Penthouse Magazine

In the world of "Smut" Magazines and Pornography, Penthouse by far ranks among the best in male entertainment on the market. Penthouse is a men's magazine founded by creator Bob Guccione combining the imagery of urban lifestyle articles and 'soft-core' pornography pictorials, evolving into hardcore pictorial content in the 1990s, more stimulating than similar magazines at the time. Even though Guccione was an American, the magazine was founded in the UK in 1965. Soon after the release, the magazine hit the states and was soon sold in the U.S. where it achieved numerous positive acceptances. At the height of success, Guccione was considered to be one of the richest men in the United States.

Penthouse Magazine

Penthouse Magazine

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Penthouse Magazine

Penthouse Magazine

For a number of years, Penthouse Magazine fell between Playboy and Hustler magazine with regards to explicitness and it's attitude toward sexual depictions. Playboy was visually softer and didn't focus so much on female genitals, where Hustler contained much raunchier content usually consisting of toilet humor. From the beginning, Penthouse magazine pictorials showed an exuberant array of female genitals when this was considered by many to be obscene. Although Penthouse magazine attempted to maintain some level of reading relevancy, the content was much more sexually oriented nature than Playboy.

In 1998, with the wide spread of pornography on the internet, growing popularity of non-explicit "men's magazines" such as Maxim came in the scene. With that said Penthouse magazine decided to alter its content and actually begin featuring more sexually explicit pictures. This new format lost subscriptions and newsstand circulation of the magazine.

Under the editorship of Tom Hilditch, the magazine was rebranded and newly relaunched as a middle-shelf "adult magazine for grown-ups". Fashion photographers were hired to produce imagery that merged fashion and sex together to create a look that was sexually oriented. The magazine started to contain interviews, tackling current sexual issues and politics. This experimentation attracted a great deal of interest from the press however in the end was unsuccessful to generate a significant increase in sales.

In August of 2003, General Media, which was the parent company of the magazine, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In October 2003, Penthouse magazine was being put up for sale. In October of 2004, General Media freed itself from dept and newly named itself the Penthouse Media Group. The magazine is now owned by two investors that have created an iconic, reconstituted magazine of class and sophistication.

Penthouse Magazine

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