Penthouse magazine's Guccione dies at age 79
Publisher passes away after long battle with lung cancer, family says
TERRY WALLACE
The Associated Press
updated 10/20/2010 9:36:37 PM ET 2010-10-21T01:36:37
DALLAS — Bob Guccione, who founded Penthouse magazine and created an erotic corporate empire around it, only to see it crumble as his investments soured and the world of pornography turned toward video and the Internet, died Wednesday. He was 79.
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(I don't know how this diary will go over with the Daily Kos community, but I mean no offense to anyone. It is merely a personal reflection. Also, I am not a professional writer and I am sure others could do this topic more justice than I, but here is my version.)
Thank you, Bob Guccione, for giving me a foundation to everything I needed to know about sex that I never learned from my parents or in school. I thank you and I am pretty sure my wife thanks you too.
When I was a kid growing up in the late 60's and early 70's, sex was not discussed very much, or at all, in my house or school. My parents were very good, in my opinion, but they were very Catholic and very suburban. My school was just starting to include "sex ed" in their curriculum. I remember the day they separated the boys and girls for special classes. The rumor was we were going to be told "the facts of life". To this day I can not remember what information they passed on to us, but I can assure you there was no news that I found enlightening, valuable or titillating. That wisdom would come from somewhere else.
To the guys I grew up with, there was nothing more precious and entertaining than scoring a copy of Penthouse Magazine. It seemed so much racier than Playboy. At that time, Playboy still had the air of exclusivity that only a well connected jet setter could ever experience. How could a young guy smoking cigarettes in a tree fort ever relate to some man in a silk bath robe and smoking a pipe? But Penthouse hit the mark dead on.
The great thing about Penthouse was that it actually showed me all the necessary body parts of a woman that I would need to know about, whereas Playboy still was a bit shadowy below the waist. And the articles and Forum letters in Penthouse described for me how to give sexual pleasure to a woman. I can remember clearly reading about "the little man in a boat". What the heck? It sent me running off to the dictionary to look up the word "clitoris". Wow! Then I ran back to the copy of Penthouse to reread how to stimulate the "clit". What a revelation. I had found the secret to pleasing a woman. I would never have known it without Penthouse.
That information was no small matter either. I don't know how men before me learned about such things as the clitoris, but I am suspecting that many did not, or, if they did, they didn't understand that it is as important to sexual relations (heterosexual) as the penis is. With this knowledge I have always been aware that sex was not just about my pleasures. Thanks to Penthouse, I have always been able to at least attempt to bring pleasure to a woman when making love. At the least, I have been able to discuss the matter with her if necessary.
In a very real sense, Penthouse (and later Playboy) were a very big part of the women's liberation movement (as it was called). Not only were women demanding that they be treated equally and fairly in society but that they were physically equal to men as well, and that included in the bedroom. I received that message loud and clear and I knew exactly how to respond thanks to Penthouse. (Of course now I understand how being referred to as a "pet" (as in Penthouse Pets) is demeaning to women, and Penthouse didn't help me in that regard.)
Also, Penthouse was not as explicit as Hustler was. In the early 70's, Hustler was still very much a dirty, stained, graphic magazine one might find behind the toilet in the Men's room of a gas station. The body parts shown in it (female and male) almost looked like cartoons. The pinks were too pink. The expressions on the faces too exaggerated. I was young and hungry for knowledge, but even then, there was something about Hustler that I could tell wasn't good for my spirit. Where Playboy showed photographs of women who seemed like untouchable movie stars, Hustler portrayed women as almost soulless animals. For some reason that is beyond my understanding, the photographs in Penthouse were just perfect. Maybe it was subliminal. I can't say. But the center folds of Penthouse were plastered all over the walls of our tree fort.
I am now happily married and I am still relying on the sexual foundation that was built by Penthouse magazine. Without getting too personal about details, I can say that my wife and I have a very satisfying relationship. From day one we've been able to communicate physically and verbally about what we enjoy and what makes us happy. I came into the relationship with some pretty solid experience and it was all developed from what I learned in Penthouse magazine.
I was also able to explain the real "facts of life" to a young relative of mine (his mother asked me to). Much of what I passed on to him in the living room of his mom's house was stuff I learned in the hidden places of my youth from the pages of Penthouse.
Many may view Penthouse (and all the other adult magazines from yesteryear), for better or worse, as the doorway that lead to what could be considered the general acceptance of hardcore porn that society has today. I don't know. I personally don't enjoy hardcore porn. But I didn't think Bob Guccione should pass away without me at least acknowledging the value his work had on this one man.
Thanks Bob.