Seans.jpg cooked up a career as a professional food photographer before turning his focus toward capturing mouthwatering images of beautiful nude women (which we have termed Digital Punk). When the 2020 lockdowns started and physical distancing meant that photo shoots were out of the question, the artist dove into creating digital artwork and has never looked back.
Why did you decide to start creating digital punk collage art?
At first, I was fascinated with portraying women in an artistic way that helped break down the social boundaries about sex and nudity. I’ve always been interested in pop culture and the restrictive nature of our society regarding sex and recreational drug use, like psychedelics. It has always astonished me how most people are content to live this cookie-cutter life that’s forced upon us by social norms. So naturally I try to add a shred of relief to this stigma by creating art that can make you laugh or smile or question. Everything I’ve ever created has a purpose, mostly in metaphors or clever visual puns, to try to push my viewer to think deeper into the meaning.
Where do you find inspiration for your art?
Everything from social media, politics, news, pop culture through the years and music. I constantly consume media to fish for ideas and write them down as soon as they come to me.
What’s involved in creating one of your digital punk images?
Just a great imagination and Photoshop.
What do you think is the driving force behind the trend of collage art right now?
I feel there is a strong uptrend in this style of art now, since the massive fame of artists like Slimesunday, who is also a large inspiration for me. But it’s about taking ideas and making them your own. As Austin Kleon said, “Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.”
Are you working any digital punk at the moment?
Presently, I just dove into the NFT space and had a tremendous response. I’m currently working on a specific collection that will be called “Where’s my mind” on OpenSea, so that should be ready within a few weeks. I’m also working on a collaborative project with a famous photographer for another big NFT drop that should be launching soon. We are just ironing out the details at the moment.
Tell us something interesting about you.
I have spent the most part of 10 years of my life traveling the world. I have no idea how many countries I’ve been to, but I’ve ventured from the jungles of Thailand all the way to the ice caps of Iceland.
Full disclosure, we had to slightly change the original aspect ratios of some of the images in this Digital Punk gallery, and for that we apologize to the artist. We do hope that encouraging everyone to check out his Instagram @seans.jpg will help ease some of the potentially devasting pain. Should that not work, we would advise Seans.jpg to check ou the entire Art Section on Penthouse. He said he gets his inspriation from everywhere, and rumor has it Penthouse can be very inspirational.
The Olympic Winter Games are set to kick off in China in February — unless COVID-19 throws yet another monkey wrench into the world’s plans. But the U.S. is heading into the competition with high hopes for some of its most decorated female athletes. Snowboarder Chloe Kim is eyeing a second gold medal after winning the women’s snowboard half-pipe in PyeongChang in 2018; two-time Olympic champion alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin is looking to add to her 2014 and 2018 gold medals and cross-country skier Jessie Diggins is favored to secure a top podium spot after snagging gold in the women’s team sprint with Kikkan Randall at PyeongChang.
But before these talented women launch their bid for even more Olympic glory, Penthouse looks back at some of the gorgeous gals who took on the best athletes in the world at the Tokyo Summer Games — and came out on top!
AMBER ENGLISH
Lt. Amber English won the gold medal in women’s skeet and set a new Olympic record of 56 out of 60! The Colorado-born beauty joined the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit in February 2017 and was part of America’s sweep at the 2018 World Championships, where she earned the bronze medal. Amber, 31, stayed on target in Tokyo and bested the reigning champ — Italy’s Diana Bacosi, who took the top spot in Rio in 2016 — to win her first Olympic gold. “It was just a very crazy experience,” says Amber. “I’m very, very humbled by this experience.”
REBECA ANDRADE
Brazil flipped for Rebeca Andrade, who took the gold in vault, and became the country’s first Olympic champion in women’s gymnastics — a day after winning the silver in the women’s all-around final! Rebeca, 22, leapt to the top after scoring an average of 15.083 from two extremely difficult vaults. She overcame excruciating injuries, including two ACL tears, to reign at Tokyo. But her smooth technique, power and charisma launched her into Olympic history. She says of her big win, “It’s a huge pride for me because I saw how much I’ve grown. I’ve matured, and it’s really good. I feel so overwhelmed, happy. I’m feeling incredible.”
VALARIE ALLMAN
Track and field sensation Valarie Allman took an unusual route on her way to Tokyo. Valarie, now 26, once traveled the U.S. as part of “The Pulse on Tour,” a dance program from choreographers for the TV show So You Think You Can Dance? But she traded that stage for one that was worldwide, when she grabbed the gold for the U.S. in the discus throw. However, she says discus and dance have more in common than people realize and explains, “It’s a combination of grace, strength, balance, having an awareness of your body and being able to move it with force.”
KATIE NAGEOTTE
The photo of high-flying Katie Nageotte celebrating her gold medal-winning pole vault performance for the U.S. in midair, after courting disaster with her earlier attempts, is one of the most iconic images from the Summer Games. Katie, 30, began the year with a case of COVID-19, followed by a tight quad muscle. Though she got a dicey start in Tokyo, she finished strong as the only gal able to clear a height of 16 feet, 1 inch. “With pole vault, it’s a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck,” says Katie. “And I’m so grateful that it went my way.”
LEE KIEFER
Fencer Lee Kiefer, 27, became the first U.S. competitor — male or female — to win gold in the Olympic individual foil after defeating Inna Deriglazova of Russia. The Filipino-American cutie accomplished the feat in her third trip to the Games. And even more incredibly, the Kentucky-based athlete trained for her historic win while also attending medical school! Gerek Meinhardt, her hubby of nearly two years, also competed in Tokyo, coming away with a team bronze. But he says, “She made my Olympic dream come true. Being able to see her go out, fight her nerves and come out with the gold medal was something really special.”
ALLYSON FELIX
U.S. track and field legend Allyson Felix, 35, competed in her fifth, and likely last, Olympics — and came away with a career total of seven gold, three silver and one bronze, and calls her experience in Tokyo “special.” The accomplishment gave her more medals than any American in track and field history as she even surpassed the great Carl Lewis. Allyson is the perfect combination of strength, beauty and grit. She bounced back from giving birth to her first child, seemingly shamed Nike into changing their maternity policy for sponsored athletes, launched the lifestyle brand Saysh and has become a prominent voice against gender inequality in sports.
JANJA GARNBRET
Sport climbing came to the Olympics for the first time and saw athletes, male and female, scurrying up walls like supercharged Spider-Men. But Slovenia’s stunner Janja Garnbret, 22, scored the first ever women’s gold in the event. Janja has won a slew of international contests and is considered by many to be the greatest competitive climber of all time. In October 2020, she even scaled the tallest chimney in Europe, alongside fellow climber Domen Škofic. The top of the 360-meter Trbovlje Power Station chimney was enveloped in fog when they began their successful free climb, but Janja still managed to keep her eye on the prize!
EMMA McKEON
Awesome Aussie swimmer Emma McKeon, 27, acquired quite the collection of medals in Tokyo, winning four gold and three bronze. The accomplishment left her tying the record for most medals won by a woman at a single Games, which was set by Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya in 1952 in Helsinki. The Queen of the Pool is also the most decorated Olympian in her country’s history, with a total of 11 medals, and she even set an Olympic record this year while winning the 50-meter freestyle in 23.81 seconds. “It will take a while to sink in,” Emma admits, “because I’ve been focusing on myself to keep my cool.”
ALIX KLINEMAN & APRIL ROSS
Beach volleyball babes Alix Klineman, 31, and April Ross, 39, are a dynamic duo. Just four years after becoming pro partners, the pair served up gold for the U.S. in Tokyo. Alix and April handily defeated Australia’s Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy 2-0 (21-15 and 21-16) in the final match, in what Klineman calls a “fairy-tale ending.” Alix adds, “I think sometimes people want to feel confident going into the match and feel like it’s just going to go smoothly. But we kind of went in with the opposite mentality and just having that much respect for that team because they are so good.”
Should you be now inspired to check out Olympic Game Records overall, you will find fairly quickly something called the World Athletics Organization which lists all sorts of records, including Olympic ones. After trying to figure out how it could even be possible that a record from 1968 still stands on the books (Bob Beamon, Long Jump) you might notice — as did we — that none of these records happened in the snow, or even warmer snow — water — or even inside a building. … So we’re thinking this be more of a Track and Field site, but despite these fairly large limitations, it does make it easier to spot and wonder about a single record being there 50+ years. Does Bob Beamon have some celestial assitance that has weighed down long jumpers only at the Olympics? Do long jumpers have some societal disdain for the Olympic interpretation of the event, so they refuse to try hard when competing there? Have rulers changed? … Speaking of that, we’re not going to be talking about the broader implications of the China Olympics going on now, because, y’know, rulers.
But these are experiences limited to relatively few gamers who’ve taken the time and effort to obtain bragging rights.
For a long time, games have rewarded the best of the best. Players who complete levels on the hardest difficulty, or with any number of set challenges, are rewarded with achievements and items to showcase their skill.
Being at the top of the game is nothing new, going way back to the ’80s when gamers would challenge each other in arcades to top the leader-boards with a high score. The challenge — that sense of raw competitiveness — is what’s driven humanity to its greatest heights, on both a personal and civilizational level. It’s the right to say, “I’m better than you.”
And therein lies the clash between those who enjoy video games for what they are — canvases for the expression of pure, unbridled skill — and those who want video games to be something they are not: accessible to everyone.
It’s “accessibility” in the form of equity. It’s the dumbing down of games, the simplification of mechanics, and an overall disregard for the qualities that make a video game a video game. The conversation over game difficulty was ignited when the Xbox account on Twitter stated: “Beating the game on the lowest difficulty is still beating the game.” In other words, congratulations on your participation trophy.
The debate was exacerbated by the upcoming release of the long-awaited Psychonauts 2, which boasts an invincibility setting framed as an “accessibility” option. Playing the game as the developers intend would conceivably require turning on the mode and sitting back as the player moves passively through the world. Were I one of the developers in charge of the game’s combat system and game balance, I’d consider my job superfluous.
Conversations about difficulty and accessibility in games can be traced back to the emergence of Dark Souls as a popular genre. Built with the hardcore gamer in mind, the unforgivingly hard Dark Souls and its kin reward those capable of taking on the challenge, while encouraging those who can’t pass the bar to simply try again until they succeed. It’s a mentality alien to those who would give up after the first try.
The claims of these gentrifiers fall flat when challenged with the reality of what Dark Souls actually is: a manageable game with a high difficulty curve. Unlike most games, which are easy to play but difficult to master, Dark Souls requires patience. Once its mechanics “click” for you, the difficulty levels out and becomes incredibly less challenging.
Those who fail to muster the skill required to beat the game are jealous of those who can. It’s a case of haves and have-nots. Oppressed and oppressor. And in this case, gamers who answer the call are those oppressive gatekeepers who want to keep out the peasants from their domain.
The gentrifiers are a dime a dozen. Across game enthusiast publications, and on social media, gentrifiers have arrived on the shores of the video game medium. This new breed of gamer has planted a flag in the sand and says, “This is our land. Every game should be made for everyone.”
Developers are listening. The ranks of game journalists incapable of completing tutorial levels have successfully turned their demand for participation trophies to be included in games like Psychonauts 2 and Control with their difficulty sliders that do little to provide players with a sense of prestige for finishing the game on the default setting — let alone higher difficulties. Naturally, this has provoked responses from gamers worried about the vulgarization of the skill-based medium into a passive experience designed for people who don’t understand, respect or care about video games. In return, they’ve been branded “gatekeepers.”
Why play video games at all if you don’t find them accessible? Why should the concept of video games be redefined for the sake of inclusivity? Do developers owe their customers the experiences they crave or cave to cultural complainers?
For me, the answer’s simple: Video games are for gamers. Let video games be video games — entertaining, engaging and most importantly, challenging. To hell with the rest. They can read a book.
Full disclosure, some here might take issue with the implication that people read books because they find video games too challenging. Seems like with just a tad bit of research we might be able to come up with a list of a book or two that might not fall into the “simple” category.
That said, we will never convince people who do not read books that doing so allows one to absorb into a story in a manner that simply watching a screen cannot. We will speak to the book readers, therefore, with the observation that they should not quickly discount all video gamers as troglodytes unable to even fathom iambic, whether in pentameter or not. … Seriously, until you have faced a decision about whether to upgrade weapons, gather more food, or make more soldiers — and your entire race depends upon your choice — well, it ain’t Dave Barry, but it ain’t Pong either. … Presuming you are not yet sick to death of what “The Science” says, or does not, some educated people have even spent time getting paid to study the Gaming vs. Reading debate. Some people have odd jobs, right? Not us, of course. Pretty much everybody has a parade of Pets roaming the halls all the time, we figure.
In case you haven’t heard, the beauty-pageant biz Is about to be invaded by big bucks. During the first week of December, a field of international beauties from more than three dozen countries will convene at Caesars Palace, in Las Vegas, where Penthouse magazine will present an international event: the first annual $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant. Right: that’s what the winner will receive in cash and prizes. All the women entered in the finals already have won Pet of the Year pageants in their native lands, and the nations they represent stretch all the way from the Americas to Zimbabwe. The two-hour finals will be telecast globally by satellite, and in the United States alone the broadcast will be earned by more than 150 TV stations.
Penthouse’s $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant will not remind viewers of any beauty competition ever before witnessed on the tube, which should come as a relief to most of you. For decades, women have gone down to the sea in bikinis; maJor beauty pageants, however, continue to outfit competitors in outdated one-piece bathing suits. Instead of donning sexy evening gowns, contestants are similarly compelled to show up in fashions suitable for a high-school prom. They’re also expected to be entertainers. Where else but in beauty pageants have you ever seen such awful actresses, singers, poets, and ballet dancers? Pageant “personality tests” are even more embarrassing than the talent segments. They usually consist of a single, childish question asked with only one purpose in mind: to elicit an answer showing that the contestant is a good little girl. The good little girls quickly catch on to the game and often milk it to the max, with references to God and Country.
In any event, after the quiz the magic moment finally arrives, and the winner’s name is announced. The new Miss There-She-Is sheds precisely 3.2 perfunctory tears and then collects her crown and roses, two tons of assorted cosmetics, enough pantyhose to last five lifetimes, a small amount of cash, and a contract obligating her to ride In parades and appear at shopping centers for an entire year.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Let us now pan in on Penthouse Publisher Bob Guccione, seated in front of a television set several years ago, watching Miss America being crowned. A thought comes to him: wouldn’t it be a turn-on to dispense with all the infantile nonsense and plan a beauty pageant in which women were free to be their sensual selves? Instead of pretending it’s still the 1950s, why not design a pageant for the 1980s? And why not instantly make it the world’s most important pageant by offering the winner the biggest haul in the history of the genre — a grand prize worth a million dollars?
Seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, and Guccione went for It. Says he, “We’re doing away with all the fatuous and unrealistic aspects of beauty pageants as we know them. Our Pet of the Year will be Judged on how she looks and moves, how bright and engaging she really is, and how she communicates with people — it all finally comes under the heading of personality … and that means sex appeal!”
Bob has a special bonus in store for his readers: soon after she wins her title, the $1,000,000 Pet of the Year will be the subject of an extensive Penthouse centerfold feature … to be photographed by — you guessed it — the boss himself.
We’re not talking about a slapdash promotion, either. Bob first considered putting on a million-dollar beauty pageant in the mid-seventies, but at that point he had neither the time nor the money to devote to the project. He was getting Omni off the ground, and whereas any other entrepreneur in his position would have borrowed the cash, Guccione did not. It’s not his style.
“I hate trying to raise money,” he recently told a visitor to his seven-story Manhattan townhouse. “You wind up doing two things: begging for money, on the one hand, while trying to convince people that you’ve got a good idea, on the other. The response you usually get Is that if it’s such a good idea, why isn’t somebody already doing it? Very demeaning! I had my fill of all that when I originally tried to start Penthouse, in 1962.”
At that point, Bob Guccione was an artist living and working in London. He spent 1962 through most of 1965 trying to raise money for Penthouse, and the only backer he ever found offered to invest £500 sterling — then worth about $1,250 — in return for 51 percent of the proposed magazine. Guccione told him to get lost.
“Aside from trying to start the magazine,” he recalled, “I hadn’t worked during those three years, and in 1965, by the time I had scraped up enough credit to put out the first issue of Penthouse. I was already six months behind in my rent. Since then, everything Penthouse has achieved has been paid for out of its own internally generated resources — I ’ve never gone out and borrowed money.”
That held true for Omni, and it also held true when Bob chose to get his feet wet as a movie producer. He didn’t want to make Just any film, of course. He wanted to produce a movie cut from the same cloth as Penthouse, which is to say he consciously set out to shatter every conventional concept of cinematic sex. The result was Caligula, the world’s first X-rated, big-budget movie epic.
Caligula didn’t start out as a big-budget movie epic, however. Initially, Caligula was supposed to cost $3 million, but as stars like Peter O’Toole, Malcolm McDowell, and Sir John Gielgud signed on, the film’s budget grew to $5 million and then to $8 million and finally mushroomed to $17.5 million. And Bob paid for the entire production out of his own pocket — a new record for the industry. “Again, I didn’t want to go around asking people for money,” he said, “and again, It turned out to be a fortunate decision.”
After slating an X-rated biography of Catherine the Great as his next film foray, Guccione finally got serious about producing the world’s ultimate beauty pageant.
His reasons for doing so seem sound enough. “Beauty pageants are enormously successful — even the Miss U.S.A. contest is one of TV’s top-twenty shows — but if you watch any of them,” he said, “you realize immediately how tacky they really are. The hosts talk in an unreal, game-show way about unreal, game-show women, and then the women come out and do their level game-show best to compound the unreality. Well, we’re no more interested in producing tacky TV than we are in promoting plasticized beauty. Our $1,000,000 Pet of the Year will be as earthy and real as the girls in our magazine. Add in a bit of taste, professionalism, and the million-dollar grand prize and I think our pageant will sweep every other beauty contest off the shelf.”
The logistics of putting on an international beauty pageant involving over forty countries is about as simple as persuading OPEC’s oil ministers to send out for bagels and lox. It’s an arduous process, especially when you start from scratch.
By the same token, producing an exciting two-hour pageant telecast is no piece of taffy, either. Pageant broadcasts invariably manifest all the style, taste, and wit of TV game shows. Penthouse’s $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant would have to be a radical departure from that standard, or else there’d be no point in doing it.
To accomplish this, Bob needed qualified help, and he knew where to find it.
Enter Bob Parkinson and Andy Friendly.
Parkinson, forty-five, is a former producer of the Miss Universe and Miss U.S.A. pageants, as well as of such TV fare as “Circus of the Stars.” When it comes to the Hollywood game, Parkinson, a trim six foot four, can talk that talk and walk that walk, but he also happens to be a bright and exceedingly decent guy. If Friendly’s name seems familiar, it’s probably because Fred W. Friendly, his father, produced the late Edward R. Murrow’s most famous telecasts and later served as president of CBS News. At thirty-one, Friendly already has spent a decade in the business, starting out as a news writer and later on becoming the original producer of “Entertainment Tonight.” Friendly quit that job when the program began shilling for show business instead of covering it. He met Parkinson soon afterward, when both began working on M-G-M’s “World of Entertainment,” starring Gene Kelly.
Last year the two formed Parkinson/ Friendly Productions, and they’ve since become one of Hollywood’s hottest production teams. The two TV pilots they produced last summer, This Is Your Life (for Ralph Edwards) and Taking Advantage, were both picked up as network series, and following that, Parkinson and Friendly were hired by Richard Pryor to produce the comedian’s next concert film. The boys are doing just fine, thank you.
Parkinson first discussed a Penthouse beauty contest with Guccione almost ten years ago. “I think Bob was ready to go with it back then, but the timing wasn’t right,” Parkinson says. “Between Penthouse, Viva, and Omni, he was working twenty hours a day, seven days a week. He literally didn’t have time for anything else.”
Soon after Caligula was completed, however, Guccione and Parkinson resumed their talks about an international Pet of the Year competition. In September of ’82, Parkinson and Friendly flew to New York to confer with Guccione about actually going ahead with the event. Says Friendly, “Because of the way Guccione’s been portrayed in the media — gold chains, velvet pants, that kind of thing — I didn’t know what to expect. Bob turned out to be the most decisive man I’ve ever done business with. He wanted to know how much the production itself would cost — about a million dollars — and what the show would look like. After we told him, he committed fully to the project. That’s unusual in this business.”
Since then, Parkfnson and Friendly have been working hard to implement Guccione’s concept. “We’re setting out to do something beautiful,” Parkinson notes. “We’re not going to be cutesy, and people aren’t going to get the impression they’re watching a United Nations’ children’s concert. The $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant will do for beauty contests what ’Saturday Night Live’ did for comedy.”
Parkinson and Friendly both believe that the International Pet of the Year will become the Rolls-Royce of beauty pageants — and not just because of the $1 million involved. Along with Guccione, they’ve structured the pageant to feature the kind of woman one would meet at a party in Manhattan or L.A. or Des Moines — or London or Paris, for that matter. The idea is to present a composite Contemporary Woman, one who’s vitally concerned about herself, her career, her role in society, her relationships with men. Parkinson says, “We’re seeking out the kind of women who’d be fun to take to dinner — women who are confident about themselves, who are into art and politics, and who are comfortable with their bodies. This is one pageant that won’t award first prize to an air-head.”
The same sense of breaking new ground applies to the two-hour telecast. Friendly says, “The show itself will be a hip, funny, classy event. Bob and I want to completely revamp televised beauty pageants, starting with the basics-lighting, sets, and photography — and then going into more obvious areas like the host judges and entertainment.”
As this issue goes to press, stars Wayne Newton and Pia Zadora have agreed to lend their talents to the pageant telecast, and by the time you read this, you’ll have heard about other featured entertainers and pageant judges … one of whom will be Penthouse reader Marc A. Richardson, of Los Angeles, whose winning entry in Penthouse’s Here Comes the Judge contest earned him an envied position on this prestigious tribunal.
You won’t, however, have heard how the $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant differs from the competition.
To start with, uniforms are out. Why stuff the world’s most beautiful women into the same shapeless bathing suits? And how many blue chiffon evening gowns can we all look at before turning blue ourselves? The $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant is the first major beauty event that allows finalists to choose their own swimsuits and gowns — and if the ladies select bikinis and evening fashions that are more revealing and sexier than usual, so much the better.
Another point of departure: The Pet of the Year Pageant is not looking to discover The Complete Girl Scout. “We’re not judging what a girl does,” says Parkinson. “We’re judging who she is and how she does it. She can be married, divorced, Single — it really doesn’t matter.”
Working under Parkinson’s direction, Griff O’Neil, the pageant’s executive director, spent much of the past year helping to organize (and attending) Pet of the Year pageants throughout the world. O’Neil has logged nearly twenty years as a beauty-pageant administrator, starting with the Miss Teenage America and Miss U.S.A. contests and working his way up to Miss World, Miss Universe, and Miss America. O’Neil believes the $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant has attracted an outrageous group of sexy, sophisticated women.
“Forget their looks for a moment, although that’s pretty difficult to do,” he says. “I think the ladies who’ve won their way to Las Vegas have careers and interests as diverse as any group of women you could possibly find.”
O’Neil’s point seems well-taken. Brigitta Cimarolli, Austria’s Pet of the Year, was her nation’s chess champion in 1981 and once played Russia’s peerless Anatoly Karpov to a stalemate. Japan’s Yuko Nun-ome and Germany’s Carola Winter are graphic artists. Israel’s Sharona Marash is a photographer who now spends a good deal of time in front of the camera. Switzerland’s Pet of the Year, Monika Kaelin, appeared in the 1965 film version of Heidi when she was eleven years old and went on to become a kindergarten teacher. Monika returned to acting seven years ago and has since become a sensational-looking staple of the Swiss stage. South Africa’s Jilly Hutchings is a secretary for a Johannesburg engineering firm, New Zealand’s Kassie Dzemos is a fashion model, Spain’s Maria Jose Barbera de Lera is a stewardess for Iberia Airlines, and Brazil’s Talita Comin has finished two years of law school and plans to become an attorney in Sao Paulo.
Almost every winner of a national Pet of the Year Pageant has already received more in the way of prizes than titleholders of other major beauty contests. The domestic Pet of the Year, featured elsewhere in this issue, will be awarded nearly $200,000 in cash and prizes. Australia’s Pet of the Year, Marilyn Natty, a lovely thirty-one-year-old-blue-eyed blonde, earned more than $100,000 for winning her title. Marilyn’s favorite prize was a four-wheel-drive Jeep Hawk, which suits her perfectly: Marilyn is an outdoor adventurer who has climbed the Himalayas and has bred prizewinning palominos on her own stud farm. The United Kingdom’s Pet of the Year, English model Dawn Jones, came away with a Panther Kallister sports car, a full-length mink coat, and a wide range of other goodies. The rather obvious point being made here is that although only one of the finalists will strike it incredibly rich in Las Vegas, all of them already are winners.
Guccione, of course, stands to be the biggest winner of all. TV sponsors will probably underwrite most of the cost of the pageant, but even if they don’t, the event has already generated millions of dollars’ worth of publicity throughout the world — and that’s before the finals have been held. Thus far, the contest has gotten a warm welcome from the media, and Guccione doesn’t even expect feminists to find fault.
“Extremists within the feminist movement think of every beauty pageant as a cattle show, but when there’s a million dollars at stake, it changes things — and I think that is as it should be,” he says. “The lunatic fringe apart, most feminists know that we’ve supported their cause for a long time. Penthouse was the first corporation in New York to actually put money into the ERA movement, and I think we practice what we preach. Aside from myself, Penthouse’s three highest-paid employees are women. And they’re not paid for effect: if I don’t pay them what they’re worth, somebody else will.”
Still, no one has ever anted up a million dollars for a beauty-pageant winner, but then again, a few years ago who would have believed that pro basketball and baseball players would be knocking down seven-figure salaries? In the meantime, Guccione’s only taking what he sees as a very sensible gamble, and, given his track record, he’ll probably be proved right. Aside from the business part of the $1,000,000 Pet of the Year Pageant, would you really like to know what’s in it for Guccione?
“I think the part I like best,” he says, “is that our Pet of the Year will pay more in income tax than every other beauty-pageant queen put together will win.”
Miss America, eat your heart out.
Maybe we should have mentioned at that outset that this story first ran in the December, 1983, edition of Penthouse.
As far as we have been able to determine, this glorious Pet Pageant never actually happened. Nor have we been able to find out why from any of our sources. Television was much more conservative and offered many fewer broadcast options back in 1983 obviously. Maybe the world was simply not ready to celebrate women who posed unabashedly naked back then. Sheila Kennedy won the 1983 title for Pet of the Year, so we took advantage of that with a Bob Guccione photograph in the header image for this article — in case you did not recognize her. If you take a look at History Central for 1983, though, you will notice that the world was a very different place. Two of the top three television spots were “Dallas” and “Dynasty” which certainly had beautiful women but tended rather to clothe them heavily (except Heather Locklear, but we do not want to get too far astray here). MTV was not even playing Black artists until December of 1983, after CBS essentially extorted them to do so by threatening to pull their entire stable from MTV unless they put Michael Jackson on the network. … We may not be there yet, but we have come a long way in 40 years.
For the record, we asked the current Penthouse Executives if they would like to resurrect the concept for the $1,000,000 Penthouse Pet Pageant this year, and they said — paraphrasing a bit here — “Um, no.”
We’re closing with another Sheila Kennedy shot because although we did not ask, we are certain Sheila would want you to VOTE for Pet of the Year this time around. It seems obvious.
Want to start controversy? Ask people how they feel about 69s. There is no fence-sitting, only face-sitting, when it comes to the infamous 69 position. People either love or hate 69s with a fiery passion. There’s never an in-between.
A 69 has all the elements of a damn good time. After all, it is the only sexual position that, at least in theory, is equally pleasurable for both parties. A 69 has the potential to be the absolute height of intimacy as you can’t physically get much closer to each other. It’s the only position where your attentions are entirely focused on pleasuring each other—which is mostly due to the fact that you’re head-locked between another person’s legs.
Sure, the 69 can be awkward and requires a bit of coordination. And, yes, the word “sixty-nine” is the butt of the joke, eliciting smirks everywhere it’s name-dropped. But the 69 gets an undeserved bad rap, if you ask us. Here are a few things to consider the next time you wine, dine and 69.
Communication
Firstly, there is a lot of choreography involved in pulling off a successful 69 position. Even just getting into position can be a challenge, as you become a nude tangle of sweaty limbs, heads crammed between thighs and mouths hunting genitals, while you try to avoid a stiff limb to the eyeball. The number one key to a successful 69 is to have good oral skills—of the verbal variety. If you can’t communicate during a 69, you’re metaphorically screwed. XCommunication is going to help you get into a position that feels good for both of you, rather than feeling like your head is a pimple on the brink of bursting from the thighs that have it in a vise-like grip, while you’re being slapped in the face with an angry pool noodle.
Experiment
The key to smashing a 69 is experimenting with what works for you and your partner. Change it up with who goes on top and who’s on the bottom. If positioning yourself like an oral sex sandwich isn’t working for you, try rolling onto your sides and top and tailing each other. Trying different positions will allow you not only to find a 69 compromise that works for each of you, but it also gives you the opportunity to explore each other’s body from new angles, potentially introducing you to new hotspots. The 69 is also a great position for you to expand your oral game. Mouths and tongues can offer a wide variety of sensations that your genitals can’t compete with. Take the time to explore the nether regions in front of you as you lick, flick, blow, suck, nibble and kiss until you have your partner talking in tongues.
Arrange Backup
It’s a fact that you’re more likely to have someone accidentally fart in your face than you are to have an orgasm during a 69. Especially if you’re of contrasting heights or size, and you’re trying to orgasm while your neck is crunched forward for an eternity, or you’re on top and you’re giving head while doing some kind of demented crotch headstand, while you both aim for that movie-style simultaneous orgasm moment. Wishful thinking. In these instances, it always helps to have some backup before you find yourself locked into this situation. No, I’m not talking about bringing your neighbor Keith in for some action—unless you’re into that. I’m talking about God’s greatest invention—the sex toy. Think of it like this: Your mouth is generally working hard during a 69, but your hands are roaming free. Have a few small sex toys—like a bullet vibrator or a butt plug—under your pillow and whip them out at an opportune moment to give you a helping hand and relieve the load.
The Math of 69
Although the preceding magazine article does perhaps say more about the author than she intended, the biggest oversight might have been simple advice to enjoy what you can with the position. It can be perfectly awesome as foreplay, for example, and if the cortorted positions make you feel silly, well, a little laughter during sex can be a wonderfully intimate thing. Basically, if you cannot lay side-by-side for whatever reason, put the smaller person on top, and just have fun. Radically different torso sizes may indeed make the whole simultaneous goal completely impractical anyway, but taking turns can still be quite pleasant.
Of course thinking about the variations of 69 obviously got us thinking about the mathematics of the number, and we learned a few things that frankly almost none of us understood, but still seemed really important to mathmetician types. Regarding 69, serious numbers people tell us:
It qualifie as a semi prime, the product of two prime numbers, 3 and 23.
It also happens to be the last possible television channel number in the UHF bandplan for American terrestrial television from 1982 until its withdrawal on December 31, 2011.
The Roman numeral would be LXIX. (Which has to be prounced “licks” — right?). Not only that, but
The Messier object M69 is a magnitude 9.0 globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius.
Yowza. That all qualifies as far, far away from orgasms or even foreplay in our book. Still, a less serious numbers person might point out that the square root of 69 would be Ate Something. [sic, we know]
For our specific sphere of existence, or for anyone familiar with the Los Angeles freeway system, you could be interested to learn that if you multiply 69 by 101 you get 6969 — which could make for an interesting carpool if nothing else.
To be clear, we make no apology for the preceeding addendum to the magazine article because not only might you find it interesting, but honestly we mostly interact with professionals around here, and if you think something as simple as a 69 would throw them, well, you have clearly not watched enough adult movies. Should that be the case, enjoy your research.
Wow. All that talk about “69” and not a single mention of Barrack Obama. Well, maybe you do not follow politics, or Twitter, but we can be “nice” at the conclusion here and let you know why for a few months with the former President, the number ran through a bizarre history. Then again, one could argue that since the domination of social media began, ALL history qualifies as bizarre.
Muscle-bound Mark Wahlberg had already modeled skivvies for Calvin Klein and rocketed to the top of the charts with the infectious track “Good Vibrations” when he spoke with Penthouse in March 1993 about his meteoric career and the state of modern-day rap music.
As part of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, the Boston-born rapper’s aggressive stylings perfectly paired with Loleatta Holloway’s powerhouse vocals on the No. 1 pop smash, making him a household name. But since then, Mark’s star has risen even higher as he launched a successful acting career and appeared in a string of blockbusters, including Planet of the Apes, The Perfect Storm and Transformers: Age of Extinction. And his acclaimed role in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 thriller The Departed even earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Mark Wahlberg getting things done — y’know, with water in case he gets thirsty while getting things done.
Now 50, Mark has also displayed his comedy chops in flicks such as Ted, The Other Guys and Daddy’s Home. But he’s shown himself to be a major player behind the scenes, as well, by serving as an executive producer on dozens of projects, including the crime saga Boardwalk Empire, the comedy-drama Entourage and The Rock’s HBO series Ballers. In 2010, Mark was honored with his very own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
Along with his brothers Donnie and Paul, Mark’s also a co-owner of the Wahlburgers dining chain, which inspired an A&E reality series of the same name that debuted in 2014 and aired for 10 seasons. He’s also a part owner of Performance Inspired, a supplement company he cofounded in 2016 with former GNC executive Tom Dowd, and invested in the Barbados Tridents cricket team, in addition to many more business ventures.
Though it’s been 30 years since he first flexed his muscles on MTV, Mark has maintained his impressive physique and whipped the internet into a frenzy in 2020 when he shared his jam-packed schedule, which included early a.m. workouts and “cryo chamber recovery” sessions. As popular as ever, Mark has more than 17 million Instagram followers at @markwahlberg. But he’s not the only social media sensation in his home. His pet pooch Champ has nearly 90,000 Instagram followers of his own at @champeranian, and Mark has joked the pup is the “number one Pomeranian on the ’gram!”
One of the hardest working men in Hollywood, Mark has multiple irons in the fire, including The Six Billion Dollar Man—a modern retelling of the ’70s classic The Six Million Dollar Man—in which he’s currently slated to play astronaut Steve Austin, a role that was originated by Lee Majors. Prior to that release, moviegoers can next see him on the big screen in the video game-inspired film Uncharted, which is set to hit theaters in February 2022—and with Mark leaping into the action, it’ll no doubt be a winner.
Full disclosure, we do not have the most Wahlberg-dedicated fans currently working in this department. Ironically it was only a couple of weeks ago that the head writer learned the fellow who plays Danny Reagan on Blue Bloods actually started with his brother Mark here in an apparently popular music group called New Kids on the Block. (In defense of our head writer, he does know the names of all the original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he once went to an Elvis concert on purpose.) … That said, having an article in Penthouse Magaines and NOT mentioning “Boogie Nights” just seems like a pretty big oversight. Some people forget what we do for a living. It’s cute. (Maybe the anonymous author just wanted to avoid making a dick move, y’know?)
Since we try to stay in that being honest mode, we will admit that by the time this picture was taken at Van Andel Arena (Grand Rapids, MI) in 1989, Mark Wahlberg has been gone from the groupf for over four years. We included it here simply to show what “major” performances looked like back then. … The 1980s were a weird time — a very, very weird time.
Rather than laugh, your significant other responds in kind, expressing their love and support in rhyming couplets, culminating in a coda that threatens to smash your fancy crystal with its ovation-worthy high C.
No? Well, why not? The resurgence of Hollywood musicals would have us believe show tunes and life’s slings and arrows are synonymous.
Already this year we’ve had In the Heights, based on the stage musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the batshit-looking Cannes opener Annette with Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. Among those still to come, we have Miranda’s feature directorial debut Tick, Tick … Boom!,Diana: The Musical, and Steven Spielberg’s $100 million reworking of West Side Story.
We’ve come a long way since the ’60s Post-Golden Age of musicals, an era that saw the speak-properly-woman histrionics of My Fair Lady (1964), an Oscar-winning nun on the run in The Sound of Music (1965) and the sinus-crushing squeaks and squawks of Doctor Doolittle (1967) — a heady brew of cockneys, Nazis and nincompoops cranking out shows toppers that were comic, serious or tearjerky … nobody really cared. The aim, as with all musical theater, was to knock you out with a two to three minute contextually dependent, narratively driven, sucker punch.
The ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s were dominated by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude-Michel Schönberg — an epoch of hopelessly sincere opera-light on stage, replete with pop-inspired show tunes for which we’re still paying the cinematic price. There were laughs aplenty to be had in the film adaptation of Cats (2019), but they were unintentional. Bread thief Jean Valjean choosing song as the best defense against heavily armed French soldiers in Les Misérables (2012) was meant to be somber not silly.
Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You (1996), while no masterpiece, was a notable outlier in this humorless period, with actors giving WTF glances at their co-stars whenever the singing started. Moulin Rouge! (2001), and to a lesser degree The Greatest Showman (2017), also stake claims for the self-aware, have-your-cake-and-eat-it post-modern musical.
But in the latest cinematic rush, the orchestral baton has passed firmly into the double-grip of diversity and authenticity — if you ignore the singing and jazz hands. Miranda’s monster stage hit turned movie Hamilton (2020), with its color-blind casting and rapping rather than arias, made a convincing financial case for more socially conscious musicals, the sort we’ll see, or avoid, on screens before the end of the year with Dear Evan Hansen, about a high school student with an anxiety disorder, and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, in which a teenager overcomes prejudice to become a drag queen. By the time West Side Story appears in December, we’ll likely be talking less about why New York gangs are scrapping with sawn-off melodies and more about the fact the Hispanic characters are played by Latinx actors, in sharp contrast to the 1961 original.
Musical Prognostication Concludes:
The wave is coming hard, so make your decision: tune in and tune up or tune out.
By the time of this publication, of course, December has passed, and we get to assess the guess re: Mr. Spielberg as to whether actually Latin actors were the only redeeming quality of the “West Side Story” remake. Turns out, NO. People seemed to like a great many things about the show in fact. Scoring in the 90s qualifies as impressive, regardless of the genre.
To paraphrase a man most famous for music, ironically, We know all you folks are the right kind of folks, so we’re going to be perfectly frank … Not all Natalie Woods were created equal, but one need not mimic in order to offer homage. (And if that phrasing seemed particularly odd, well, you probably need to add a musical or two to your weekend plans. They’re good for the soul — we’re almost positive.
Draped in lace or wearing little more than a smile, this Penthouse Cyber Cutie sets hearts racing. Her sensual cam work has earned her rave reviews that praise her stunning looks and sultry moves. You can easily see why this gorgeous babe has fans all over the globe, but she’s more than just a pretty face.
As Tiffany explains, “I’m so much more than you can see on the surface.”
While not all the many sides to lovely Tiffany lend themselves well to photographic efforts, these photos show some of her best! She tells Penthouse, “I love modeling. I love exposing my body in sexy pictures.”
We can begin with the basics about the blonde bombshell, because one needs to start somewhere. So we decided to start with what the magazine subscribers learned.
AGE: 22 MEASUREMENTS: 36C-25-35 HEIGHT: 5’11” NATIVE COUNTRY: Romania
What do you think are your best qualities?
I have the ability to make every day a beautiful memory, enjoying them in all the best ways.
What is your favorite fantasy?
I’ve always wanted to wake up in one of those overwater bungalows … The ocean breeze awakens me, next to a handsome man. I look into his eyes. He’s gazing at me, and I feel his hand slowly moving upward, almost touching me between my legs. I’m already wet, biting my lip and slowly moving closer to him to kiss him. We start touching each other, and then we have the best sex ever.
What’s the biggest turn-on for you?
I love when a man whispers sweet words to me.
Tiffany Grayson: ONLINE
The layout in the magazine featured naked pictures, of course — which we’ve nothing against in principle — although we do not publish that sort of thing out here where eyes of any age might be wandering about.
Also, the magazine editors put a decidedly American spin on Tiffany’s answers to their questions. We understand the decision, and do not wish to imply any ineptitude in their choice on the matter. That said, Tiffany does not happen to speak English as a first language, and honestly we found her phrasing and diction charming and endearing.
From that perspective, then, we have decided to add a few additional questions and answers exactly as Tiffany actually responded. Hey, Tiffany speaks English a whole lot better than anyone here can speak Romanian. We’re bragging, not complaining.
What is your favorite thing about your job?
The opportunity to explore new things, to find out new perspectives, develop my imagination and creativity, and of course … talking with so many people gives me confidence.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I’m going to gym, I like it quite a lot there. I love nature, so I go in parks during the weekends … and I like to run there.
Favorite shows and movies?
Titanic, of course [would be] my favorite — and lots of action movies. My favorite TV show is Orange is the New Black.
Favorite way to relax?
Walking on the grass with my bare feet.
What do you consider kinky?
I don’t think that I have something in my mind about that.
If you could have sex with anyone past or present, who would you pick?
I don’t know, even the sexiest celebrities, might have something wrong. So I’m not thinking about that.
You see? Phrasing and nuance really come through more when you try to leave the wording alone. You get a better sense of the individual when you read her words instead of some editor’s. At least that would be our opinion here. … We’re not saying the rigid, oh-so-proper, magazine folks are wrong, of course. They simply have different priorities.
Yet no one in that official Publishing Department ever asks us to write for the print mag. It’s a mystery.
While we ponder that, we have a final wish for everyone: O zi minunată tuturor! … Now we have no way to verify this, but according to Google, that means, “Everyone have a great day!” in Romanian. Google should know, right? … If you do want to learn Romanian so that you might talk to Ms. Tiffany Grayson more natively, we applaud you. Also, hit us back when you learn how to say, “Everyone have a great day!”
OH! By the way, should you wish to speak with Tiffany yourself and ask her something we might have missed, we can help with that too. … FIND TIFFANY: tiffany-grayson.flirt4free.com. (Be aware that this link may take you to the sort of imagery we do not feature on the free penthouse.com so watch out for people looking over your shoulder.) … Should you wish to find other inspiration for some lesser-known, yet still exceptional, women, we can help you out right in these pages.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame in a few years as one of the greatest, if not the greatest quarterback in National Football League history. But all the records and all the accolades that have been bestowed upon him are just an ode to past glories.
The challenge Brady, 44, and the Bucs are facing this season is one of the most difficult in all of pro football: winning back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
The feat has been accomplished just eight times in the Super Bowl’s 55-year history. Not surprisingly, it was Brady’s New England Patriots that were the last to win consecutive championships when they defeated the Carolina Panthers 32-29 in the 2004 Super Bowl and the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-21, the following year.
That was nearly two decades ago, though — long before anyone was calling Brady the GOAT, the greatest of all time.
Other teams that repeated were the Green Bay Packers (1967-68); Miami Dolphins (1973-74); Pittsburgh Steelers (1975-76); Pittsburgh Steelers again (1979-80); San Francisco 49ers (1989-1990); Dallas Cowboys (1993-94); and Denver Broncos (1998-1999).
Brady hears optimistic Bucs fans — still breathless from the Super Bowl victory this past February, no doubt — speaking of winning two straight like it is a fait accompli.
“I think the assumption [that it won’t be hard] comes from the belief that it will just be exactly like it was last year,” Brady said this summer. “The reality is everything is different. The teams will approach you a little bit differently.”
Brady knows Super Bowls. He’s played in ten of them, winning seven titles and five Super Bowl Most Valuable Player awards, but only once has he won consecutive championships.
“You’ve got to stay focused on what’s really important,” Brady said. “How do you improve? How do you get better from week to week, day to day? Improve your routine, improve your communication with your teammates [and] with your coaches. Not allow your mind to really fall into this position that you make this assumption that just because you did something in February that you’ll do it again next February because that’s not the reality of football — it’s way too competitive. A lot of games we won last year were very razor-thin margins; one or two plays make the difference in every game.” Many factors can derail a team: injuries, the loss of key players to free agency, off-field turmoil and plain bad luck.
Although the likelihood of repeating is low, the Bucs have a few things in their favor. Tampa Bay plays in a weak NFC South division where it will face the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers (9-23 combined last season) and the New Orleans Saints, who are without quarterback Drew Brees after he retired in March.
The Bucs are returning all 22 starters, the first defending Super Bowl champion in the salary cap era to do so, according to the team.
And of course, Brady is back at the helm.
Jay Kornegay, executive vice president at SuperBook Sports operations, said the early money was on the Bucs to repeat, with the odds at 9-2. But he cautioned that those odds would change once the season was underway.
“The division is weak, and there is uncertainty throughout the NFC from the Saints without Brees, to the off-season issues with Aaron Rodgers wanting out of Green Bay. Of the top four contenders in the NFC, in our view, the Bucs have the fewest question marks surrounding them,” Kornegay said.
“What we can’t measure yet is their motivation and desire. That’s the biggest obstacle to repeating. They were really hungry last season. But winning brings a certain satisfaction. Will they be able to get the same level of intensity this year? I’m not saying they can’t, but it’s the biggest obstacle to repeating in sports.”
Injuries are a close second, experts say. Sportsbooks keep a close eye on injury reports because of the impact they can have on scoring. It can move the line, and the fates of promising teams, quite significantly.
“Brady’s arm isn’t what it used to be, but it was enough last year to complement the Bucs’ running game and their defense,” Kornegay said. “If you get injuries, though, or the defense is subpar, they’ll end up in more shootouts, allowing more points and putting more pressure on Brady to throw for more yards. If the running game suffers injuries or declines, the defense doesn’t get the rest it needs. The play or health of one unit, affects the performance of another. And remember, these guys are already going to have targets on their back because everyone wants to knock off the champ.”
There are a number of ways returning Super Bowl winners can go from champs to chumps. Consider the three previous Super Bowl winners and how injuries, a shocking performance and a few ill-advised turnovers blew their chances to repeat.
The Philadelphia Eagles beat Brady and the New England Patriots, 41-33, in the 2018 Super Bowl. Starting quarterback Carson Wentz tore knee ligaments on Dec. 10, 2017, and backup Nick Foles became an unlikely hero, leading the Eagles to the championship.
Wentz returned to the lineup the following season, but suffered a stress fracture in his back in mid-December that sent him to the bench. Foles reclaimed the starting job, but was unable to summon the old magic. Philadelphia was eliminated from the playoffs in a 20-14 divisional round loss to the New Orleans Saints.
The Patriots returned to the Super Bowl in 2019, beating the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 in the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever.
New England went 12-4 in the 2019 regular season and won its 11th consecutive AFC East title. But the Patriots’ top-ranked defense buckled in the wild card round, allowing Titans running back Derrick Henry to rush for 182 yards and a touchdown in the Titans’ 20-13 victory. In the 2020 Super Bowl, the Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs scored 21 points in the final 6:13 to beat the San Francisco 49ers, 31-20.
The Chiefs returned to the Super Bowl last season, but what was billed as a shootout between the Chiefs’ youthful quarterback and the more experienced Brady was largely decided by the Buccaneers’ determined defense. Mahomes, 25, passed for 270 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. Brady passed for 201 yards and three touchdowns, but made no turnovers in a 31-9 win that earned Brady his fifth Super Bowl MVP award.
Johnny Avello, director of race and sportsbook operations at DraftKings, had the Kansas City Chiefs favored at 5-1 this summer and agreed with Kornegay that motivation and complacency are the biggest factors in a team’s ability to repeat. But, he cautioned, never underestimate Lady Luck.
“In last year’s NFC Championship game, Brady threw three picks in about 10 minutes and they were lucky to hold on for the win. Sometimes, it is just about things going your way,” Avello said. “I thought they were fortunate to even get to the Super Bowl last year. I’m not expecting them to get there again.”
Only a few professional franchises have ever been dominant enough in their sport to be a surefire bet at winning consecutive championships. Avello pointed to teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association and New York Yankees in Major League Baseball, where players at every position were among the best in the league.
“I don’t see any of the teams today having that type of presence on the field,” Avello said. “I think there is more parity now than there’s ever been. And that makes it much harder to win championships back-to-back.”
Brady knows it will be difficult, but he thinks the Bucs are just reaching their peak. “[Coach Bruce Arians has] done a great job of keeping us focused, keeping the intensity there,” Brady said. “I feel like we’re not finished projects. It was really our first opportunity to play together last year, and there’s a lot of opportunity for us to grow into something that could be very different.”
Perhaps. But I’m not sure I’d put money on it.
We should note that this article came in to our editors early in the NFL season. As of this writing, Tom Brady just advanced to the second round of the NFL Playoffs, with his Buccaneers having summarily destroyed the once vaunted Eagles by a score of 31-15. And it was not nearly that close. …
We’re not saying Tom Brady has a portait of himself hidden away in an attice somewhere, but he might. Should you insist on betting against him, you’ll be much better off wagering with a significant other in one of those, “If we win, you kiss me. If you win, I’ll kiss you,” sorts of bets.
Andrew Tarusov is a Russian-born artist and animator renowned for his bright and bold erotic pinup illustrations and animation. With the help of his Patreon following, Tarusov undertook the ambitious mission of creating Swinging Island, his debut erotic graphic novel about open relationships and the swinging lifestyle, which was inspired by his own fantasies and adventures.
What triggered the creation of Swinging Island?
It started when I lived in Los Angeles, and I realized I had to retain patrons on my Patreon page somehow. That’s how I came up with the idea of comics. First, I thought maybe I should do a soft erotic graphic novel. But then I decided to go full frontal, and I liked it more. You can’t post porn on Patreon if it’s real people, but you can draw it!
Has growing up in Russia had any effect on your art?
The middle of Russia is very gray and sad, so I would say it’s had the opposite effect! I’ve always tried to draw more colorful and happier pictures and stories than you see in real life.
Is Swinging Island your first foray into creating comics?
Yes. I had never created a comic before but have always loved them. I studied filmmaking and animation, and it helped because comics are basically a storyboard. But it’s a huge work, and I had to invite a lot of people to help me finish it, including an English-speaking editor, colorer, book editor and a print house. A lot of people helped me finish it.
Are you trained in art?
Oh yes, I spent a lot of time studying. First, I finished art school, graduated from an arts college where I studied oil painting, and then I spent six years in the Film University in Moscow studying computer graphics and animation.
Where did your inspiration for Swinging Island come from?
Basically, the main character is me—a shy and not very confident young man. All of the other characters are bolder and braver. The story takes place on a nudist beach, and I’m a huge fan of naked swimming. So, I just put my fantasies in the book. What would it be like to go to the beach with my girlfriend and to meet another more open-minded couple there? It was important to me to make a realistic story where people have failures and misunderstandings. It’s not like usual porn as I don’t draw sex scenes only to show sex. Also, I take a lot of character features from my real-life experiences.
What was your process for putting together Swinging Island?
I just drew it page by page, from start to finish. Sometimes I had to pause it because I didn’t know what I should do next. I even re-drew some pages from the beginning because I decided to start it differently. But now I don’t make mistakes like that. I plan everything, and I have a very exact outline in my mind and on the paper.
What equipment do you use for your illustrations?
I use an iPad and Procreate 90 percent of the time. Sometimes I finish my drawings in Photoshop, and I use After Effects for animation. I also love traditional art, and I paint watercolors and oil for myself when I have a chance.
What draws you to creating erotic comics?
I always loved eroticism in all aspects. Movies, photos and drawings. I just can’t resist it. When I started to draw erotic comics and paintings, I felt happiness. I felt that this is it, and I decided to stay on that path.
Have you ever had a muse?
I always have a muse. I love women, and they love me.
How has Swinging Island been received by its readers?
People love it so much! I didn’t expect that, but it looks like people love it more than everything else I do. I have more than 650 permanent readers [on Patreon], and when people join, they stay! I feel like it’s my mission to make cool sex-positive comics.
Do you have plans for a Swinging Island sequel?
Definitely. I’m doing a sequel on my Patreon, and it’s not even close to the middle. It will be bigger, hotter and longer. Also, the second part takes place in the clothes-optional hotel. I’ve been to such places, and it’s always great fun.
According to organizers of the politically conservative gathering, even a clothed porn star’s presence is inappropriate, and do-gooders are bringing up the overplayed refrain: “Think of the children.” Some zealots are even using that old argument to advocate for a ban on free porn websites. But these attacks on porn have very little to do with protecting minors and everything to do with enforcing a particular “moral” ethic on adults. [Insert shocked face here. – Ed.]
It’s already illegal in many municipalities for anyone under the age of 18 to possess porn. It’s primarily up to parents to protect their children from viewing pornography, and that’s as it should be.
But a ban on porn — that’s free or purchased — would allow people with one worldview to impose that view on other adults.
As much as I personally would love to ban purity balls, abstinence teaching and virginity vows because of the sexual and psychological damage they can cause children — girls, in particular — I’d never advocate for legislation to that effect. Parenting simply isn’t the role of the government. Except in cases of abuse, the government must step aside and let parents parent.
Luckily, keeping kids from getting a hold of porn is easier than you might think. Installing the appropriate firewalls is a great place to start. But if you’re still worried, you could always simply deny your child a device that connects to the internet. The point is, we can do this on our own. As someone who was on the receiving end of such parental oversight, I should know. During my teen years, my parents put a firewall so secure on my laptop that I was blocked from looking up former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for a school project.
Should the government bring back Prohibition just because 16-year-olds sometimes sneak into bars or steal their parents’ alcohol? God forbid. Besides, Prohibition didn’t work. So how would banning porn be any different?
Porn is older than the human species. Our Paleolithic ancestors scrawled pictures of boobs, vulvas and penises on cave walls, and dildos are among our pre-human ancestors’ first inventions. Just as adults prefer to enjoy cocktails free of quinine and other toxic chemicals, adults want safe, consensual porn. Banning porn wouldn’t make it go away. It would still be just as widely available as it is now. But actors would no longer have legal protections.
Don’t our authorities have anything better to do than waste time and resources going after safe, consensual porn? How about focusing on addressing human rights violations and real abuse? Adults are perfectly capable of enjoying porn responsibly. Couples watch porn together to spice up their sex lives. Lonely people watch porn to satisfy their basic human need for sexual pleasure.
Governments ban activities and commodities where the detriments to the functioning of a healthy society outweigh the benefits. Porn is a multi-billion-dollar industry with revenue estimates ranging between $6 billion on the low end to more than $97 billion on the high end. That’s millions of jobs — and even more satisfied customers. Porn doesn’t just make money for itself. It supports cellular companies, hotels and internet providers. Porn makes up 30 percent of all internet usage. Additionally, it’s a driver of innovation with virtual reality porn expected to reach $1 billion in sales by 2025.
There are two other arguments against porn: It leads to an oversexed population, and it leaves people less interested in sex. Which is it? In the end, the arguments against consensual porn for adults remain far-fetched and moralistic.
Yes, people can abuse and misuse porn. But as it stands, porn provides entertainment and gratification for millions of adults every day. Canceling this industry would be tantamount to cock-blocking entire nations.
Emilie Dye is the Australian Lead for Young Voices. Find her on Twitter @Emilie_Dye or on her website emiliedye.com. … For the record, our advice would be NOT to search “porn” using your favorite search engine, should you wish to peruse some more scientific — although still objectively editorial — views on the topic. The cynical among us might feel like people use that word simply to get traffic to their sites to sell more ad space. Of course we do not know any cynical people here. Nope. We’re all just happy optimists that do not understand why people always seem unhappy these days. That’s us in a nutshell. (Emphasis on “nut” by the way.)
UFC’s Kevin Lee is a beast! So, what makes this beast tick?
Kevin Lee is an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fan favorite. Born in Michigan in 1992, he was raised in Detroit and has a sister and two younger brothers. He made his professional debut against Al Iaquinta in 2014 at UFC 169. He lost and moved to Las Vegas to focus on his game. He got his first win when he defeated Jesse Ronson on July 6, 2014. The rest follows in this interview!
Welcome Kevin Lee. Thank you for being ready to speak to us today.
Man, I’m always ready!
Let’s start by talking about your training. How do you stay in such good shape?
I’m coming off two knee surgeries. I honestly think it’s mostly just genetics. My little brother doesn’t train at all, and he’s in better shape than me.
So you’ve had knee reconstructions?
Yep! The first one hurt like a motherfucker. It took some time to get back to the grind, but I was back in the gym pretty quickly, just grinding a different grind.
Do you think you heal faster the fitter you are?
I’ve been fighting since I was 16. I haven’t had anything this major before, but being in good physical shape preps you for this. When I first got injured in high school, I started this path of injuries. It’s like a muscle; you’ve got to build it. I started fighting at 18 and went pro at 19. I had over 200 wrestling matches, about 150 in high school and 200 in college. I compete a lot!
So you felt like a veteran before you even came to the UFC?
No, I still feel like I’m just getting started! I’ve fought some of the best guys in the world. I’ve had to learn through years of fighting. In MMA [mixed martial arts] we come up the ranks a lot faster. Now, in UFC I’m just starting to hit that vet status. I feel like I’m in the right spot at the right time.
You hurt your left knee, and then the right?
I was rehabbing the left, and then I was just dancing in my living room. I was feeling good, I was over compensating, and it popped.
That means you’re “no contact” in the gym now, just upper body?
For a while, yeah.
So, 2020 wasn’t a good year for you?
It wasn’t a good year for anyone, was it? It was a dumpster fire. I feel like I learned a lot about myself. Even being injured, I couldn’t get up and do what I’m used to doing. You’ve got to take the negative and make a positive, all that good shit.
You were born and raised in Detroit. Tell us about young Kevin Lee.
Yeah, Rock City. It’s a pretty tough city. I had to learn how to navigate the world. I’d already seen life at its worst. I’m fighting some of the toughest dudes in the world, and when I’m coming up against a crazy name, I get a little anxious, but I don’t let that stop me.
Let’s talk about some of the beasts you’ve fought.
Yeah, and I still feel pumped! At the end of 2019, which I would say was my best year, I got to beat Gregor Gillespie. And not only that, I got to beat him in front of Donald Trump!
ESPN called me and said Gillespie is still unconscious…
I heard his jaw was broken; he still hasn’t fought since then. That fight was one of my top three knockouts. When you stiffened them like that, it’s more gratifying than a knockout. I ain’t gonna lie! It’s totally different when you’re on a big stage like that. I’d hurt my ankle two weeks before that fight. My baby brother, who’s in jail right now, was getting ready to fight his case. It was one of those situations where there’s a real lesson.
He was saying to me, “I’m tired. I don’t want to fight this anymore.”
I was trying to tell him to keep fighting. But I was talking to him from the locker room, where I’d just been talking to the coach, saying, “I don’t think I can fight anymore.”
And right then and there, I was like I’m going to knock [Gillespie] out with this foot. I looked down, and my foot was all swollen. But I was like, “I’m going to take him down.” I thought, How can I tell [my little brother] to keep fighting, and then not fight myself?
Did that give you the edge in that fight, hearing that from family?
Sure. You always need a reason to fight; family is that reason. My brother is an extension of me. Straight away I started doing rehab, then two days before the fight I was managing to walk again.
How do you deal with your brother being imprisoned? Does he get to see your fights?
Yeah, he gets to see my fights in jail. It’s hard. As I said, I feel like he’s an extension of me. We’ve got the same DNA. I feel like it could have been me in there. Even going through COVID-19, not being able to get out and move too much because of my injuries, I was like, “Let me get back up. Stop complaining, and get on with it.” It’s a wake-up call, you know.
Do personal tribulations make you stronger?
I like speaking some real shit. People want to hear it.
Your late coach Robert Follis was a huge part of your life. How much did he influence your career?
It was huge. I was coming over from Detroit. I kind of felt I was in the middle ground; I was too black for the white people, too white for the black people. I didn’t really fit in anywhere. When I made the decision to move [to Las Vegas], I met Follis, and he talked to me in a way that I really felt like he got me.
Brother, father, friend — how would you classify that relationship?
He was a father figure. He was someone I wanted to impress. I’ve had a few coaches like that, even my high school wrestling coach. He made sure I was on the right path.
Follis had helped many great sportsmen. He then died by suicide. How did you cope with that?
He committed suicide shortly after I lost a fight. I kept asking myself, “If I’d have won that fight, would it have been different?”
But then I checked myself; there’s much more going on in the world than me. There was a lot more going on in his head. In a roundabout way, I felt he did it for a reason. He knew it was time for me to find a different coach. He felt it was time to move on.
Are there any stories you can tell about Robert?
Honestly, I’d rather keep them. Yeah, I’d rather keep them.
Cheers to that. Now, let’s talk about the rising profile of UFC.
Money is coming to the UFC. Conor McGregor has the profile of the sport; he’s raised it for all of us.
Tell us how it feels to be on a Conor McGregor card?
In UFC 178, he was the third on the card. Eddie Alvarez was put there. It was my first peek into that world. I was like, “These Irish dudes are fucking crazy!” I was kind of enjoying it. They were seriously into the sport; they were there for a good fight. Then it was a bit overwhelming; you’ve got to be a different kind of beast to go up against all of that.
You mean, all those Irish fans booing you?
I was there opening up for the main card. The energy was like, “Get outta here. We’re here for Conor!”
The main thing was the energy. It was something I had to get used to. That experience, you can’t teach that, facing thousands of people cheering for someone else. After the fight, I sat in the crowd. I was looking around, seeing how everyone was reacting.
I was like, “I’m a young kid from Detroit. Black people don’t support each other in the way Irish people support each other.” Most other cultures do, to be honest. I think in America, we just love winners!
You’re into politics a bit. We saw you at a Bernie Sanders rally.
It wasn’t into politics — until I was. I’m a hunter. Everyday I wake up, and I work out who am I looking for. Right now, it could be the UFC guys, but I still look at the bigger picture. There came a time when I thought, Who better to hunt than the fucking president? I enjoy it when people get upset.
What was it like being up there?
It was different! The same butterflies, but when you get up there on stage, you’re just in the moment. And then every other normal moment is so fucking boring, compared to those fucking moments!
How does it compare to fighting?
When you’re talking, you’ve really got to stay in the moment. You’ve got to keep people engaged. It’s a completely different beast.
Speaking of Motown, you’re from Detroit, but you’re living in Las Vegas.
Yeah, I am. COVID changed everything, though. I did my first training camp in Canada. It’s cold, but the women are amazing up there.
Are you single?
Yes, I am. I’m busy doing my thing. For the most part, I’m not looking to get married yet. I’m 28; I’ve got money to make, man!
Have you done any acting?
No. It seems hard! If I do it, I’ll just be me. The real me. I’ll get some Hennessy or Courvoisier. I like Belaire and coffee in the morning, then wine and tea at night. I like red wine. I’m getting into the dry red wine right now.
Before you do a photo shoot, drink a couple of glasses of red the night before and you’ll be really shredded.
Is that right? I’m going to need to try that. I’ll keep that in mind!
You mentioned you can accept your losses. You’ve established it’s a learning process, but who would you like to have beaten?
Tony Ferguson. That’s the one I’d like to have won. I wasn’t ready for that fight. I even knew prior I wasn’t ready. I knew when they offered it. When I fought in June 2017 that was the first time I’d made national attention. I knew it was going to happen, but they were coming to Detroit for the first time. I knew Tony from way back when. He used to wrestle at the same college as me, and then they hit me with the October date. They offered me the money. I was like, “I’m going to do it.” You know, I’ve got to sleep with myself. I’m not going to be a bitch. But you go back and watch it, I was sweating getting off the bus to go, but just walking out I was on a 20, trying to pump myself up to get there. I lost it; I really thought I was going to die in there. Just from sheer exhaustion.
You go through the trials and tribulations of being in this warrior industry, but you’re still human.
Yeah, we play up to that, play up to the super human thing. But we are just human beings, of course. Seriously, it’s a crazy person who wants to keep getting up and keep on putting themselves through it.
What do you like to do outside the sport?
I’m an artist. I like to create things. That’s what gives me my peace. I do some random shit. I love music; I play a bit. My favorite artist would be Lil Wayne.
What’s the story with you and Dillon Danis?
OK, I’ll tell you how I first met him. I used to train a lot at Drysdale in Vegas. They said this really good Jiu-Jitsu guy, Dillon, is coming through. You know, I’m a competitor at the end of the day. We trained a little bit together. I can tell when someone else is playing the game. There’s a game to promotion, the hype around fights. There’s a game to it. I could tell he was playing, so I thought, I’m going to play the game, too! I was like, “Let’s play. Let’s have some fun!”
I thought, Come on, he can’t fight. So I said it had to be our own money. When I had a sponsor hit me up, I said no, it’s got to be my money and your money. I want to take his money off him. There was a thing Eddie Bravo started where in Jiu-Jitsu, you’re allowed to slap. I was like, “Let’s do that.” I’ve never done Jiu-Jitsu, so I thought, Let’s meet in the middle. But you know, I’m still down. I’ll still do it, but there’s got to be slaps involved. That’s got to be on the table. No punches. But slaps? Hell yeah!
Do you think we could do general public contender tryouts? Give them headgear and shin guards and get them fighting for a contract?
OK, I’m with you, but only for the security guards. You know, those guys have to learn how to fight. It doesn’t make sense that they can’t. We’re not going to make the lady at the front desk fight for her job.
What happens when announcer Bruce Buffer leaves?
Well, you can’t make those guys fight. Bruce’s a great guy.
Does Vegas feels like home for Kevin Lee now?
I’ve been here for five years. I feel like a local now. The feeling’s a bit different, though; I’m starting to notice the changes happening around the place.
Do you ever look in the mirror and think, I’ve done good?
I never envisioned this. I knew I was going to be successful somehow. I knew eventually I would get there. I’m fucking happy to be where I am. I’m 28. I’m living this beautiful life. I feel like I’m living in a movie sometimes. Everything I do is so I can one day tell my kids these stories. I’ve got a lot of options in front of me. I’m just focusing on getting myself healthy, and then I know I can beat anyone, anyone in the world.
Is there anything inspirational you can say to anyone who’s not doing too well right now?
Just keep going. I feel like everything is all connected, so as long as you love what you’re doing, just keep doing that shit. Even if you think you suck at it, keep doing it, keep critiquing it, and eventually one day you’ll look up and look back and you’ll say, “Look how far I’ve come!” With me, I think, You used to be some kid from Detroit, and look at you now. Just keep going.
This Kevin Lee interview was published with permission from the What Happens Here podcast. Should you have missed our brief bit on Connor McGregor earlier, we can help you along.
Whether you thought 2021 or 2020 qualifies as the … Worst. Year. Ever. … could well depend on which old man got your vote for President last November. We’re not much on controversial politics around here, although we can offer a couple quick overall impressions:
Both years deeply and truly sucked.
If someone honestly believes something — no matter how completely bizarre or overwhelmingly controverted by facts — you will be wasting your time trying to get them to change their — completely stupid, bordering on pure insanity — opinions.
Now wiser or more benevolent people than ourselves saying, “Goodbye 2021” would have spent hours and hours, possibly weeks, coming up with some perfectly pithy commentary that would make you feel good about yourselves, good about your future, and maybe even good about your fellow humans for at least a second. We all know these people, the kind always looking at the bright side, trying to do the right thing, doing unto others as they would have done unto them — those people. Yeah, we know them too. We admire them, y’know, without actually aspiring to be them. We still consider them quite dandy, however.
Sadly, we are not those people.
We are people that make you entertaining — albeit granted potentially a tad baffling — New Year’s Eve promotions … without offering even the slightest hint as to what our intentions might have been or what we maybe thought this symbolized.
Nope. We bring you video and allow you the unfettered freedom to make of it what you will. (Fettered freedom also sucks, for the record.)
Penthouse New Year 2022
See? We do not bother with biased media coverage. We do not batter you with controversial opinions delivered as fact. No-no. We do not.
Instead we let our ever-so-worthy viewers bring their own intellect to “bare” [sic — we know] on the problem. Around here we think this means that everyone should spend more time volunteering in their local communities, but it could mean something completely different to you. That would be beauty of it, you see. Speaking of beauty, in case you did not recognize all those (again, sadly) uncredited women on video, we put together a quick gallery for you that might help (because it has captions with their names listed). We even managed to find some Penthouse movie shots that hopefully provide a slightly different view than the traditional magazine layout presentation.
Vanna Bardot
Gabbie Carter
Maya Farrell
Vanna Bardot
Gabbie Carter
Maya Farrell
Izzy Lush
Of course to be really trendy we should have come up with our own “list” of something that would tempt all the Google Bots to “list” us as relevant, and important, and overall the modern equivalent of the bee’s knees. (Ask an old person about that one.) Narrowing it down became too much of a conflict amongst our Team here at Penthouse, though, so we settled instead on rather a List of Lists. Consequently, if you have a particular way you wish to say Goodbye 2021 in your favorite manner, you may do so.
Before we start getting comments, we are in fact aware that we have 13 items on our list of 12 lists. This comes from the fact that at least a couple of the influential elders here seemed to be of the opinion that there is no such thing as a “Best TikTok” anything. Those elders do not write blog posts, however. So … SHHHH!
By the way, we already have our own favorite women from 2021, as one would expect of Penthouse. In fact we have them listed in a handy fashion so that you may help us VOTE for the 2022 Pet of the Year. True, you end up with 11 sad women and one really happy woman, but that tends to be the nature of lists. Somebody has to be #1, and therefore no one else can be.
Bottom line: Try to make at least one person happy with everything you do. (And, no, you cannot count yourself.) As a Goodbye 2021 moral, that might be the best one can do. Much like our views here, 2021 had a little sadness, but it also had moments of rare brightness. If we concentrate on the latter, we can always manage the former. As my dad always told me, “If it were easy, anybody could do it.”
Of course my dad also told me to always throw the first punch because that might be the only one you get in; so there’s that.
