Honey, I Shrunk the Porn

It was like coming across an old friend and not recognizing him or her at all. I was waiting for a haircut in the old style barbershop in my neighborhood. I perused the magazines and found Penthouse. Being that the Castro is a gay mecca, it’s a bit strange to find a nudie girl magazine, but these types of mags are a part of barbershops. So I flipped through it.

I sort of grew up with Penthouse. My brother would bring one home, or my friends might have few copies taken from Dad’s nightstand. Even back then I understood the hierarchy of the nudie magazine. Playboy was pretty but dull. Hustler was way sleazy. Every model had to be greased up for a Hustler shoot. I imagine they had a 10 gallon bucket of grease at the studio. Penthouse was a nice middle ground: they showed more than Playboy but had nicer models than Hustler. Back in the seventies, they showed genitalia. As a kid I poured over the pictures wondering at the model’s beauty, wondering what it would be like to have sex with them. At that age I wasn’t even masturbating yet, but I was intensely curious.

They had articles like Playboy, but they were more about sex. And there was the Penthouse Forum. The Forum was letters from readers describing their sexual adventures. It was all fake, of course. I had one of those Santa Clause/Tooth Fairy moments of clarity when I thought, hey, wait a minute, these stories sure are familiar. So people don’t quite have these random hookups described by the Forum writers, but I sure learned an arsenal of descriptive words: tits, bazongas, bodacious tatas, prick, dipstick and my personal favorite, raging manhood. Great name for a band if it’s not already taken.

So as I flipped through the Penthouse at the barbershop, I searched for any similarity to the mag of old. It’s a lot slimmer these days, and perhaps smaller too. The Forum was two letters only. The articles were all about stuff you could buy, or they were bullet points—lists of cool things, but not any interesting articles. Penthouse now resembles those stupid lad mags like Maxim or FHM, whose readership apparently has the attention span of gnat.

And strangely enough, Penthouse is coyer these days. I only saw a slight glimpse of genitalia. I don’t think I miss the gynecological photos they use to do, but it does seem a bit more tame. The pundits proclaim the pornification of society, but Penthouse is toning down the raunchiness. Of course, you can see all sorts of wild and wacky stuff on the internet for free, so to be coy is sort of a fresh idea. And, unlike Playboy, the women didn’t have breast implants.

But in the end, Penthouse was a dull read. I flipped through the entire magazine in 10 minutes. If you took the nudity out, you would have a minor Esquire magazine. But I suppose Penthouse will survive. Times change but the enjoyment of seeing naked people is eternal.