Penthouse

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Penthouse

Penthouse is a monthly men's magazine primarily devoted to printing sexually explicit photos of women. Among American mainstream pornographic magazines, Penthouse is one of the first, largest, and most enduring and has had a lasting effect on the American sexual and pop cultural landscape.

Penthouse was launched in 1965 by Robert "Bob" Guccione as a more risqué alternative to Hugh Hefner's "girl next door"-style mainstream Playboy. Guccione, an American expatriate living in England at that time, had trained himself as an artist and painter while living in various European cities during the 1950s and early 1960s (Heidenry 1997). Using his knowledge of lighting and borrowing compositions from Degas (Colapinto 2004), he photographed the first issue himself.

After experiencing great success in England, Guccione launched Penthouse in the United States in 1969. The most obvious difference from Playboy was that in April 1970 it became the first commercial magazine to show pubic hair, whereas Playboy, taking a hit in the so-called Pubic Wars, still airbrushed models' genitals. Penthouse remained more explicit by being the first to show "split-beaver" shots and male erections and by popularizing "girl-on-girl" pictorials. Guccione also constructed the dynamic of the viewer-model relationship in a different way. He instructed his models not to smile or even look at the camera: "We followed the true philosophy of voyeurism" (Colapinto 2004, p. 61).

The editorial style was edgier, leaning toward controversial investigative journalism rather than essays and commentary. The features were also more sexual (Heidenry 1997)—for example, "Penthouse Forum," an allegedly unexpurgated section of readers' actual sexual experiences, and "Call Me Madam," former madam Xaviera Hollander's racy sex advice column.

The two other magazines commonly compared to Penthouse in terms of content are Screw and Hustler, both of which generally are considered much more explicit and, according to some, vulgar.

The relationship of Penthouse to feminism is multi-faceted. It often was singled out by 1970s and 1980s feminists as an example of the objectification of women. A 1984 issue featuring bound Asian women particularly upset antipornography activists. However, Penthouse was "one of [all of] publishing's most female-friendly shops" (Colapinto 2004, p. 62). Regular writers included porn reviewer Susie Bright (1987–1989), who went on to become a figurehead of the "sex-positive" feminism movement of the 1980s. The staff also included some first-rate businesswomen, including Dawn Steel, who later became head of Paramount Pictures, and Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, who worked on the Penthouse spin-off Viva, a softcore sex, art, and fashion magazine for women.

Penthouse has been the center of several scandals over the years, most notably the 1984 Vanessa Williams scandal, in which Penthouse published third-party erotic photographs of the reigning Miss America, and the 1986 Traci Lords scandal, in which the Penthouse model subsequently was discovered to be underage. Penthouse also produced the 1980 film Caligula, a star-studded flop that Guccione promoted as the first sexually explicit first-run mainstream film in history.

In the 1980s circulation began to decline with the end of the sexual revolution—the rise of AIDS, the aging of the baby boomers, and a shift to conservative politics in particular—as well as the availability of VCR filmic pornography (Colapinto 2004). In the 1990s it fell even farther, pressured by cable and pay-per-view competition, followed by the rise of the Internet. Penthouse responded by becoming much edgier, adding depictions of acts such as vaginal fisting (penetration of the vagina with a hand and/or arm), cum shots (external male ejaculation), and urine play.

In 2003 Penthouse declared bankruptcy. The next year it was bought by external investors who stated their intention to soften the sexual nature of the magazine and reposition it as a competitor to "lad" magazines such as Maxim. As of 2006 the ownership, control, and style of the magazine were still in flux.