Don’t Dent Your IQ

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Back in 1997, some Germans got an idea. For ease of reading, we’ll translate their thought process into English. It went like this: Hey, you know, we’ve got a ton of cool museums but after 5 P.M. they just sit there empty, a zillion marble-floored corridors and white-walled exhibition spaces without a single human being except for janitors.

And since Germans are not wasteful people, they came up with the notion of keeping museums open after-hours. That led to an even bigger thought: How about, they asked themselves, one night a year when a bunch of museums stay open late?

And so was born Lange Nacht der Museen. Long Night of the Museums. The Germans pioneered the concept but now all over the world museums stay open after dark.

The English even coined a term: Lates. One venerable London art museum, for example, promotes “Friday Lates at the National Gallery.” Less crowded, no schoolkids, and perks like booze, DJs, films, performances. Some museums take on a sexy nightclub feel, with fresh young things boogie-ing beside the exhibits.

We rounded up ten art museums with great “lates.” We’re pretty sure our founder, art lover Bob Guccione, would have been down with this particular “Stupid.”

Gemäldegalerie (Berlin)
You like Old Masters? Rembrandt, Titian, Guccione’s beloved Botticelli? You’re in luck. This place is bursting with them. Its octagonal Rembrandt room might have the world’s best collection by the Dutch master. Plus, you can catch Bruegel’s Topsy-Turvy World (1559), which features the Devil taking confession and a woman cheating on her hubby.

Tate Modern (London)
Housed in a former power station with views across the Thames to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Modern offers a world-class collection of twentieth-century and contemporary art. During “Tate Lates,” you can sample art in the Switch House, Boiler House, and vast Turbine Hall, while DJs pump out music. Free admission, too. Open till 10 P.M. all Fridays and Saturdays.

Louvre (Paris)
The world’s largest art museum, it began as a fortress in 1202 and by the sixteenth century was a pretty sweet home for French kings. Pop by on a Wednesday or Friday evening and you can run around this treasure-house of 38,000 art objects like Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code until 9:45 P.M. They even offer Code tours that recreate Hanks’s footsteps.

Guggenheim (Manhattan)
Berlin might have the Long Night, but the City That Never Sleeps kicks ass all the time. Weekends at the Whitney: 10 P.M. Weekends at the Metropolitan: 9 P.M. The Museum of Modern Art: Fridays till eight. The Guggenheim takes the cake though. On select Fridays, you can drink and dance until midnight in the spiraling Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building on Fifth Avenue, surrounded by Picassos, Miros, and Manets.

Art Institute of Chicago
Can’t get to NYC? Maybe you can hit this colossal lakefront gem and party in the Modern Wing until midnight. Live music, booze, appetizers, on special Friday nights. Thursdays, it’s open till eight. During the day, crowds can be crazy. Beat ’em late…

The Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston)
In 1990, thieves made off with 13 works of art worth $500 million — the greatest single heist of any kind in history. But copious art remains! Built as a Venetian-palace-inspired home, the Gardner is a great joint for a date once a month when it offers music, a cash bar, a courtyard, and, of course, works by Michelangelo, Degas, Matisse, and others.

Dallas Museum of Art
The DMA gets it right both in terms of art (a whopping 24,000 objects, including works by Van Gogh, Renoir, Edward Hopper) and after hours: open till midnight the third Friday of every month. They even have a YouTube video detailing the nighttime fun to be had.

The Broad (Los Angeles)
Opened in 2015 in downtown L.A. besides the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Broad (pronounced Brode, after the billionaire who founded it) is a trippy white structure with a honeycomb look. Inside sits a marvelous collection of contemporary art. Catch a Basquiat, or a Baldessari, until 8 P.M. Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.

Honolulu Museum of Art
As if Hawaii isn’t awesome enough. On the last Friday of the month, ten months a year, this dazzling museum, with more than 50,000 works of art, holds a party called ARTafterDARK. Sip cocktails on the beautiful grounds as the sun sets over the Pacific.

Milwaukee Art Museum
You might think beer before art when you think of Milwaukee, but its lakefront museum is outstanding, and its Santiago Calatrava-designed addition is breathtaking (think huge white wings that move). Plus MAM After Dark, a till-midnight affair, might be America’s best museum-at-night scene.

Forget Tinder and meet your next match! MAM cheekily invites.

A Serious Man, Guccione

Posted on by Team Penthouse

I was representing Penthouse in various First Amendment cases, and he invited me to meet him for dinner at his mansion in Midtown Manhattan. I didn’t know what to expect, having read accounts of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. I anticipated a raunchy environment, with Penthouse Pets and pinup art. I was not looking forward to the evening.

I rang the mansion’s bell. The door opened automatically and I entered. Suddenly two enormous Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs — the size and color of small lions — stood face to face with me. From the top of the stairs came instructions: “If you don’t seem nervous, they won’t attack you.”

Not an easy instruction to follow. I stood there smiling, trying to relax as the dogs stared me down. Finally Bob came down the stairs and called them off. He then told me that these dogs were capable of killing lions and were used in Africa as part of hunting parties. He also told me that a Ridgeback had eaten another dog in Central Park. That did not make me less nervous.

Once the dogs were safely ensconced in another room, Bob showed me around the house. It was exquisitely decorated with Italian marble and other imported elements. On the walls hung the finest collection of early twentieth-century art I had ever seen in a private home: Modiglianis, Picassos, Légers, and many other great modern artists. He also had works by Italian Renaissance painters. Finally there were his own paintings, some of which had been exhibited in museums.

I did not see a single Penthouse Pet. The other dinner guests were distinguished academics, lawyers, and intellectuals. It was the furthest thing from the Playboy Mansion that I could imagine. The conversation ranged widely from art to politics to constitutional law. The only references to Penthouse related to freedom of expression and efforts to censor sexually explicit material.

Not only did I represent Penthouse for many years, I also wrote a monthly column focused on freedom of expression and other justice issues. Bob took an active role in suggesting subjects for my column.

Guccione used penthouse to express his sometimes controversial views regarding sex, politics, men’s health, and other issues. He lived life in full and had an impact on the world.

Bob Guccione was a serious man who surrounded himself with other serious people. He used Penthouse to express his sometimes controversial views regarding sex, politics, men’s health, and other issues. Again, he lived life in full and had an impact on the world.

Bob’s public persona was quite different from the Bob I knew. In public he wore a gold pendant in the shape of a penis. I asked him why, since I believed it undercut his image as a serious person. He replied it was important not to hide sexuality and to make it part of daily conversation. We quarreled sometimes about how far he was willing to take Penthouse in its explicitness. But I defended his right to do so.

Toward the end of his life, he suffered greatly from a cancer that made it difficult for him to speak. He didn’t allow his illness to slow him down, and he continued to publish his magazine and to engage in serious intellectual conversations with friends and professional colleagues.

I was much criticized for my representation of, and friendship with, Bob Guccione. I am proud of our friendship. I am glad that he was part of my life, and I know that he was pleased I was part of his. I don’t like all of my clients and I rarely socialize with them. I liked Bob very much, though I didn’t approve of everything that he did.

His life ended too early and too tragically, with illness and bankruptcy. I saw the pain he went through when he had to sell his beloved art collection. He was a real connoisseur of art, and parting with his Modiglianis and Picassos was painful. When his creditors insisted he also sell his own paintings, he drew the line, refusing. Ultimately they relented and allowed him to keep several of his most important works. But they didn’t relent when it came to his home. He had to sell the beautiful mansion he had designed and built himself. Bob Guccione helped change our attitude toward nudity, sexuality, and the reach of the First Amendment. That was the public Guccione. The private Bob was a real mensch.

The Amber Room

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Ask the Nazis, or maybe the Red Army. Either way, the Amber Room — a glimmering, opulent Soviet chamber sometimes referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World — suddenly disappeared at the tail end of World War II. And it hasn’t been seen since.

The Amber Room was first conceived at the turn of the eighteenth century as part of the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, which was then part of Prussia and home to the Prussian royal family. Andreas Schlüter, the royal court’s chief architect, got the idea when he came across dozens of chests full of rare and extremely expensive amber nuggets in the palace’s cellar, and from there assembled an international team of artisans to help him complete the task. It wasn’t an easy one: Amber is notoriously finicky to work with, and covering an entire chamber in the stuff would require hundreds of thousands of small pieces, carefully heated, shaped, and joined together with acacia gum. Eventually, the team pulled it off, and the resultant room was not just a work of art in its own right, with a glimmer said to resemble stained glass, but also became an international sensation.

Among the Amber Room’s fans was Russian Czar Peter the Great, who visited Berlin in 1716 and expressed his admiration for the glowing chamber. By this time there was a new Prussian king on the throne, Frederick William I, who was looking to shore up his country’s alliance with Russia, and at the same time offload some of his late father’s less interesting treasures. Incredibly, this included the Amber Room. So King Frederick William offered the whole thing to Peter as a gift, and he gratefully accepted.

It took 18 crates to ship the massive jewel-encrusted panels to St. Petersburg, where the Amber Room was reinstalled in the czar’s Winter House. Later, in 1755, Czarina Elizabeth changed her mind and had the whole thing moved a few miles to the town of Pushkin. Once a series of renovations and alterations were complete, the revitalized Amber Room contained six tons of amber spanning 180 square feet. In all, the room was valued at the equivalent of $142 million dollars today.

And then it disappeared.

What happened? Well, the Nazis, for one thing. In June 1941, as Hitler’s troops suddenly marched into the Soviet Union, the order went out nationwide to remove and protect all major works of art from the invaders. But there simply wasn’t time for something as large and cumbersome as the Amber Room. So it was decided to instead simply cover it up with decoy layers of plain cotton and padding, to make it look like any other room. No such luck: Within hours, a pair of Nazi soldiers uncovered the glowing panels, and the whole thing was shipped back west to a castle in Königsberg.

Then, in August 1944, the castle and the city were heavily bombed by the Allies, and the fate of the Amber Room has been a mystery ever since. The simplest theory, obviously, is that the Amber Room was destroyed in the raids. But no remains were ever found, and besides, what fun is that? Instead, let’s consult some of the wilder theories that have surfaced since.

Some believe the room was secretly loaded onto a German military ship, which was later sunk in the Baltic. Others think the panels were broken up and quietly sold by the looting soldiers — a theory supported by a couple of smaller pieces reemerging in Germany in the 1990s. Over the years, several people have grabbed headlines by swearing that the Amber Room is hidden inside this mine, or at the bottom of that lake; none of these claims has ever borne out.

In their 2004 book The Amber Room, Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy uncover government reports suggesting that it was actually the Red Army itself that destroyed the Amber Room, by accident, along with the rest of Königsberg Castle, as they recaptured the city in April 1945 — and that the Russian government has kept this fact secret ever since, presumably for fear of the international embarrassment it would cause.

The Russians, for what it’s worth, deny all of this. They’d much rather direct your attention to the reconstructed Amber Room that recently opened in St. Petersburg’s Pushkin district in 2003, after a 25-year building process. The sequel cost approximately $11 million, and yes, if you’re wondering, President Putin attended the dedication.

Long-Range Basketball Assassins

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And where the Globetrotters have gone, the NBA might follow — at least if some league officials, on-the-record players, and hoop pundits, including former ESPN-er Bill Simmons, author of The Book of Basketball, have their way.

Yep, imagine a future where the Splash Brothers — Golden State’s Steph Curry and Klay Thompson — are raining four-pointers instead of threes, allowing their team to crush opponents even more mercilessly, or get right back in games they’re losing.

In 2014, ESPN reported league officials discussed adding such a line. In a TV interview that same year, president of NBA operations Rod Thorn confirmed the report, then shared memories from his days as New Jersey Nets general manager, recalling Vince Carter’s ability to effortlessly launch 30-footers in games and practice.

Ex-Lakers great and former head coach Byron Scott has expressed support for the idea, while Hall of Fame Celtic legend Larry Bird — a three-time Three-Point Shootout champion and longtime Indiana Pacers executive — said this to The New Yorker in 2015: “Every ten, twelve, fifteen years, there’s something new coming in. You put that four-point line in there and people will start practicing. And once they start practicing, they get better at it… The game evolves.”

Current NBA sharpshooters Kyle Korver and Damian Lillard are on-board. “I’m in,” Korver stated to The New Yorker, adding that it would bring fun to the game. In an interview with Dan Patrick, Portland’s Lillard lamented the three-point line’s lack of challenge. “You’ve got so many guys shooting it so easy!” he told the radio host.

Put Reggie Miller down for a no vote. “It’s comical,” says the ex-Pacer star and TNT commentator, who held the record for most threes made when he retired in 2005. “The league will be a laughingstock, and I will [be] laughing the loudest.”

A four-point shot’s impact on stats is one reason opponents reject the idea. (The NBA faced something similar before, in 1979, when it adopted the three; baseball went through its own version when the American League created the designated hitter.) Beyond this is a concern with on-court product. Some fear Ugly Ball — too many dudes firing bricks from deep. Now a Cavalier, Korver himself — who converted an NBA-record 53.6 percent of his threes while playing for Atlanta in 2009-10 — anticipates some “ugly possessions.”

Others fear players would get too good at this four-point jackpot. The shot would over-advantage the offense, they argue, tilting the game out of balance.

Right now, critics fearing Ugly Ball have stats on their side. During the 2015-16 season, for example, players shot just 18.6 percent from ten yards out. Lillard himself knocked down only two of 16. Steph Curry, though, did his best to pull that league-wide average up. While everyone else was clanking, he canned an insane 22 of 45.

Then again, things would change if shooters started regularly practicing their 30-foot stroke, as Bird suggests. His own career offers insight. During 1983-84, he made just 24.7 percent of his threes. One year later, he shot 42.7 percent. Other players made big jumps in the mid-eighties, too. Collectively, shooters realized the trey was far more than a “gimmick,” as naysayers charged, and began honing their deep shot.

Whatever your view of a new court line (stupid-ass messing with a game that ain’t broke, say, or hell yeah — incentivize the bombers!), one thing is clear: the quad could lead to some wild buzzer-beaters. And that got me thinking: What current or former players would you want launching from 30 feet with a team down four and a tick left on the clock?

I looked up deep-ball stats. I watched videos. And I assembled a dream team of five long-range assassins. It was hard leaving Jamal Crawford and Dan Majerle, Chuck “the Rifleman” Person and Dennis Scott, Ray Allen and Klay T. off the squad. Steph’s dad Dell (who shot a gold-standard 40 percent from three) got a look, too. But weighing range, accuracy, and clutch lethality, I reached a final cut.

1. Steph Curry
No-brainer. He’s in his own league when it comes to launching from extra-deep. Paint another arc on the court and people would start calling it the “Curry Line.” Dell’s son shoots better from 30 feet than a handful of players shoot from the free-throw line. An ESPN “Sports Science” segment focused entirely on Curry’s mechanics from this distance. Show technicians determined his wrist flexion per second as he projects the ball is 3,000 degrees. And they’ve never measured a quicker release. All hail the Human Torch.

2. LeBron James
Granted, Bron-Bron only reached the 40 percent mark from three in one of his 14 full seasons (2012-13, playing for Miami), and his career-percentage is 34.2 (he’s up a couple points this year), but as anyone who’s watched even a few of his games knows, the dude can hit from 35 feet with ease, even with defenders in his grill, and he’s got ice water in his veins. He’s half linebacker, half archer. He’d nail his share of game-tying quads.

3. Kobe Bryant
Speaking of range and sang-froid, the Black Mamba (career 32.9 from three) demonstrated time and again he could knock down a 30-footer when the mood struck him, or his team, the Lakers, needed it. Bryant had the handle, hops, and ‘tude to jack a pull-up from way deep.

4. Vince Carter
Rod Thorn was right. Watching clips of Nets-era Vinsanity knock down 30-footers, some of them buzzer-beaters, was a research highlight. One of the NBA’s greatest all-time dunkers has also averaged 37.4 percent from three and four times topped 40 percent in his 20-season career (now a Sacramento King, Carter turned 41 in January!).

5. Gilbert Arenas
Agent Zero — aka the Hibachi — was a threat to shoot basically any time he got a couple steps past the half-court line. Treat yourself to the YouTube clip of Arenas and Tracy McGrady dueling from 35 feet in a 2005 Katrina fund-raiser all-star game. A 35.1 career shooter beyond the arc, Arenas had a flair for the dramatic. A four-pointer? Sign him up.

Porn Haters

Posted on by Team Penthouse

There are a lot of people out there who wish pornography would just pack up her dirty ass and kick rocks. But you can’t police the sexual imagination. You can’t police art, erotic and otherwise. Porn will always be a contentious topic in America. Are its makers evil, misogynist bastards who exploit women? Or are they liberated, pro-sex creatives who want to celebrate pleasure, sexual complexity, and the human body?

Like the issue of abortion, I doubt we will ever come to a public consensus regarding pornography. It’s just one big gray area dripping with sweat and saliva. Here are some of the crusaders who wish that Penthouse never existed.

1979: Women Against Pornography March

In October 1979, 5,000 women showed up in New York’s Times Square to protest the big, bad evil of pornography. Led by Women Against Pornography (WAP) and feminist figureheads Susan Brownmiller, Bella Abzug, and the queen bee herself, Gloria Steinem, the rally stomped for blocks, with women plastering small, Day-Glo stickers outside sex shops and porn theaters, chanting “Two, four, six, eight, pornography is woman hate” until they ended up in Bryant Park.

Steinem marched with a “Porn Hurts Women” poster, while infamous male-hating activist Andrea Dworkin’s sign read, “Porn is the Art of the Male Death Culture.”

WAP’s whole M.O. was that porn was a form of violence against women, no ifs, ands, or buts. According to the New York Times, WAP founder Lynn Campbell urged women to “take action — form consciousness-raising and education campaigns against pornography.” Campbell encouraged women to boycott supermarkets and other stores selling soft-porn mags.

Fine, things were different in 1979. All most people knew of porn was Deep Throat, a damaged Linda Lovelace, and rumors that her husband (aka pimp) had forced her into a bestiality film for some extra cash. However, this anti-sex, anti-porn perspective has reared its ugly head again in today’s feminism, turning the movement back to a stuck-up, regressive philosophy that views women as perpetual victims.

Thanks for the help, ladies, but I’m not a victim of my gender and neither is any other woman.

1985: Reagan Orders the Meese Commission

Early in his second term, President Reagan assigned an investigation into the world of pornography overseen by Attorney General Edwin Meese. Critics thought Reagan was just rubbing his nose between the ass cheeks of the Christian Right, while supporters of the order, like anti-porn feminist troglodytes Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, were behind it 120 percent.

The Meese Commission was big shit, tapping 11 panelists, social scientists, children’s welfare advocates, researchers, activists, and reverends, most of them of the mind that porn is for sickos. (The release of their report in 1986 coincided with a much-publicized study by anti-porn activist Judith Reisman, who’d received a grant of $734,000 to analyze cartoons in Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse to assess their toxic effects.)

What resulted from this deep dive between the thighs of Lady Pornography? A five-part, 35-chapter hunk of paper that sided, for the most part, with the crusaders: Porn was bad for men’s souls, for women, for the family, and for the nation. Fortunately, for smut lovers and peddlers like those at Penthouse, the distribution of so-called “obscene material” is protected under the First and Fifth Amendments. But that didn’t stop 7-Eleven from booting Penthouse from its shelves.

2001: The Birth of XXXchurch

Founded by California pastor Craig Gross, XXXchurch is a non-profit organization that lends a hand to performers when they want to leave the industry and enter the arms of God. Gross’s whole thing is that sex is sacred, virginity is holy, and porn throws that pure, perfect pussy to the wolves. XXXchurch argues that addictions to sex and porn are real and that most people who work in the porn industry don’t actually want to be there.

I know this because that’s exactly what Gross told me when I interviewed him for a report I did on the AVN Awards for VICE in 2013. With catchy slogans like “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” and its wholesome, loving message, this group can feel like a hug from God when things aren’t going so hot. I’m the first to admit that the adult industry has corrupt, crooked deviants — just like finance, law, and government — but every time I think of XXXchurch, I’m reminded of Gross waving his hand toward a group of adult stars and scoffing with disgust, “They don’t want to be here.”

2009: The Formation of Fight the New Drug

It’s easy to be lured in by Fight the New Drug’s colorful, engaging website. The online face of this anti-pornography organization (“porn kills love,” they preach) is filled with “scientific facts,” crisply animated videos, and a slick interface. The group contends pornography is bad for the heart, mind, and family.

Fight the New Drug (FTND) insists they are just a group of regular guys who got together and realized that porn had affected them all in the same way. Just like Alex Jones, they created the resistance. Except their resistance isn’t an iron fist and spitting red face, but a chill, bro-next-door approach to patrolling the sexual imagination. Though they insist that they are not ideologically motivated or associated with any one religious group, a quick Google search reveals that FTND is backed by the Mormon Church.

In 2016, FTND rolled out the most famous Mormon in America, Elizabeth Smart, to talk about how pornography was to blame for her sexual abuse and kidnapping by psychotics Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. Referring to Mitchell, Smart said, “It just led to him raping me more, more than he already did — which was a lot.” She added, “I can’t say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography. All I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.”

Guccione: A Brief Retrospective

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More than 50 years ago, a struggling American painter living in London decided to compete with a popular American men’s magazine called Playboy.

His name was Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione, and by the time his venture began to match his bold vision, he was on a fast track to becoming one of America’s richest men, with a taste for opulent living, priceless art, and beautiful women.

It was the early sixties, and Bob Guccione — Brooklyn-born son of first-generation Sicilian-American parents, raised in suburban New Jersey — had recently been hired by a little-known weekly newspaper, the London American. The paper had published some of his cartoons and humor pieces and thought enough of his talents to take him on as editor.

Diligently scouting London newsstands to see what papers and magazines were selling, he noticed a certain American publication featuring photographs of topless women, along with articles, interviews, fiction, and cartoons. Guccione had been living in London with his second wife, British cabaret singer Muriel Hudson, since 1960, and before that had spent much of his twenties wandering Europe and North Africa, painting, cartooning, sketching tourists, even playing some bit roles in Italian movies. He’d managed to miss the ascent of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine, which debuted in December 1953, back home.

An idea-machine his entire life, Guccione saw an opportunity. The thriving English magazine market had room, he suspected, for a London-based publication taking a cue from this American men’s magazine. Put out a mag like that — maybe call it “Penthouse” — and Guccione could imagine it flying off the shelves, collecting subscribers left and right.

Except for three years he was pretty much alone in his faith. That’s how long he tried to get outside investors for his venture. Rarely lacking for confidence, Guccione, once possessed of an idea, was relentlessly driven to see it take shape. And he knew this was a good idea. At this stage, the future resident of a palatial double-townhouse Manhattan mansion, filled with Picassos, Renoirs, and Botticellis, was still dreaming of a life as a painter. And though he was glad for the London Weekly gig (which was closer to his passions than his previous job, manager of a city dry-cleaning firm), it didn’t pay much, and he had a wife and three young children to support (with a fourth child, a daughter, back in California with his first wife Lilyann). If “Penthouse” hit the way he knew it would, he’d make enough to bankroll his art and give his family a more comfortable life.

It was time to bootstrap the mag himself. Calling on that self-belief, that sense he was destined for bigger things, he started touting the “Penthouse” enterprise to London newspapers and trade publications. He shared his vision so richly and persuasively — down to the newsstand cost and huge number of first-issue copies he would print — that people in and around Fleet Street paid attention. One of those was Joseph Brooks, a young art director for a London newspaper chain. Impressed by this hip, charismatic, gold-chain-wearing American when they met in 1965, Brooks signed on to what was then still…just an idea.

But money soon followed. Getting creative, Guccione produced a color promotional brochure that included sample photos of topless women. Acquiring mailing lists, he sent the teaser to English clergymen, old-age pensioners, nurses, and wives of members of Parliament. The outrage was instant and a publicity windfall followed. “Sex Fiend!” blared the headlines of London tabloids. Guccione was denounced in Parliament, and fined 100 pounds for sending “lewd materials” through the mail. It was the first of many scandals to come as this former New Jersey Catholic-school kid went on to challenge sexual and social taboos, battle censorship, and lead his magazine into uncharted publishing waters.

Playing out just as he’d hoped, the notoriety generated a bounty of “Penthouse” subscriptions. Now he just needed a magazine. Still short on cash, he persuaded contributors to generate articles and art in exchange for IOUs. He’d planned on hiring a professional photographer for the pictorials but couldn’t afford one, so he ended up shooting the models himself. And doing their makeup. And styling their hair. Calling on his painter’s eye, and his love for what master artists such as the French Impressionist Edgar Degas did with the nude female form, Bob Guccione in this first issue discovered a way of working and a pictorial approach that would become his — and Penthouse’s — signature style.

During hours-long one-on-one sessions with the models, he chased his ideal photographic result: voyeuristic angles, soft, diffused lighting, and models not looking at the camera, their expressions unsmiling, their poses subtly seductive, as if observed in private.

The September 1984 issue featuring Miss America Vanessa Williams ultimately sold nearly six million copies.

Issue one sold out in five days, all 120,000 copies. Guccione was launched.

AS the magazine took off in England, and its founder worked tirelessly — shooting pictorials, selling ad space, drawing cartoons, writing articles — his marriage suffered. Guccione and his second wife, pregnant with their fourth child, separated. Handsome, hyper-masculine, and highly sexed, Guccione — photographing gorgeous women during the Swinging Sixties, the sexual revolution starting to pop — was combining business with pleasure, often sleeping with the stunners he hired to appear in Penthouse.

“It was very attractive,” he told Rolling Stone in 2003. “The setting, the intimacy; it’s very difficult not to submit to, so in most cases in the early days, I would sleep with the girls.”

It was during this swirling, demanding period of Guccione’s life when he met Kathy Keeton, a 26-year-old actress and exotic dancing star from South Africa who had come to England at age 12 on a scholarship from London’s Royal Ballet. Smart, well-read, hard-working, and disciplined, with interests in economics and science, Keeton accepted a job as Penthouse’s first ad salesperson, and would become Guccione’s soul-mate, business partner, and wife. They proved unstoppable, this duo, with Keeton growing the business and managing the office and Guccione powering the magazine with his artistic vision.

In 1968, Guccione and Keeton learned that Penthouse was outselling Playboy two-to-one among American servicemen in Vietnam. They realized they had a chance to challenge Hefner’s magazine on his home turf and in 1969 they moved to New York City. On their arrival, they executed a brilliant publicity stunt: a full-page ad in American newspapers, including the New York Times, showing the Playboy bunny logo as viewed through the crosshairs of a rifle. WE’RE GOING RABBIT HUNTING, the caption read.

Ever-expanding from its new base in the world’s publishing mecca, Penthouse set itself apart from softer-core Playboy with its sexual boldness, edgy humor, and political bite. In April 1970, it ran a small photo of a naked blonde on a beach with a triangle of barely discernable pubic hair. Pubic hair was a no-no — defined as obscene. But when nothing happened, prosecution-wise, Guccione kept at it, running full-frontal nudes for the first time in a major American magazine. Hefner said Playboy would never cross that taboo line, but within a year, he relented, having watched sales of more explicit Penthouse take off.

“Split-beaver” shots, girl-on-girl pictorials, the bootyhole — Penthouse kept pushing the envelope, and by July 1977, an extraordinary milestone arrived: The smart, arty skin mag Bob Guccione dreamed up in the early sixties in London drew even with mighty Playboy in terms of circulation numbers, with both publications selling 4.5 million copies.

If, magazine-wise, Penthouse was the Rolling Stones to the tamer Beatles, as one profiler of Guccione put it years later, Mick and Keith had just caught Paul and John.

And it wasn’t just its Dionysian vibe, its closer embrace of raw sexuality, its wild side, that fueled Penthouse’s rocket ascent in the American 1970s. A self-described magazine of “sex, politics, and protest,” Penthouse quickly built a reputation for hard-hitting journalism, speaking truth to power, exposing the corrupt, the venal, the oppressive, and the hypocritical. It took the side of the citizen over self-serving governments and corporations. In its first American decade, Penthouse ran eye-opening features on CIA shenanigans, mob influence, and the defense industry. In 1974, the magazine published a series of articles about the U.S. government’s betrayal of its Vietnam veterans. It incensed Guccione that America sent young men to war but neglected their care when they returned, so many soldiers injured and traumatized. Guccione even bankrolled a Washington, D.C., lobbying office to advocate on behalf of veterans. In 1975, Brandeis University named Guccione Publisher of the Year for this series. In later years, Penthouse would win major journalism awards for articles on Gulf War Syndrome, HMO incompetence, and Hepatitis C.

Under Guccione, Penthouse published or featured numerous top writers, including Isaac Asimov, Gore Vidal, Stephen King, Philip Roth, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Guccione was a purveyor of voyeuristic sex, but he also used his magazine to publish stories the mainstream media avoided.

A lover of movies and tempted by his restless spirit to make inroads in Hollywood, Guccione in the seventies invested money in The Longest Yard, The Day of the Locust, and Chinatown, and then went much further with the X-rated period epic Caligula, funding it himself to a tune of $17 million and hiring A-list British actors: Malcolm McDowell, John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, and Helen Mirren. Shot in Rome, it brought great production value to a sweeping historical extravaganza with copious sex and nudity. “An irresistible mix of art and genitals,” Mirren later called it. A box-office flop, Caligula survives as a cult favorite and represents the best-selling video ever produced by the Penthouse company.

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, Guccione again and again revealed his genius for publicity-generating controversies. The September 1984 issue featured nude photos, shot in 1982, of the newly-crowned Miss America, Vanessa Williams, the first African-American woman to own the title. (She would eventually lose her crown because of the scandal.) That same issue carried a centerfold of Penthouse Pet Traci Lords, destined to be a figure of scandal herself when it emerged that Lords shot multiple porn movies while underage. 5.4 million copies of that issue flew off the newsstands — a number that made publishing history. In 1985, Penthouse ran a pictorial showing a pre-fame Madonna. Just a month after Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, Penthouse published photos of Gennifer Flowers, who’d made headlines after revealing her 12-year affair with Clinton.

Other attention-getters? Explicit “wedding night” stills of Tonya Harding (best-known for her role in the knee-bashing assault on fellow Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan) and bedroom sex photos of Motley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson.

By the nineties, Guccione had been living in his East 67th Street mansion for years, spending most of his time eyeballing pictorial images and scrutinizing mocked-up issue pages, but free to wander its 30 rooms, including a vast ballroom and sumptuous dining room. The Gooch’s beloved home, filled with marble, wood paneling, and chandeliers, built while his fortune was at its height (the Forbes 400 list estimated his net worth then, in today’s dollars, in the billions), also had a pool, a gym, a wine cellar, a screening room, eight fireplaces, and a posse of Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs.

His company General Media, occupying an entire building at Broadway and 68th Street, published multiple magazines beyond Penthouse, including the science magazine Omni and specialty titles covering such topics as bodybuilding, photography, and computers. And Guccione’s millions traveled in multiple directions, too, including toward Atlantic City where he hoped to open a casino (after years of investing, building, and lobbying, he was denied a gambling license), and toward San Diego, where in the early eighties he employed nearly a hundred scientific experts charged with developing the world’s first nuclear-fusion reactor. If successful, it would solve the world’s energy crisis. It failed, but not until Guccione, ever the dreamer, had sunk $20 million into the project.

Tax problems, more fruitless investing, business downturns, the death of Kathy Keeton, of cancer, at age 58, and his own diagnosis of a throat malignancy in 1998, a year after Keeton passed away, took their tolls on Guccione. He fought on, battling the IRS, creditors, the migration of porn to the internet, and cancer. But in 2003, General Media filed for bankruptcy. A year later he resigned as CEO of Penthouse International. And in 2006, Guccione had to give up his Roman-palazzo-inspired home, foreclosed on by creditors.

He died of cancer in Plano, Texas, in 2010.

The world has changed since Guccione harnessed his drive, vision, and talent to shepherd a tiny magazine startup from its humble London roots to a publishing pinnacle. But his magazine lives on, and we’re proud to carry the torch our founder lit so many years ago, this lover of art and women, champion of free speech, friend to writers, visual artists, and others committed to creativity, and a believer in the power of journalism.

Sperm Banks and Undies

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Dear Leah, My boyfriend and I live together, and we have a great sex life — with one catch. He loves to come inside me, and I can’t help but get grossed out by it. If we fuck in the morning, I feel his load leaking out of me the rest of the day, and my undies are a disaster at work. I know it’s how nature intended it and blah blah blah, but it just seems yucky! Am I being a neat freak? Have you ever heard anyone else complain about this?

I hope you’re on some birth control, girl! Your sex life sounds lit, though. Not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous. I don’t think you’re being a neat freak…no one likes having gooey, wet underwear on. Gross! Maybe you can talk to him and make certain days of the week a no-cream-pie zone. Communicate with him! OMG — I have the best idea ever. Why don’t you tell him you want to taste him because it turns you on and make him pull out and come in your mouth instead!? I think that’s HOT AF. Don’t you? And if you hate the taste of semen then just hold your breath and run to the bathroom afterward to spit it out. Lay out some ground rules and tell him busting loads inside is for evening sex only, not morning sex. Just come up with some hot alternatives to suggest to him and I’m sure he will totally go along with it.

Hey Leah, I know most of your questions come from women, but screw it, I’m a guy and I want a definitive answer on this. Some of the women I date want me to be completely hairless, while others tell me they like me to barely groom my body hair at all. On the body-hair spectrum, I’m right in the middle: I’ve got some chest hair, but it’s not like my back is covered with fur. Do women expect me to shave my taint? My butthole? I feel like all the hairless men in porn are ruining things for us slightly hairy, average-height and average-cock-sized men. Adam

Hi Adam, I totally hear you. Porn can sometimes set unrealistic expectations for both men and women. I mean, there is an entire generation (or two) of men who think women love having come all over their face. Or that we all can take nine-inch dicks in our butts no problem…and love every second of it! Crazy right? Anyway, you should have the amount of hair on your body that YOU are comfortable with. Look, it’s nice to take your partner’s preference into account, but it’s really on you. I’ve dated hairy and hairless men. It’s not like it changes the size of their dicks, so it’s not a big deal either way. I do like some grooming around the balls, of course. No one wants pubes stuck in their teeth. I prefer a hairy back over hairy balls. If you can make a woman climax, chances are she won’t be thinking much about your body hair. I would say, focus less on your hair and more on your orgasm-making skills. Hope that helps!

Hi Leah. I’m dating a man who’s hot and extremely charming. He comes from a successful family so he’s got nothing to worry about, money-wise. The catch? He’s full of shit. Without saying too much, he’s a well-known personal chef whose sells his high-end clients on a philosophy that he’s admitted to me is total bullshit. So basically, he lies to his customers for a living, and acts all holier-than-thou about it to the outside world, too. Can I stay with a guy who scams for a living, or should I just admire him for his hustle and deal with it? Amber

“Porn can set unrealistic expectations for both men and women. There’s an entire generation of men who think women can take nine-inch dicks in our butts no problem…and love every second of it!”

Yikes. This scares me a bit. If his whole life is based on a lie, then how do you know he’s being honest about his feelings or pretty much anything regarding you and your relationship with him? Did you know sociopaths also happen to be very charming? I would rather have broke with integrity than successful and full of shit. But that’s just my personal opinion. I would start looking through your man’s phone, e-mails, etc. Maybe even hire a private detective to follow him around. You want to make sure his job is the only area of his life he’s living a lie about. This is not being crazy, this is being careful. And there is a difference. If I were you, my main concern would be making sure he isn’t fucking a bunch of chicks or hiding a family somewhere. If it turns out he’s true to you and only bullshitting his rich clients, I say let him lie and respect his hustle.

Hey Leah! I’m 27 and I’ve been in some pretty good relationships, but I’m really smart and independent and men tend to want to control me and it drives me crazy. Anyhow, I’ve chosen to use a sperm bank, and even though my gynecologist thinks I’m crazy, I wanted to know what your advice would be on choosing to do this alone. Do you have any opinions on sperm banks in general? Deep down, I feel like I’d be unable to coparent with a man, as I have been drugged and assaulted by a man. I feel like my trust for men is gone. Jess

Jess, I admire your independence and bravery to think and be different. I have always been co-parenting. There was never a time I was a single mom with no help. And honestly, I couldn’t have done it alone. I also had a full-time nanny and help from my mom. And it was still challenging and continues to be. That said, the gift of motherhood is priceless and I encourage all smart people to procreate! But know what you’re getting into. Do you have any nieces or nephews or friends with kids? Have you spent time with kids? Do you have family that lives nearby and can help? You know the saying “It takes a village”? It truly does! Do you get paid maternity leave from work? I’m sure you’ve thought about all these things, but if you haven’t then you must. I don’t know anything about sperm banks, so I can’t really comment on that. I would say the best thing is to find women who’ve decided to go this route and make them your mentors. Talk to them. They have the answers because they’ve been through it. No one else will truly be able to give you insight unless they’ve walked that path. Much love to you, Jess!

The Benefits of Service

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Yes, the military’s an excellent place for young (and young-ish) hard-chargers and gung-hos to make a difference, to put their ideals into practice, to serve their nation, and, of course, to blow shit up with big-ass guns.

These are the usual reasons trotted out when people are asked why they joined up, and they are good reasons. Like many readers, I lived it, loved it, sometimes miss it, sometimes don’t, and know it’ll always be a fundamental part of who I am going forward.

I especially miss the blowing-shit-up-with-big-ass-guns part. There’s nothing in this world like letting a Mark 19 rip…

But there are other reasons servicemembers enlist. There are other reasons they stay in, too, past their initial contract. These aren’t hidden reasons, exactly. More like layered, subtextual reasons. The benefits: medical, financial, college, all that jazz. They matter, and they matter a lot.

2018 America seems hell-bent on returning workers to the labor underclass of the nineteenth century. At this rate, the American military might well be the last place where the word “pension” is a real goal and not a cruel joke.

The military is a bureaucracy, though, and like any bureaucracy, navigating it can be a maze. Many — too many — servicemembers and veterans don’t know what they’re entitled to and what they’ve earned through their service. Through my work and travels as a veteran-writer, and a few years working for a veterans’ national nonprofit organization, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I wish I’d known about that earlier!” (often accompanied by a few F-bombs for effect).

So. What exact benefits did servicemembers and vets most appreciate? Which ones do they wish they’d learned about earlier? I asked some folks to share their wisdom.

Stephen, retired Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force
“Without a doubt, the VA Home Loan. I don’t how I didn’t know about it earlier, but it was my wife who pointed me to it a year out [from retirement]. It was huge, letting us direct the money saved for our post-military home to funds for retirement and our kids’ college. And can I say the VA was pretty good to deal with for this? I know. I couldn’t believe it either.”

David, former Specialist, U.S. Army
“I didn’t know I qualified for VA medical health care. No one told me during TAP [transition assistance program]. I thought you had to do twenty years and get full retirement for it. I got out after four years. But because of our combat tour to Iraq, I do get VA medical. It’s not good but it’s better than the shit I had before. The mental health program at my VA has helped…. I still can’t believe no one at TAP told us this. Those two years [before finding out about qualifying for VA care] were fucking hard.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I wish I’d known about that earlier!” (often accompanied by a few F-bombs for effect).

Kate, active Sergeant, U.S. Army National Guard
“This is probably an obvious one, but the post-9/11 G.I. Bill is amazing! I’ve been able to go back to school and have my books and housing all covered. It’s crazy to me that more of us [veterans] don’t use it. I know school’s not for everybody, but this is here. We earned it. Set yourself up for success. Though I have some friends who aren’t using it so they can save it for their kids, someday. That’s amazing they have that [transferability] option.”

Maria, former Major, U.S. Army 
“Not sure this counts as a benefit exactly, but when I was a captain and thinking about getting out, DOD [Department of Defense] was offering cash bonuses to extend. $30,000 for four more years in my subject field [transportation]. I weighed the pros and cons with my family, of course, and ultimately decided to do it. It allowed me to keep serving, and when I ended up separating four years later, my résume was that much stronger for civilian employers.

“That’s something I think more young people should know when considering the military. It’s not all infantry and tanks. A lot of these career fields do transfer over to the civilian world. Mine did. Day one of my civilian job, I was 33 years old but had more experience and subject-matter knowledge than people ten years older, who’d been with this company for twenty years. It’s not just about patriotism. There are practical benefits, too, that help us as individuals, and help communities as a whole, from what we’ve learned and know.”

Glen, former Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps
“You mean other than being a Marine the rest of my life? [Makes a woofing sound to signify his Devil Dog-ness] Free dental, I guess. They fixed my teeth. Not an easy fix. I looked gnarly before. Like a wombat or some shit. Now I got that straight-teeth shine.”

Terance, active Ensign, U.S. Navy
“I just joined the Navy myself, but I grew up a military brat. Both parents were in. I swore I’d never be like them…but after college, I was like, Now what? The job market out there is crazy. And my dad, he retired from the military — I’m looking at him, mid-forties, already on a second career, getting a retirement check every month. It’s a hard life, but it’s a good life. A fulfilling life. And my dad told me when I commissioned, be smart, work hard, and the Navy will look after you. No Fortune 500 Company does that. They may say it, but they don’t mean it. The Navy really means it.”

By no means are the benefits mentioned above comprehensive. I’d encourage any servicemembers, veterans, or family members reading this to look into what’s available to you or yours. Whatever it is, it’s been earned. Utilize it. Check out military.com/benefits and explore.va.gov for more information.

After A Day Of Stupid

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Similarly, if conservation’s your thing, you have a bunch of publications, including Sierra, Orion, and Nature Conservancy, to catch you up on efforts to preserve land, maintain ocean habitats, and — no big whup — keep the planet from incinerating.

But your options don’t stop there. And since we like to dig a little in this column, we unearthed some fantastic books and podcasts that also go green. The former are worthy heirs to early nature classics Walden and My First Summer in the Sierra, by Henry David Thoreau and John Muir respectively. As for podcasts, audio is a natural for earthly exploration, what with calls of the wild, birdsong, crashing waves, and so on.

Read on, listen up, and to quote Mahatma Gandhi, be the change you wish to see in the world.

Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey, 1968)

They called him Cactus Ed. A prickly, heavy-drinking visionary raised in small-town Pennsylvania, Abbey spent two years as the lone park ranger at Arches National Park in southeast Utah canyonland. A decade later, he published an environmental masterpiece distilling his experience, busting on rapacious developers, and rallying America’s nascent green movement. The book celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Pop open a beer (Ed would approve) and check out his rowdy, ornery hymn to sagebrush and rock.

Winter: Notes from Montana (Rick Bass, 1991)

Arguably America’s best living nature writer, Bass grew up in Houston and worked as a petroleum geologist before radically changing his life. Always interested in nature and wildlife, he moved to the remote Yaak Valley in northwest Montana with his girlfriend and two dogs. This brilliant, wonderfully written book captures their first winter in a valley of 30 people, no electricity, and the Dirty Shame Saloon. Bass walked in snow for the first time. He cut a shitload of firewood. He had close encounters with elk, bobcats, moose, wolves, grizzlies. He got to know rugged neighbors, including Tom Oar, destined for Mountain Men fame on the History Channel. Winter puts the Yaak in your blood.

The Wild Places (Robert Macfarlane, 2007)

Macfarlane is a U.K. version of Rick Bass — at the top of the nature-writing game. A 41-year-old Scot who teaches at Cambridge, he helped recharge the English tradition of landscape writing. Leader of a literary movement that’s been dubbed the New Nature-Writing, this erudite adventurer seeks out the gnarliest, most remote corners of the archipelago (England, Scotland, Ireland). He visits a rugged Welsh island, a vast moor, a mountaintop, roughing it, hiking, exploring. His goal? To generate a new U.K. map, one without roads, its coordinates determined by wildness.

Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo (Michael McCarthy, 2009)

Endlessly fascinating, this book, by a top environmental journalist, raises the planetary alarm by focusing on English birds — specifically those McCarthy calls “spring-bringers.” Every year, millions of epic fliers — cuckoos, swallows, swifts, house martins — migrate back and forth between England and Africa. Their numbers are in scary decline. Full of remarkable facts (swifts eat, sleep, and screw in the air; they almost never touch ground), Say Goodbye has the author hitting the trail in every chapter, searching habitats for birds, introducing experts who have made the study of individual species their life’s work.

H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald, 2014)

Winner of multiple awards, this book tells the story, in language that glows like a raptor’s eyes, of a woman who tries to heal herself by training a goshawk. In mourning after her dad dies, Macdonald, a veteran falconer, buys a captive-bred hawk she calls Mabel and brings it into her English home, then out into fields and woods. “Bulkier, bloodier, deadlier, scarier,” she writes of this breed. “A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon,” she writes of Mabel. You learn a lot about hawks, falconry, and the English natural world in H, and it sharpens your sight — though not to the rifle-scope level of a big, lethal goshawk.

Urban Wildlife Podcast

Philadelphia-based reptile expert Billy Brown and birder Tony Croasdale (onetime singer for punk band R.A.M.B.O.) explore critters of the city, from New York terrapins to London scorpions to Shanghai birds. They interview experts and amateurs with stories to tell and cover their own urban adventures. Harpy eagles eating feral cats, anyone?

Outside/In

A favorite of those who swear by nature podcasts, this show, from New Hampshire public radio and host Sam Evans-Brown, offers a range of topics like threats from invasive species and the unintended human costs of clean energy, to wildlife segments (vultures, beavers), to the complex ethics of high-risk rescues in remote wilderness areas.

Costing the Earth

A thoughtful, intrepid, sharply reported offering from England’s BBC Radio, this podcast tackles topics such as the epidemic of wildfires, cruise-ship pollution, sea-level rise in the Solomon Islands, and saving Indonesia’s rainforest. Challenging accepted wisdom, reporting on progress, it focuses on the interface between human life and the environment.

Eyes on Conservation

Produced by a team that also films wildlife documentaries, this podcast features conversations with experts in wildlife biology, environmental justice, and conservation. Recent topics? The impact of plastic refuse. How condors help locate corpses in Southwest canyons. Two women who tracked salmon migration on horseback, from the Pacific coast to Idaho. New research is featured; shows end with ways for listeners to help.

Sea Change Radio

A show revolving around sustainability, the Sea Change podcast, led by host Alex Wise, interviews experts in the field (Bill McKibben, Paul Hawken), and does so weekly. In two recent episodes, we met a Hawaii-based bike maker who uses bamboo for frames, and the CEO of a San Francisco company whose “Fitbit for the planet” measures air pollution.

Prosperity

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Ah, the sweet smell of success. Hath thy nostrils been graced by this succulent aroma? If so, please describe it to me. Because aside from owning almost every videogame console from the eighties, I’ve never gotten a whiff of it. My apartment is rented, my practical car is nowhere near being paid for, and my bank account balance often falls somewhere between Oh shit and Fucking Christ. Still, I’m well enough off that I haven’t yet had to pawn my ColecoVision, so I can’t complain. The money is usually there when I need it. But what about that real money? That “I didn’t buy the new Nintendo, I bought Nintendo” (or at least stock in Nintendo) money?

I want funds that ferment, turning from gaggles of luscious grapes into quarts of thirst-quenching wine. But why stop there? I want an Audi for spring, a Ferrari for fall, and a Porsche, Bentley, and private tour bus for the rest of the year. I’ll keep going. I want a house on a private lake, with a duplicate house on the opposite side of the lake, so when I swim across my lake I don’t have to swim back to my original house. You dig? I want it all. But I’ll never have it.

For starters, I’m not business-minded. I looked at my purchase of a French Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 poster as an investment. Also, I don’t know how to properly ration my money (please refer back to the terms “ColecoVision” and “Nintendo,” in addition to the movie poster line). Third, I’m not a visionary. I have no concept of laser focus or the ultimate goal. Grandiose ideas come to me, sure. But it doesn’t take much to throw me off the path. Had I been working in Tesla’s lab, the announcement of a local bar’s Jäger Bomb happy hour would have prevented me from participating in the discovery of the alternating current. It’s just how I’m wired, if you’ll excuse the pun.

If I’m being honest, though, I’m okay with living the regular life. Despite the fact that I work in show business, live in Hollywood, and am completely surrounded by, for lack of a better term, utter whores, I don’t have stars in my eyes. And that’s a good thing. I realize the quest for prosperity has brought us many an invaluable asset, from flight to fusion to frozen food. But it’s also created a lot of raging assholes.

The only thing I remember from the 2016 Summer Olympics is the Ryan Lochte controversy. In short, the decorated medalist possibly vandalized a gas station and allegedly lied about being robbed at gunpoint. He was then suspended from swimming for ten months (a gift if you ask me — like when you fuck up in high school and they punish you by making you stay home for a week).

But the American public couldn’t believe their ears when they heard about Lochte’s antics. Everybody just couldn’t comprehend that another goddamned celebrity acted like a dumb fucking schmuck. What’s the surprise here?

People always wonder: What’s the secret to success? The answer is simple: being a self-serving piece of shit. Celebrity scandals are frequent because being a celebrity means, essentially, being at boss-level. If you wanna be at the top, you gotta work your way to the top. And that’s a dirty, dirty job: plotting, manipulating, scheming, casting aside friends, ignoring family, and so on.

Have you ever had a boss you actually liked? I haven’t. I was never gender-biased about it either. Every female boss I encountered was a bitch and every male boss was a cocksucker. Even if a friend of mine moved up the ladder, I showed no mercy: “Got promoted to office manager!” “Congrats, you’re officially a douche bag now. Don’t come to Dave and Buster’s with us ever again.”

Generally speaking, only the worst of the worst reach the top of the heap. And that doesn’t mean they do bad work. It means they suck as people. Frank Sinatra? Love his music! Total prick. Barbra Streisand? Terrific actress! Walking nightmare. Harvey Weinstein? Need I say more? Admit it, you still love Pulp Fiction and you’re not going to throw away your special-edition DVD. Neither am I.

Reaching for the stars means exactly that: focusing on the upward climb, becoming so intoxicated by the alluring stench of your own underarms that you no longer recognize the value, needs, and sometimes rights of the people around you. Globally renowned comedian Louis C.K. (see what I mean?) once likened success to a rocket ship: It takes off and pulls everything around it up into its thrust. That’s spot on. Rocket ships have zero regard for the earth they scorch — outer space is all that matters. So many of the ambitious and motivated have turned their lives into one giant, perpetual selfie. That’s sick. (Incidentally, even if you’re not famous or successful, if your Instagram feed consists of nothing but selfies, that’s sick, too.)

This culture suffers from a terminal case of selective indulgence. We condemn rich foods for being too caloric. We outlaw trans fats. We denounce capitalistic greed and do our best to send gas-guzzling vehicles the way of the Dodo. But, boy, do we love to celebrate ourselves. Mouths are steadily being stuffed at the buffet of me, where every dish is a special because every customer is special. Every individual nowadays is a diamond-encrusted dewdrop, rolling down a piece of golden origami, with a heart that’s an ocean and a soul that spans galaxies. I swear, even on an empty stomach, I could puke.

Every individual nowadays is a diamond-encrusted dewdrop, rolling down a piece of golden origami, with a heart that’s an ocean and a soul that spans galaxies. I swear, even on an empty stomach, I could puke.

Look, I’m not saying we’re all worthless, I’m just saying we’re not that important. None of us is even the center of the internet, let alone the universe. And if you’re wholly incapable of not constantly staring at yourself in the mirror, at least take some time to notice the reflection of other people, too. They matter. So do you, incidentally. I don’t want you to ditch your dreams and settle for whatever life hands you. Don’t be a pig, is all.

So where’s the middle ground? It’s existing somewhere between the extremes: egomaniacal indulgence on one side and passive defeatism on the other. For me, the compromise is the true pursuit of happiness. I focus on the stuff I actually want versus the stuff I’m told I’m supposed to want. There are a million of life’s perks I’d love to obtain (cash, cars, lake houses), but I can fall asleep at night knowing I have the necessities: friends, family, and a roof I don’t own, but which still keeps the rain out.

Sometimes it’s okay to lay down at the end of a long day, feel pride that you made that Honda Civic payment once again, and relish in the fact that you finally beat Castlevania III. Hell, if you have a window in your bedroom, you can even look up at the stars. Just don’t be compelled to reach for them, you dick.

Rape In Peace and War

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Recent focus has been on hierarchical rapes — that is, sexual assault committed by people in positions of authority over their victims. But the most common form of rape throughout world history has been as a weapon of war. Historically the victor in a battle had the power to “rape and pillage” the losers. Modern rules of warfare are now making rape a war crime if committed by soldiers under the direction of their commanders. This is because rape continues to be a weapon of war even today.

There are several kinds of rape that are used as weapons. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, enemy women were raped and deliberately impregnated in order to cause them to bear the children of the victors. During the Holocaust, the opposite approach was taken. Jewish women were raped and then murdered. I recently learned that a 16-year-old cousin of mine, who was very beautiful, was repeatedly raped by Nazi soldiers in Poland and then murdered.

Among some terrorists, rape is used as a prelude to turning the victim into a suicide bomber. She is deliberately raped, and thus, under the local culture, dishonored. Her family, too, is dishonored by her victimization. The only way to restore the family’s honor is for the woman to die as a terrorist martyr.

Yet, despite these atrocities, the United Nations and other human rights groups have paid less attention than they should to the use of rape as a weapon of war. This is because human rights organizations generally apply a double standard: one for Western democracies and the other for less developed parts of the world. It is also because the United Nations and other human rights groups spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources on one Western democracy, namely Israel. The U.N. Human Rights Council, for example, devotes more than half of its agenda to Israel’s disputed policies and almost none of its agenda to the serious issue of rape.

A related reason for this general neglect of rape as a war crime is the politicization of human rights in general and of rape in particular. Consider the following academic paper, written by hard-left doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She began her thesis by noting that Israel has one of the best records in the world with regard to their soldiers raping enemy civilians.

Rape is a crime of violence, as well as a crime of sexual gratification. The very notion that your victim has to be seen as humanized is preposterous.

When she could not find instances of rape by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Nitzan hypothesized that “the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals.” Rape by soldiers, infrequent as it is, is taken very seriously and punished quite severely. As a result, it almost never occurs.  So that is the data point from which the thesis was developed.

It is her conclusion that is so remarkable. She argued that the reason Israeli soldiers do not rape Palestinian women is due to an Israeli government program which teaches IDF soldiers that Palestinian women are subhuman, inferior, and unworthy, and therefore not appropriate objects of sexual assault.

Nitzan wrote: “In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences — just as organized military rape would have done.”

This conclusion is so absurd that it does not warrant a serious response.  But if a serious response is to be given, it is only necessary to point out how frequently Nazi soldiers raped the Jewish women who they had dehumanized beyond the point of any recognition.

Rape is a crime of violence, as well as a crime of sexual gratification.  The very notion that your victim has to be seen as humanized is preposterous. Tal Nitzan’s thesis is a prime example of primitive anti-Semitism. The core belief of the anti-Semite is that if a Jew does anything good, it must be for a bad motive. If Jewish soldiers do good by not raping Palestinians, it must be because they are badly motivated by their dehumanization of potential victims.

The world must move toward zero tolerance regarding rape both in wartime and in peacetime. This will not be easy to accomplish, especially during wartime, because the use of rape as a weapon of war has such deep roots in world history. But we must do everything possible to eliminate this scourge from our planet.

Whatever I Need to Do…

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Mental Hell
Hi Leah, I recently started listening to Improper Etiquette and it has changed my life! I know it sounds corny, but it has opened parts of me that I thought I needed to hide to not be “too much” for others — listening to you speak so openly about your sexuality, being a single mom but not letting that define you, and most of all talking openly about your sobriety and mental health.

I’m 27 years old and a single mom to a beautiful 8-year-old boy; unfortunately, the baby daddy is an asshole. I’ve always struggled with depression and anxiety, and I was officially diagnosed at 16. But after having my son, and with the baby daddy coming in and out of our lives, my depression got worse and I turned to drinking. I hid it for a really long time, but the past couple of years it’s become obvious to others that I like to drink. I finally got on medication about three years ago for my depression/anxiety, but it was highly frowned upon by baby daddy and my family, so it took a long time for me to reach out for help.

Having mental illness has made me feel like I’m crazy at times, and I feel like it’s something I need to hide. It’s gotten pretty bad, but since listening to you I’ve decided to stop drinking. The problem is, I don’t feel like I can share it with anyone because in the past it’s been used against me in court.

How did you finally decide that you needed to stop drinking, and from day one, what did that look like? Secondly, how have you maintained your sobriety, especially when you’re required to go to social events where alcohol is served? Again, I love you for being a badass bitch! I feel like you are the best example of what my best me can look like. — Annaliza

Leah: My journey into sobriety started at age 15, when I went to my first of many rehabs. But I didn’t finally put down a drink until many years later, at the age of 27. I was empty inside. It’s a hard feeling to describe to someone who doesn’t have an addiction problem. So if you do, then I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s like waking up and you are in hell every day. The world is happening and moving around you and you are in quicksand. I tried everything except sobriety. I saw psychics and healers, I got colonics and went on cleanses. I hired a personal trainer, fasted, went to a therapist, tried switching to wine only, and drinking a glass of water between each drink. Everything except abstinence from booze.

Finally, one day after work heading home on the train, I had a complete spiritual experience (I’m not sure what else to call it). Maybe it was my brain going into survival mode, but I like to think it was more of a divine intervention. I had an out-of-body experience and I saw my child and her dad, but I wasn’t there. I saw my mother and father, brother and sister. But I was gone. And I knew at that moment that if I drank again I might not live to my next birthday. It was the Universe giving me a major warning sign.

I made a phone call to a friend who was sober and I was taken by another friend to a 12-step program. I’ve stayed booze-free since then (not anywhere near perfectly or always sanely, but I have not picked up a drink).

I have maintained this in one very simple way: No matter how shitty things get or how bad I want to escape, I do not drink. Sometimes I go to AA, yoga, acupuncture, or ice skating. Sometimes I fuck a dude who I know is a psycho, smoke a pack of cigarettes, stay up all night watching true murder shows. Whatever I need to do, I do it. But I don’t drink. My kid needs me sober. If I stay sober then I stay hopeful.

Recently I started smoking weed and it led me into other things, and into a bad, bad depression. Now I am counting days again in a 12-step program. And honestly it feels fucking awesome. Feels even better this second time around.

Your kid needs you as straight as possible. I’m sure once you put down the booze you will feel less depressed. Alcohol is a depressant and physiologically messes with our brain chemistry. I promise your life won’t get worse by quitting booze. It will only get better. And my advice is to look up a local 12-step program near you. It has saved me.

I truly wish you all the best. I hope you make the choice to reclaim your life and your happiness.

Flesh for Fantasy
Leah, I’m a 36-year-old divorced dad of two. I am in a relationship. I love her, and I can definitely see a future with her. Lately, I’ve been having fantasies about a threesome. I never really had this when I was married.

Our sex life is good. I can basically do anything I want with her. But I keep coming back to wanting a threesome. I know she would do it, but I fear that, mentally, it would not be something that excites her. There’s even the potential that it would make her feel bad. Do I ask her and try to talk her into it? Or do I just table it, knowing that she’ll be uncomfortable?

If I didn’t have feelings for her I would just say fuck it and go for it. But I do and don’t want to mess up a potential future. What do you think? — Scott

Leah: Okay, let me put this real plain and simple to you: If you love her, and if you know a threesome would be something that not only wouldn’t excite her but might make her feel bad, do you really love her? Why don’t you keep your fantasies just what they are — fantasies. I mean, I have lots of fantasies that would make people feel bad. Like, a million of them. But I don’t act on them. Like today, when this bitch cut me in line at Starbucks, I had a fantasy of throwing a scalding hot latte on her. But I didn’t do it. Hope that helps!

Contact Leah with Thoughts or Questions

The Mobro 4000

Posted on by Team Penthouse

As recently as 1985, for instance, Americans only recycled about 10 percent of their garbage. It was a bad scene. Even worse, the number of landfills in the country was rapidly shrinking, as old dumps closed and not enough new ones were being set up to replace them. A crisis, it seemed, was imminent. And that posed unique (and uniquely gross) problems for those areas of the country running out of places at which to unload their trash.

Enter the Mobro 4000.

The Mobro was a barge, brought in to carry tons of trash from the Long Island town of Islip, whose landfill was nearly full, and float it down the coast to comparatively roomier dumps in the South. The idea was a pilot project, dreamed up by Alabama businessman Lowell Harrison, meant to benefit both sides: Islip would get rid of six million pounds of garbage in one fell swoop, while the Southern dumps would get cash, as well as an early experiment in renewable energy, by generating electricity from the methane gas produced as the trash decomposed.

Harrison got the owner of the only dock in New York City licensed to ship garbage involved, and together they secured investors, like the mob boss Salvatore Avellino. All appeared to be well. The Mobro 4000 left port on March 22, 1987, pulled by the tugboat Break of Dawn, and headed south.

But by the time the barge pulled into Morehead City, North Carolina, on April 1, there was a problem. A local TV crew had drawn the public’s attention to the matter, and suddenly the battle lines of City vs. Country were redrawn.

“No one said ‘a bargeload of waste,’” Harrison later said of the media coverage. “It was ‘a bargeload of New York waste’!” Then a government official spotted a bedpan amidst the trash, which led to fears that there might be other, more hazardous hospital waste onboard.

At this point, word of a homeless, floating mound of garbage went national. Nightly newscasts across America were suddenly full of images of the Mobro as it tried its luck up and down the East Coast, with vivid descriptions of its cargo “dripping brown ooze” as it sat onboard, rotting and fully exposed to the elements. After Louisiana, the barge tried its luck across the Gulf in Mexico, and then further south in Belize. For a time it sat anchored a few miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. But nobody wanted it.

In May, the Mobro returned to New York. But a pair of court orders once again blocked it from being unloaded. Even back in the trash pile’s home state, it was a quagmire that no politician wanted to be associated with. Finally, more than five months after first leaving port, a judge ruled that the Mobro’s trash was to be burned in a Brooklyn incinerator — where it was found to contain (surprise!) mostly scrap paper — and then returned to the very same place it originated from: Islip, Long Island.

At the time, the odyssey of the Mobro was seen as a face-slappingly obvious symbol of the garbage crisis facing America in the 1980s. It was also used as a rallying cry for the burgeoning environmentalist movement; at one point Greenpeace activists hung a banner off the side of the trash that read “Next time…try recycling.” And it seemed to work, too. Remember that dismal national recycling rate of 10 percent in 1985? It jumped to 16 percent in 1990, and then to 25.7 percent in 1995, thanks in part to awareness created by stories like the Mobro’s.

Looking back, however, the legacy is more complicated. Derided at the time, Harrison’s plan to move excess garbage across state lines is now standard practice; according to one expert, New York City now sends out the equivalent of seven Mobros’ worth of garbage every day. And his idea to use trash as a source of renewable energy now seems downright visionary, with more than 600 landfill gas projects currently in operation across the U.S. Even the panic about a lack of landfill space turned out to be overblown, as those outdated municipal dumps were in fact being replaced by far larger, regional ones.

But at the time, it was simply too hard for anyone — politicians, environmentalists, or the general public — to look at a garbage barge, dripping ooze, and see a good-news story floating their way.