybe it’s the understanding that these wars ultimately aren’t about us. Maybe it’s just good storytelling. Regardless, one would have to go back to the modernist revolution of World War I to see such vibrant empathy for and with “the others” in war literature.

That’s interesting, I think. And hope.

There’s another reason that art emerges from the wreckage of war. A broader reason, and unfortunately, a timeless one. The futility of war must be related anew in every generation for it to be heard at all. In that way, it’s happening now because it has to happen. If it wasn’t, we’d not only be failing what comes after, but we’d also be failing what came before.

Gee. It could be that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. … Someone should write that down. … We would also suggest the referenced book on – pointedly to this article – art, war, and the human condition. You can watch the movie if you must, but you’ll be experiencing the condensation rather than the rain. … Hmm. Maybe somebody really should write that one down.

Campus Humor as Politics

Posted on by Team Penthouse

The Hard Left is Killing College Humor

Humor is often the first casualty of repression. Comedians were among the first victims of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Kim Jong-un, in particular those who mocked the tyrants and their political cronies and programs. In fact, the concept of “political correctness” developed under Stalin as a rigid test for “acceptable” humor, art, and even music.

Now political correctness is running amok in American universities, and its first casualty is college humor. Today’s repressives are not the right-wing McCarthyites or religious fundamentalists who tried to censor the humor of my college generation; rather, they are the self-proclaimed “progressives” of the hard left—the new Stalinists on campus who shape the terrain of permissible speech in general, and humor in particular. These political-correctness police demand “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to protect their thin-skinned lemmings from micro aggressions, including sexist, racist, homophobic, and other “offensive” jokes.

An example in point from my own grandson, who is a senior at Harvard and a member of the Lampoon, the college-humor magazine. He and a friend attended the Harvard-Yale football game and his friend held up a sign reading, “Tackling is a micro aggression.” Offended students screamed at them, “You’re mocking our pain! You should be required to undergo sensitivity training!” Yes, my grandson and his friend were mocking the excessive efforts of the hard left to control campus humor. That’s what comedy at its best does. But the radical censors of the hard left have no sense of humor, and they don’t want anyone else to laugh at the serious issues they raise, either.

“Self-censorship, enforced by university administrators, is the current mechanism of suppression of offensive humor.”

A recent documentary on campus humor, Can We Take a Joke?, showed how widespread the problem has become. Comedians are now refusing to perform on campuses lest they be attacked by hard-left censors. Teachers are reluctant to use humor, not only in the classroom but in the cafeteria. Students risk discipline for telling a dirty joke to an overly sensitive friend.

To be sure, the real tyrants killed their politically incorrect comedians. There’s a wonderful 1993 film, Genghis Cohn, about a German-Jewish comedian who’s murdered by Hitler and comes back to haunt his killers with jokes. No doubt Hitler would have executed Charlie Chaplin for making his 1940 comic masterpiece, The Great Dictator, if he could have.

Of course today’s college censors merely seek to discipline comic offenders, but the impact is discernible. Self-censorship, enforced by university administrators, is the current mechanism of suppression of offensive humor. And the impact is similar: a humorless campus on which fear of offending destroys spontaneity.

The real concern is that today’s universities are miseducating tomorrow’s leaders. The real world into which students graduate is filled with micro and macro aggressions. There are no “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings” on Main Street, Wall Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue. Current students will be unprepared for that world. Or, worse, they will try to change it into a replica of their repressive university world in which sensitivity trumps liberty.

As usual, there are some heroes, but not many. The University of Chicago felt it necessary to send a letter to all incoming freshman, telling them, “We do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

The very fact that a top university felt it necessary to send such a letter speaks volumes about the current stifling atmosphere on many campuses. The fact that other schools would be afraid to send such a letter speaks even more loudly.

Students, faculty, and alumni who value freedom of expression might fight back against bullies who would tell them what to say, think, and believe. One can be sensitive without being stifled. An organization called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has taken the lead in opposing campus repression. But they, too, are being subjected to censorship and harassment.

There is bigotry and a double standard at work here. Many of the same censors who want safe spaces—for themselves and their partners in paranoia—are among the leaders of groups that aggress against religious Christians, Jewish Zionists, conservatives, free-speech activists, and other politically incorrect groups who are denied even physically safe spaces against both micro and macro aggressions.

“Free speech for me but not for thee” is a common refrain for hypocrites. The new refrain is “Safe spaces for me but not for thee.” The only acceptable approach is physically safe spaces for all, but intellectually safe spaces for none. And no protection against humor. If you don’t like a joke, don’t laugh!

Frirst off, be careful of the watchdogs. Secondly, of course we understand that none of these Pets from 2024 have anything to do with attacks on college campus humor a decade ago. To be purely transparent, ten years ago, not a single one of these women would have been old enough to be in an institution of higher education, what with them being busy dealing with regular education and all. … However, we have always seen the Pets as shining examples of free speech, and since it tends to be ultra-conservatives who criticize their life choices, we felt like we should try and offer room for the other side to complain too.

Also, the Pet of the Year announcement featuring these contestants will be in just a couple of weeks in Las Vegas, so we really should appreciate them all together one more time. Viva la Campus, and … um … Pets!

Arch Enemy Alissa White-Gluz

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Alissa White-Gluz: Metal’s Artful Genius

Arch Enemy’s gorgeous growler Alissa White-Gluz, 38, elevates the Swedish band’s melodic death metal riffs with her powerful vocals. The Canadian-born artist joined the group in 2014 — but she’s long had a passion for performing.

Before Alissa took the place of outgoing frontwoman Angela Gossow — who now serves as Arch Enemy’s manager — she was the lead vocalist and founding member of the metalcore band The Agonist.

As a fan of grunge and punk, this child of the ’90s was inspired by the era’s badass female artists from group such as Hole, Garbage and No Doubt. Alissa admits her vocals have little in common with the idols from her youth, but she explains their stage presence and attitude has influenced her own style.

As Alissa soaked up the local music scene as a teen, she considered a career out of the spotlight as a stage manager or crew member. But when a band told her they needed a singer, she screwed up the courage to anonymously cover Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” and handed over her tape.

“They’re like, damn, she’s pretty good. Is she hot? And I was like she’s me. And that’s how I started singing in my first band,” she says.

But Alissa’s life took an even more interesting turn when Gossow — another idol — contacted her about picking up the mantle as Arch Enemy’s frontwoman.

“When I first started doing metal and I discovered her, I was like she’s the best. She’s amazing,” says Alissa, who calls Gossow her biggest female metal influence. “We’re kind of like twin flames.”

Alissa’s growling and clean vocals are equally impressive. However, her intricate costumes — which sometimes coordinate with her outrageous hair colors — also make her a standout in the industry.

“Metal is a very testosterone-driven music scene, and there’s this thing metalheads say: passion not fashion. So I’ve had to deal with the brunt of that a little bit just essentially for being myself,” she says.

Having previously painted theater set backdrops, Alissa is very attuned to how colors and costumes can help accentuate different characters and advance stories. Now, she puts that knowledge — and her attention to detail — to work for Arch Enemy. As for her stage looks, Alissa works to keep things “fresh and exciting” — but also ensures none of her costumes or makeup contain components derived from animals. She sketches out her ideas, creates her own concepts and also works with independent designers. She says wearing such inventive creations is “how I truly feel like myself.”

She adds, “I know if I quieted down — like maybe some people want me to — then I just wouldn’t feel right in my own skin onstage. There’s this concept called enclothed cognition, which is actually really interesting, where somebody’s performance in any given field improves if they dress the part. So for me, I feel I need to dress the part to really be myself on stage.”

Alissa is also intimately involved in every aspect of the band’s live performances.

“When people come to see an Arch Enemy show, I want them to have that full experience because we put so much passion, and thought, and time and effort into each and every one of our songs, each and every note of the guitar, each and every screech and every drum hit,” she shares.

“I want to make sure when someone comes to see the show, it’s not just like they’re hearing the CD. I want them to be experiencing something else, so I will talk with our lighting designer, our production manager, our stage manager. I’ll be like: OK, what colors are we looking at for the backdrop? What colored gels for the lights are we using on each song? It’ll be like ‘Ravenous’ has red, ‘My Apocalypse’ is green, and ‘The Eagle Flies Alone’ is blue.”

That artistry also extends to her solo clips on her Patreon site and Arch Enemy’s elaborate music videos.

“We released this video for ‘Poisoned Arrow,’ for example. That’s another single off of our album Deceivers. There’s this this shot where I appear as a blind archer. I thought that was a really interesting concept to tie into the lyrics of the song.

“Then I was like, OK in post-production, they’ve gotta give me big dragon wings because this is the opposite of Cupid here, and I want a demon flying around shooting people with arrows. We did that, and I think it looks really, really cool. I was happy to be able to express myself more and more through the music videos.”

A vegetarian since birth — and a vegan for 25 years and counting — Alissa has also become known for her animal activism and says, “I’ve always thought what’s the point of screaming if I’ve got nothing to say? So, I like to encourage people to think about their food choices.”

In addition, she continually expands her musical landscape via interesting collaborations with fellow artists — including Nita Strauss, whom she partnered with on “The Wolf You Feed.” But in recent years, the bulk of her work has been with her Arch Enemy bandmates — guitarists Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis, drummer Daniel Erlandsson and bassist Sharlee D’Angelo.

Alissa attributes the group’s appeal to the level of sophistication in their songwriting and the melody of its guitars saying, “People ask me sometimes: Why don’t you do more clean singing in Arch Enemy? I’m like, well, the guitars are doing the singing. So I’m kind of a rhythm instrument in this band. I’m delivering the words with passion and conviction, but the guitars are doing the singing. We have Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis. Every time I get on stage with them, I’m amazed I’m standing next to those two guys because they’re world-class guitarists.

“Even if you’re not into metal, you may like Arch Enemy for the musicianship — and even if you’re not into extreme metal, which is kind of what we do, we’re pretty different than most bands. So I would say, check out the music videos. Then if you like what you see, come to a show because the show is a whole new experience on top of that.”

Alissa White-Gluz on Stage

Honestly, we’d agree with the overall melodic feeling, even within the Metal genre. You can find the band as well as Ms. White-Gluz online, of course, should research be your thing. For what is may be worth, you will likely find it worth your time to take a quick look at their YouTube channel for a quick analysis. Play even just a couple of their tracks for a couple of minutes, and you will understand the appeal.

While you will find life full of people that do not exactly sound like they look, in any ranking of such a group Alissa White-Glutz would appear high upon that list. Also noteworthy might be the fact that between when the magazine did this profile and this online publication, Alissa has split out onto her own. Interesting in addition to wildly talented, that one. You don’t see that combination very often.

Nude Artistry with Nicole

Posted on by Team Penthouse

A Nicole Vaunt Conversation

Nicole Vaunt, Pet of the Month. First I want to say, what have you been doing, ‘cause I haven’t seen or spoken to you in a while … So just give me a synopsis of everything.

Nicole: I have been continuing to do photo shoots all over the world, which I’m so excited to be able to do! I’ve gotten to shoot on — I think even more continents than I did last time we spoke. I’ve also started doing mainstream porn back in July, which is really exciting. I’m with Spiegler, which is so amazing, and I’ve been loving being involved in this new community. It’s like a whole new world for me.

Wow, what was the catapult that made you dip into mainstream adult?

Nicole Vaunt: It had been something that I had been considering for a while, and I had sort of gotten to a plateau in my career. I was talking with some friends and my business partner, trying to figure out what I could get out of it potentially, what the options were. This was one of the options that came up, and I knew some people who were already involved in it, obviously. I’ve been around the industry for a long time, just not personally involved. Then I reached out to them. I wanted to know answers about the lifestyle, and all those sorts of things. Of course I know sex, but I didn’t necessarily know what the requirements were for actually doing it in mainstream. So I reached out to them. I did a tarot reading, and it just really felt like it was the right time for me to pursue it. It felt like it was an organic evolution of the work that I’ve been doing for the past 15 years and now was the perfect time.

What were the requirements?

Nicole: Oh, just things like the hours are earlier … I’m a night owl, so you know, most sets you have there between 8 … 9 … 10 a.m., and that’s usually earlier than I’m used to things like that. … Also, me needing to come down to LA more which is where the main work happens, those sorts of lifestyle changes. Consequently, I’ve definitely been making trips down to LA, although I still live up in Portland with my partner and my adorable dogs. I always go down to LA for work, and I’m really enjoying it so far, but those were the main lifestyle changes. Basically, I wanted to know what the expectations were so I could provide my best self. I wouldn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver.

Of course. Are you doing Boy/Girl, Girl/Girl? What are you doing?

Nicole: I’m doing all of it really. I love it all. I love sex, so I’m down for all of it. [laughs]

I do believe that to be with Spiegler, you have to do everything.

Nicole: Pretty much. Yeah. I mean he’s an amazing agent.

I’m happy he signed you.

Nicole: Absolutely, I know I’m super lucky. And all of the other Spiegler girls, every single one of them, are just cool, reliable, down to do whatever, they know themselves. … I feel like I’m in a very special group of women when I’m with them.

I love it. How do you stay grounded and connected to your roots despite your fame or success?

Nicole: I love to be in nature. That’s a huge thing for me, especially having to go down to LA so frequently. I love being able to go back to Portland and being in nature. It serves as such a beautiful reset for me. I also read a lot. I’m a huge reader. If anyone out there listening is into fantasy romance novels, get at me, let’s talk about it! Let’s hear your spicy theories! So, I read a lot and that really helps calm me down. It’s just something I’ve always enjoyed. I’ll paint sometimes, and honestly just hanging out and playing games with friends can be a huge thing. I started playing D&D with a friend, which has been really exciting. I’m doing more fun nerd stuff, not being restricted in the things that I find fun just because they might not be as trendy or cool. Overall, being authentic to myself and doing the things that I authentically enjoy, I think that works as the best way I can keep myself grounded. I’m lucky I have an amazing support system around me. If I start getting any kind of ego, I get a check from them [laughs] and it brings me right back down! [laughs] Honestly, I appreciate the love.

Yeah, I think that’s important. … To stay focused and grounded, you have to have people that are honest with you and that do check you, because if they let you get away with shit then you’re never going to learn anything.

Nicole: Absolutely. I need to have friends who feel safe enough and comfortable enough to bring up confrontation or criticism if I do something unwittingly that upsets them. I need to know that my friends will be able to come to me and tell me about it. I can’t deal with people who do not deal with conflict. I need you to be able to give me criticism and know that I will be able to give that in return. That’s how we make each other better. My friendships and my partnerships are what have made me a better person, and I am so, so grateful for that.

I love it. That’s a great answer. Where do you see yourself in 5 and 10 years, both personally and professionally?

Nicole: That’s a great question. The future’s a little scary. I am not someone who has ever had big goals or things that I desperately want to do. I’ve really enjoyed going through my life and my career with a more organic process. That said, in 5 years I would definitely love to be working on bigger, more creative, porn projects and art projects. I have a really ambitious project with my partner, who is the photographer for my Pet of the Month set. We are trying to do nudes on every continent, so that is my really long-term goal, including Antarctica, so …

We published those photos.

Nicole Vaunt: Yes, yes! Yes!

Gorgeous! Those were so spectacular! I’ve never seen anything like it. Like … Just the most artsy, amazing, beautiful … I mean …

Nicole: He’s an artist.

And your body was beautiful and just the way you posed on that ice with the different rocks and natural configurations … It was really cool!

Nicole: Yeah! I love posing in unusual and unexpected places, especially nude, because it gets such a response. Also I find it kind of a test of endurance for me, which I really appreciate.

I was going to say — How cold was it in Antarctica?

Nicole: I haven’t been to Antarctica yet. I’ve been to Iceland. I’ve posed on the icebergs in Iceland and in the ice lagoon. It’s definitely cold, but the trick is: you shoot very, very quickly. You get in, you get out, and you get warm. That is the key, without doubt.

Great answer. What’s a guilty pleasure or something that you do for fun that people wouldn’t expect?

Nicole: Oooh, I love video games! I really enjoy puzzle games especially, and I really enjoy co-playing games too Because I didn’t grow up with a gaming system, I’m not as good with the mechanics and fighting and stuff, but I’m with someone who is. I love exploring new worlds, figuring out puzzles. I thought that The Witness was an incredible game. God of War, the last 2, were both emotional and beautiful and involved games — just absolutely incredible. Then I just played Baldur’s Gate 3, which was so much fun! And I’ll tell you a little secret … I don’t know if this will make me sound … like … a crazy perv, but in the camp … when all your characters are in camp, there’s actually an option where they can all be naked, and so … whenever we’re in camp, all my characters are naked hanging out. [laughs]

Oh my God! That is so funny!

Nicole: Yeah! It’s really funny! They did a very good job articulating dicks. I’ll tell you that. You get to choose your dick.

No, you don’t!

Nicole: You absolutely do. There’s 3 different options. You can choose your own pubic hair. You can choose all of it.

Wow …

Nicole: So, shoutout to whoever the developer or designer was who did the genitals on BG3. I salute you.

If you could live in any other time period, other than your own, when would it be and why?

Nicole: I always find this question difficult because I love my life as it is now. I think that as complicated as this era is, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere in the past.

If you could switch lives with anyone for a day, who would it be and why?

Nicole: I wouldn’t switch with anyone. I don’t need to do that. I want everyone to have their best own lives. I don’t need to take over someone else’s.

If you could have any superpower for a day, which one would you choose, and what would you do with it?

Nicole: I always debate between invisibility or flying, and I think I would choose invisibility because it would be so nice if you were at an event, or somewhere where you just got tired of being looked at, you could disappear for a few seconds — [laughs] — then come back refreshed. I think that would be really nice.

That’s a good one. I like that. As someone in the public eye, how do you manage the responsibility that comes with influence?

Nicole: This is a great question. It’s something that I’m still struggling and dealing with. The industries that we’re involved with are kind of complex, always leading to ethical questions that need to be considered. I’m just trying to be as hardworking as I can, while also maintaining my own sense of integrity and authenticity. But it is complicated. I don’t think that I do a perfect job of it. Not that I believe in perfection, but I think that there are things that I need to work on — and that the industry needs to work on. I’m hopeful that as I go through it, because I do have the privilege of choice, that I can continue to choose projects that feel good for me and everyone involved in them.

Do you think there’s a difference between nudity in art, because you were a nude art model for a while, right? Versus the nudity in pornography? If so, how do you differentiate your own work?

Nicole: I don’t really like the line that gets drawn between art and porn because it’s really not relevant, It feels like a way to just further divide the community instead of joining the community together. So there’s really not a line between art and porn to me. I think that you can create art or create media with different intents, and you can be someone who creates imagery with the intent just to be visual — like a sculpture, very fine art based — or you can be creating content for titillation and excitement. You can also create in both of those world simultaneously. I don’t think those divisions are really relevant, and I try not to think of them. Put a more academic way, I don’t believe in the Whorearchy. I think that everyone who gets even remotely naked online should be in the same boat, because the people outside of it are going to think negative of you whether you’re sucking dick online, or if you have your titties out online. They don’t differentiate between the two and us differentiating between them divides us.

Did you call it Whorearchy?

Nicole: The Whorearchy. Yeah. The Whorearchy is real. I recommend everyone look up Whorearchy. I definitely did not come up with that phrase, but it is very, very, very relevant.

We included the link there to our 2024 Pet of the Year’s article on the academic part of Nicole’s interview, but f you want to check out one of her favorite puzzle games, we can offer an overview on her behalf as well. As she mentioned, in the years since becoming a Pet, Nicole has transitioned into the adult movie part of the industry as well — a decision we continue to applaud. The database shows nearly 40 projects complete as of this writing, which means, (A) You now have much more to talk about with her on Instagram, and (B) We really need to bump up our DVD library.

Pet Playoffs 2025

Posted on by Team Penthouse

POY Playoffs 2025

If this feels sudden, you need not worry. No reason to question your sanity.

Remember that reality updates faster than your phone software. You blink, go about your day, cast a vote (or eight, if you’re organized), and suddenly — the playoffs 2025 appear. Welcome to that ultimate festivity.

Naturally, twelve incredible women entered this year’s competition. Now, your votes have whittled us down to six.

The math is simple. The decision? Not so much. … If numbers represented the whole story, we’d all be done now — but anyone paying attention certainly knows better. You knew this moment loomed on the horizon since our first announcement. The Playoffs 2025 round hardly represents a plot twist. Now we have a final (and fun) decision narrowing — where enthusiasm turns into commitment, support stops being casual, and every vote starts to feel just a little more intentional.

Of course, that always makes this part bittersweet.

Narrowing the field means celebrating some while saying so long (for now) to others who left a real impression. Each of these women brought personality, presence, and plenty of unforgettable moments to Penthouse — things that don’t disappear just because the list gets shorter. Once a Pet enters our world, she becomes a part of the story. Always. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this competition has never been merely about a title.

The Pet of the Year competition rewards showing up month after month. Penthouse values confidence, creativity, and bringing something unmistakably her own to a brand with decades of beauty and charm behind it. We proudly spotlight women who know themselves fully and have never been shy about it. To put it simply, some moments simply cannot live in spreadsheets or vote totals — they revel in a look, a laugh, or a line that sticks with everyone longer than expected.

Now, about those six finalists. At this point, as they say, things now get very real.

We can now Reveal your Pet of the Year 2025 Playoff Finalists

Thus, we present the top vote recipients for our 2024 Pets: Kassie Wallis (March), Elly Clutch (April), Caryn Beaumont (May), Adrianna Eves (June), Autumn Ren (July), and Krystal Harper (November).

Should you need a quick refresher on who made it this far, you can click each name to read their answers to our questions and relive their Pet videos. …

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Kassie WallisKassie Wallis (March)
Kassie commands attention without ever raising her voice. Dark hair, captivating hazel eyes, and a gaze famously capable of accidentally eye-fucking anyone who meets her field of view — intentional or not, it works. The spotlight doesn’t need chasing; it finds her.

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Elly ClutchElly Clutch (April)
Elly races in her own lane. Red-haired, proudly nerdy, and refreshingly self-aware, Elly pairs humor with confidence in a way that feels effortless. She leans into what makes her different — all the while making it look unfairly cool.

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Caryn BeaumontCaryn Beaumont (May)
Caryn brings Australian ease and a grounded perspective which fans connected with immediately. She exhibits an appreciation for the moment in everything she does — present, poised, and fully aware that confidence thrives as much mindset as presentation.

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Adrianna EvesAdrianna Eves (June)
Adrianna always shows up with raw intention. With her striking brunette-to-blond ombré and Cuban roots, her presence emerges in equal parts polished and powerful. Never one to wander looking for inspiration — she personifies it at every turn.

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Autumn RenAutumn Ren (July)
Autumn carries an impossible to miss open-road energy. Blonde waves, warm brown eyes, and Kentucky roots keep her grounded, while her love for nature and travel hints at a curiosity that never stays still for long. That sense of positivity reads clearly — and, more importantly, you can feel it.

POY Playoffs 2025 Finalist Krystal HarperKrystal Harper (November)
Krystal rounds out our finalists, simply by nature of being published most recently, while standing quite literally above the rest. At six feet tall, this blonde powerhouse owns her height with pride, humor, and undeniable charm. Strength and softness coexist easily within — particularly if dogs get involved.

What happens next will be familiar to anyone having been through a Playoff season before, even though this one will be atypically short. Group chats light up. Screens-shots get shared. Arguments get made — sometimes passionately, sometimes with presentations. Everyone suddenly becomes an expert, armed with strong opinions accompanied by very specific reasons. Favorites get defended. Second choices start getting a lot more attention – especially once you have traveled back in the bios, scrolling, rereading, and realizing why these extraordinary women stood out in the first place. We can tell you from experience, more than a few voters catch themselves thinking, Wait … am I really about to change my mind?

Therein lies the magic of this round. The Playoffs don’t just reveal leading vote-getters, they reveal the true stars people care enough about to talk through, rethink, and show up for again.

More than anything, that interaction comprises the core of the playoffs..

Close races tighten. Surprise ties appear. And suddenly, it becomes impossible not to notice just how much pull each unique Pet truly controls. These women did not just wander into this round — they earned it through consistency, charisma, and staying power.

Make No Mistake: Staying Power Matters in the Playoffs 2025

Getting this far takes stamina, professionalism, adaptability, and the ability to remain visible in an era where attention spans last seconds. Think of the Playoffs 2025 as an endurance sport — albeit one holding an unusual glamorous prize.

From this point, it will be a straight shot to Las Vegas. As per our (recent) history, Penthouse crowns The Pet of the Year winner at the Adult Entertainment Expo put on by AVN in January 2026. Honestly, it feels appropriate in a city that understands drama, glamor, and the art of making an entrance. For now, use your votes and your social media to continue shaping the momentum, spotlighting the standouts, and influencing who ultimately rises to the top.

Most importantly, remember voting should not be a click-and-forget affair: Treat it as a strategy, possessing both timing and momentum. Playoff voting runs from 12/28/2025 at 12:01 AM through 01/04/2026 at 11:59 PM PST. You can vote every day this round too — giving just enough time to feel confident… and then immediately question yourself. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

With great power comes great second-guessing.

Six finalists. One title. Let the Playoffs do what they do.

Everyone who has ever visited can tell you that the Pets come out at night in Las Vegas. So start building your stamina now. The race has begun, and Playoffs wait for no one — and yet everyone. They can be quirky that way. As a final suggestion, you might see if you can fit AEE 2026 into your schedule in January. You never know what you might witness. … From the 2025 event, internally, we call this one Danger Us.

Danger Us ... Renee Olstead, Lacy Lennon, Violet Brandani

Mia Nix

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Know When to Fold ‘em…

Originally the team had set a sort of “lookee where we are today” sort of thing featuring a holiday gift guide from a decade ago, comparing it to now to see what has happened. (OK. So nobody said it would be tough to guess what has happened in 10 years.) … Well, it did not take long to discover that half the companies did not even exist anymore. Even among those that made it, most of the products lines had changed, thus making accurate comparisons as to specific products impossible. Among the few items that did still exist today, we basically found that everything cost 25-50% more today. Yeah, so that seemed less than noteworthy.

Then we came up with Plan B, which despite the rather mundane copy one accidentally finds in the magazine, still has the benefit of being lost more interesting that a coat, a watch, or a bicycle. Consequently, we pivot to:

Our Mia Nix Fix

Age: 21
Height: 5’7”
Hometown: Perm, Russia

The perfect blend of sweet and spice, Mia Nix dazzles her online audience with a tender heart, mesmerizing gaze, and delicate yet provocative presence. This issue’s Cyber Cutie is a Russian angel who delivers a heaven-on-earth experience through a balance of sensual elegance and soulful depth that her audience delights in. Residing in the culturally rich Perm, Mia Nix enjoys strolling through the scenic Kama embankment, taking in the stunning sunset and local creative atmosphere, such as chamber festivals and art objects all while leaving time to sample local coffee shops. Partaking in the arts herself, Mia Nix’s world moves to its own soundtrack as she enjoys dancing to vinyl retro hits at 3:00 AM, and embracing the craft of some of her favorite artists such as Lana Del Rey’s poetry-like lyrics and the electronic elements of Rüfüs Du Sol.

More than just beauty, Mia Nix has a romantic spirit that she is eager to share with those precious to her. Honing her culinary passion, Mia Nix dreams of cooking breakfast to “Sway” in a home by the sea with the love of her life. Whether she’s laughing to tears with her sister, sharing a warm family dinner, or cuddled up with her vast collection of books alongside her cat, Bella, Mia Nix is someone who treasures authentic connections. Driven by love and grounded in gratitude, she invites her fans to feel something deeper and we’re happy the cameras can help share her allure.

At the risk of irritating important editorial people with a yada-yada kind of comment, we shall at least move on to the more interesting aspects of our investigation.

What is your favorite thing about your hometown?
I like the green and cozy center of Perm, the Kama embankment with stunning sunsets and the local creative atmosphere — especially art objects and chamber festivals. There are also cool coffee shops here!

Favorite fantasies?
My sexual fantasy #1: meet the love of my life and cook breakfast in our house by the sea to the song Sway. It drives me crazy when they relax my body with oil before sex, then cover it with kisses.

Any fetishes?
I have a fetish for rough sex, even in front of other people, so I have to behave quietly. I also have a fetish for a certain type of male hands on which veins are visible.

Hobbies?
My hobbies are my way of getting high from life! Culinary extremism — I’m learning to bake croissants like in Paris. Dancing to everything — from vinyl retro hits to a random tiktok at 3 a.m.. The body moves. The soul flies.

Favorite movies?
Romance with a hint of sadness — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Favorite shows?
Twin Peaks — strange, but hypnotic, like a dream after a cup of latte at 4 a.m..

Favorite books?
Psychology + hints of Over the Abyss in the Rye by Salinger — if my inner monologue became a novel.

What is the most exciting place you’ve ever had sex?
The most passionate sex was in the shower.

What is your biggest turn-on?
Most exciting is caresses before sex itself, gentle touches, passionate kisses and love in the air.

Describe your ideal man/woman?
What attracts me the most in men is actions, I’m crazy when a man not only speaks but also confirms his love with actions and deeds

Describe your ideal date?
The perfect date: a cozy coffee shop with delicious cappuccino, then a walk along the embankment or park with heartfelt conversations and laughter.

Do you collect anything?
No matter how trite it may sound, I like to collect books, buy collectible editions. In the future I would like to have my own library.

What is the most daring thing you’ve ever done?
For me, the most daring thing was to buy my mother’s dream car. She dreamed about it for 4 years, and when I had the opportunity to do it, I bought it without hesitation. Seeing her burning eyes, tears of happiness are the most valuable thing.

Do you have a hidden talent or skill?
My hidden skill would be emotional alchemist. I know how to turn other people’s anxieties into calmness, and ordinary moments into warm memories.

Favorite food?
Thai tom-yum. Spicy, but with a hint of sweetness — like my perfect date.

Favorite drink? Homemade lemonade with crushed ice and mint leaves — to crunch on the teeth.

Favorite way to get a workout?
Yoga at dawn. Clear asanas + breathing — so that the body and thoughts are perfectly aligned.

Favorite way to relax?
When you need to let out steam, a blow to the pear = the best therapy.

Regular visitors will know that among our favorite things has to be glimpsing into cultures across the world. While admittedly not familiar with the term, we have a pretty good idea what “a blow to the pear” probably means. Naturally we would encourage a visit to Twitter, Instagram, or the (current) Mia Nix cam home, if for no other reason than to ask Mia about that pear.

The Lindemulder Continuum

Posted on by Team Penthouse

A Janine Lindemulder Recap

“Penthouse got me known,” says Janine, the always beautiful, sometimes blonde star of over 100 adult video features. Penthouse was a magazine I’d always looked up to. I grew up on it. I aspired to be a Pet. That was really something I set my sights on. I remember looking at the girls and thinking, ‘I’ll never be able to look that womanly.’ Still to this day it’s hard for me to see myself that way.”

In this edition of The Girls of Penthouse we throw a spotlight on Janine Lindemulder, a Penthouse Pet who went on to become one of the most beautiful women to work in adult entertainment. Janine sat down with us to look back at her appearances in our sister magazine and to talk about where she’s going next.

It may be hard for her, but not for the legion of fans who first saw her as the December 1987 Penthouse Pet of the Month. “It was kind of by accident,” Janine remembers of that photo shoot. “I answered an ad for a figure model, not knowing that the ad meant naked figure model! Photographer David Schoen told me what was expected and it didn’t even faze me. I said, ‘Great! Let’s get to it!’”

And get to it they did. But what started as a normal modeling session ultimately became something special. “We took some test shots on Malibu Beach, and those test shots were chosen for the set. I find it funny looking back now, but I wasn’t aware of acrylic nails or the right kind of shaving techniques girls were using. You’ll notice that in some of the pictures I have absolutely no fingernails — I was a ball player — and in other pictures I have Lee Press-On nails,” she laughs. “Also we had no makeup artist and no wardrobe, so in some of the pictures I’m wearing my mom’s bathrobe and my grandma’s earrings. It was like dress-up time!”

Another scenario that would become an important part of her adult-film persona is seen in the all-girl layout “Janine, Donna & Audrey”. “I remember that set fondly,” she says. “It was still kind of new to me, working with beautiful women, and I felt … an exhilaration. I was nervous — actually I was very nervous — but once we were all in our characters for the day I did my thing and took charge.”

Perhaps the most spectacular images we’ve chosen are a black-and-white set photographed in a junkyard. “I take full credit for that,” Janine says. “I went to Earl Miller and told him I wanted it gritty and dirty. To me, that’s the best time, when I get to just unleash. I love any set that involves water or mud or dirt, where I can just let go. When I told him what I wanted to do, he jumped all over it. With his mind going and my mind going, we came up with something really good.” One bit of inspiration came directly from Miller, though. “The mace was Earl’s doing. He had gotten an extraordinary wardrobe person and designer and they brought that mace to the table … I think maybe I’ve swung that thing around in another life!” she says with a laugh.

The spontaneity that seems to follow Janine’s collaborations with Penthouse was obvious that day as well. Some of the pictures of me with the hose were just kind of a bonus. I had gone into the back room and was rinsing off some of the grime and Earl was like, ‘Whoa, let me get that, too!’ Those photos were almost taken by mistake, but they made it into the magazine as well.”

“Patrick was my boyfriend at the time,” Janine says of her co-star in the Wicca-inspired “Patrick & Janine”. “We had been seeing each other for about five months, and he loved getting dressed up as much as I did. That whole scene came very natural, but I was much more at ease and willing to do it than he was. He had a little bit of stage fright in the beginning. It was his first time doing anything like that, so I just told him to stay focused on me. He did, and we got some pretty hot stuff.”

Of what it is about her that leads to such hot stuff, Janine says, “It must be the Scorpio in me. I love to push the limits. It’s exciting. Anybody can do the ‘pretty-girl-on-the-comfy-bed,’ but I like working for my dinner. I’m a tomboy at heart, so anytime I get to go the extra mile or show my adventuresome side, I’m all for it. That’s just part of the excitement.”

Daring Janine Lindemulder
Daring Janine Lindemulder
Daring Janine Lindemulder

Lindemulder Recap: Pet of the Month December 1987

“Ever since I was little girl, I’ve been fascinated by the women in Penthouse. They are so beautiful and perfect.”

“To Be in Penthouse is an honor,” says Janine Lindemulder. “It makes me feel very special. Posing was very natural and easy. It was wonderful to be nude in the outdoors with the sun and wind. I don’t think I’m a tease, but I like thinking about all the people admiring my naked body.”

“Being sexy-looking is great.” Janine Says Secure in her own beauty, she wouldn’t change places with anyone. There’s only one drawback, she admits: “I attract too many people. Sometimes I could do without them.”

Lovely, 34-22-34, 19-year-old Janine says she hasn’t had time for all the adventures she wants, “but I’m working on it.” Janine likes her sex rugged, and can tell by the first look if a man’s the right one.

Janine thinks rock-n-roll is the biggest turn-on of all. Its no wonder that her boyfriend is a singer in an L.A. band. “The first night we met we made love, and the feeling inside me was incredible.”

Busy these days with her acting lessons, brown-eyed Janine wishes she had more free time to sunbathe, “I love my body and I wish I could be nude more often.” She sees herself as a sunny California type — “the look that says I’m not taking things too seriously.”

Janine’s ideal man has long hair, a beautiful smile, and will play hard-to-get. In her future she sees travel, adventure and eventually, a man with sense of humor who will appreciate her easy-going nature. Settling down and raising a big family would make everything nearly perfect.

The Lindemulder Ladies

Lindemulder Recap: With Donna & Audrey in Designing Women

“Janine, Donna, and Audrey had modeled their original designs all day for one another, tucking here, smoothing there, to prepare for their fist fashion show. Between changes these designing women wore only smiles.”

Excited by the new fashion line, the talented beauties were eager to turn heads with their sexy designs, outfits for passionate encounters. Sensational models were booked for the “by invitation only” gala affair, and everyone was coming. “I really think we’ve inspired each other this time,” said Audrey as she warmed to her partners’ anticipation of a successful debut. “But there’s one more little detail, ladies. Have you thought of what we’re going to wear?”

“Just relax… breathed Donna as Janine caressed Audrey. “You’re beautiful with nothing on.”

These were women of exquisite taste, but never more than when they were in their birthday suits. They explored one another’s hot, wet places with deep kisses and caresses, tongues on sweet lips, fashioning a menage a trois with great style that went on and on.

Donna favored a tight and trim fit and colors that looked good enough to eat. Janine reminded her of the peaches-and-cream shade that became her so well. She had a taste and craved more.

The designing women would be fashionably late for their own fete, since dressing was not on the menu for the moment, but grand entrances were part of the fun. Let everyone think it was simply the glamour and lavish public attention that raised the color in their cheeks. Only they know about their own private show. Later they’d get creative with a little champagne and really celebrate.

Lindemulder Recap: The Junkyard

Adored by millions in the world of adult entertainment. Janine Lindemulder possesses an elemental sensuality that makes her unique among today’s top models and photographers.

“I wanted a real street-rat look for this shoot.” Our very own road warrior tells us, “I took the heels off and let my makeup run.”

On the prowl like a junkyard dog, gritty Janine is ready to grind her gears with a willing participant.

“I would love getting down and dirty,” says Janine. “Being a girl glamour girl has its moments, but I’m a lot more basic than that.”

As Pet of the Month in December 1987 and our Pet of the Year Runner-Up — not to mention her many other highly charged pictorials, videos, and films — Janine is a much-beloved and longtime member of the Penthouse family. As she says so succinctly, “My heart belongs to Penthouse!”

“I was a tomboy when I was little,” declares our feisty Pet. “Let’s just say I’ve had my share of mud fights.”

Any good mechanic knows the importance of scrubbing up and hosing down, but Janine’s method is far more heartfelt than any car wash…. Excuse us, you missed a spot.

Early Janine Lindemulder
Early Janine Lindemulder
Early Janine Lindemulder

The winter solstice is upon us, a time to celebrate the gifts we create without bare hands.

How rare to experience a religious moment so unique and rapturous one can drink of another not for intoxication but for clarity. The depths of the soul can be plumbed only when the earthly senses are allowed full rein over the body. Christmas, after all, began as a pagan celebration of sex and birth.

The object of worship inspires a first, breathless kiss… then more.
Rich as velvet, with the taste of raw earth, our passion engulfs this day as no other.
And how can it be that the simple becomes sublime, the ephemeral folds into pure passion?
The seed be not cold, but the origin of creation that in essence is our right.
Blessed be this time of simple enlightenment, when all of life’s truths converge into light.
The passage of yuletide winds through a forest of silk, a gossamer of gold, yet all that truly matters is contained in the hearts of lovers, in the gilt-edge cry of ecstasy.

Or at least that’s what they said in Penthouse, circa 1997 in a feature called “A Christmas Corrolary” in fact. As the editors in PenthouseGold pointed out, Janine has an unusual way of celebrating Christmas.

Quintessential Janine Lindemulder

While we considered this Lindemulder Recap great fun, we do enjoy larger picture looks as a rule. … First off, we know Janine better than many people, and we can tell everyone one thing for certain: If Ms. Lindemulder ever writes a book about her life, we’re signing up for that baby the second we hear preorders have become available. Until then, in case you missed it, Janine’s “Confidential” with Sam Phillips and the concurrent “27 Things You Don’t Know About Her” list will well be worth your time. And that one’s free.