Penthouse: An Encounter with an Old Friend

I recently had occasion to look at the most recent issue of Penthouse, and I was delighted to see that it was the same old magazine I'd grown up with. I was concerned, thinking that with the pressures of the marketplace, the magazine that I considered to define the very limit of softcore (you can show all the anatomy, and even simulated sex acts, but not actual sex acts) might have taken the plunge into hardcore. But it hadn't, even though their website sure promotes the magazine as hard-core. Instead, it had all the hallmarks I remembered from Penthouse growing up--articles about sort of interesting subjects that if they were not as well-researched as Playboy articles, they also weren't as incredibly loony as what passed for articles in Hustler--pet photo spreads focusing on a single woman, and a lesbian photoplay (this time they were camping!) And, of course, the hottest section of all, the Letters, where readers write in to describe their oh-so-true-to-life sexual adventures.

I also worried that the magazine, which introduced me to the incredible, startling, beautiful variety of women's genitalia had started selecting women with more homogeneous anatomy, but to my delight they had not. Instead, the women were just as variable and natural as I remembered them. Kudos, Penthouse.

And in celebration of diversity, let's take a look at the Great Wall of Vagina, a celebrated artwork dedicated to helping women understand the full range of "normal" genitalia. A good start, but nothing like the thousands that Penthouse has put on display.



(Also, I'm allowing a little space here so anybody who is not interested in a canvas of cooters can opt out before damaging their delicate eyes.)