Bob Guccione started Penthouse to be in direct competition with playboy but really, what are the differences? They are, after all, both porn magazines.
Let’s start with Playboy, the first edition was in December 1953 and it was created as a soft-core production showing tastefully modelled hot women without revealing their pubic areas at all. The articles were aimed at highbrow gentleman and so created an exclusive market for the magazine.
In 1965 Penthouse was launched in London and an American version followed in 1969. Penthouse was aimed at the middle classes and their sensationalistic articles attracted more middlebrow readers in comparison to the upper class Playboy.
Guiccione’s photos were also a lot more revealing than those of Hefner’s Playboy. Hair covered crotches and sexy simulated sex made Penthouse more explicit and many people thought it was obscene. I think that Penthouse wins for showing lots more of their hot girls in their photos.
Now Celebrities are more attracted to the soft-core imagery of Playboy and so people like Drew Barrymore, Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe and Rachel Hunter have appeared in Playboy whereas Penthouse can boast just a few and those have mostly been photos bought without the celebrity’s express permission like in the cases of Madonna and Vanessa Williams who was Miss America in 1983. So Playboy is the more celebrity friendly.
Of the two only Penthouse has faced bankruptcy after a getting it’s magazines taken off the shelves of many stores because of it being seen as obscene. It rallied by becoming a hardcore magazine, showing real sex but this lost some advertising and actually made matters worse.
Penthouse still exists and it's making a huge impact on the internet via its large membership base at penthouse.com.
Playboy has always been popular and continues to be so especially now with the Playboy bunny logo appearing on many pieces of merchandising and becoming a brand in it’s own right.
Penthouse's new success makes it the clear winner of the online battle. Just take the tour of Penthouse.com and see for yourself.
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