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08/21/2002 Archived Entry: "Penthouse"

I have been ignoring my blog in favor of "real life"...if writing can be called that. ;-) Which reminds me of my favorite T-shirt: it read, "Books are not life but, then, what is?" What the hey...Books and Bradford and my farm are all the reality I need. But not necessarily in that order.

I got a last minute assignment from Penthouse magazine last night...

-- and I *do* mean last minute. I am writing a feature piece for Penthouse that will be published early next year but my editor needed something else, something in a flash to substitute for an article that wasn't delivered. So we emailed frantically back and forth in the wee hours of the morning until an article was edited into shape. (Actually, it wasn't a bad process as he is a very good editor. Like he said, "it was almost fun." It reminded me of an earlier, protracted writing gig during which everything was done in a rush and a panic...which also felt "almost like fun" sometimes.)

So now I will be in the December Penthouse and everyone has an excuse to buy a copy.

People have had such strange reactions to my working with Penthouse, especially other authors. A long list of "friends" have bashed the magazine...and I don't get it. Penthouse has stood up for the First Amendment and sexual freedom when neither of those causes -- especially when linked together -- had many friends. It would be indiscreet of me to mention the free speech organizations who stayed afloat for years only because of Penthouse's generous financial support. (Those orgs shy away from the association...just like the libertarian orgs who don't put their "porn donors" in fund-raising letters. Frankly, if I were those funders, I'd walk.)

Like I said...I don't get it. Those who criticise Penthouse (of my acquaintance, at least) are willing -- nay eager! -- to write for establishment 'zines that advocate bombing civilian populations (Iraq/Afghanistan/Palestine), violating civil liberties en masse (TIPS/feds after deadeat dads), and wrecking all manner of misery on human kind. But a 'zine that shows consentual sex between adults -- a travesty!

I must be utterly lacking some facet of moral sensibility because, to repeat myself for the third time, I don't get it.

mac