Penthouse: Naughty By Nature - book discontinued by Warner Books - review by ViVix

Right on the cover it's made known..."Female Readers' Sexy Letters to Penthouse." Penthouse Magazine was started by Bob Guccione (RIP), and has made its way from softcore to hardcore since its United States debut in 1969 (fitting isn't it...'69). Anyway, Penthouse has allowed its readers to share their own stories for over three decades, and this book is basically a copy of many picked straight from their forums. That being said, many of the authors of these stories have no professional writing experience, plot knowledge, and so on and so forth.

Also, as the authors are female readers, many of the authors are married or partnered. With a few exceptions (a handful of bisexual women), the majority of the authors also seem to be heterosexual. In this way, a certain genre of stories is left out of this collection, and I find the pool of authors to be lacking. This collection is not about particularly daring women...rather it seems that these female authors stumble into their situations somewhere along in their mediocre lives.

As for Penthouse itself, I have never picked up the actual magazine, but their website seems to suggest some major similarities to Playboy, which I assume many are familiar with thanks in part to mass marketing of their merchandise. Basically, there seems to be nothing particularly intellectual to take away from the magazine judging solely off of the website. I suppose this is something to be considered before expecting to be impressed by this collection of stories.

This book is for the type of audience that enjoys skipping right to the sex when reading erotica. If you want to have any idea of how these individuals got together or any kind of a story line, please just skip this book. As a matter of fact, this may be frustrating for those who take writing seriously because there is such a thin story line behind the sex in these short writings, but then there is some kind of tie-it-all-up summary that doesn't seem to fit. It's basically short writings (that can't even be called stories) with very little beginning or middle, and then there is this ending that seems like it would have come from an in-depth plot-line. However, if you happen to have a vivid imagination to add to these works, or if you are a very light reader, this book may appeal to you.

I attempted to compile a list of my favorite and least favorite works, but I was coming up with a significant amount of works that I disliked. For instance, the five thousand different words used for anatomy ruin many of the stories. I prefer the terms: dick, tits, pussy, and ass. To each his own, but some of these terms in this book have got to be mood killers for everyone! One example of a story that was totally ruined by less-than-sexy words for anatomy begins on page 5 and is titled "Feels Like the First Time." Referring to someone's dick as their organ was strike 1. Then, the word bazooms used for tits appeared. Strike 2. Possibly strike 2 and 3 just for that actually. Still, what really killed this story had nothing to do with the terms for anatomy. What really killed this story was the end where the author calls her whole scenario with a stranger "lovemaking."

More on my personal hang-ups with this book later. For now, here is the Table of Contents:
Introduction
Girl Meets Boy
On the Job
Overexposed
Three, Four, and Moresomes
Woman to Woman
Dreams and Diversions
Surprise Party
Fun and Fetish
Fast Food

To look at a story from a few of the sections...
Girl Meets Boy
"Movin' In"
Two roommates hookup while painting. Think tits pressed into the paint and fucking on newspapers.
On the Job
"Steel Mill Stud"
Don't worry if you hookup with one of your coworkers on a dangerous jobsite.
Overexposed
"The Art of Fencing"
A couple gets all hot and heavy on a playground.
Three, Four, and Moresomes
"Blind Date"
A couple sets up a double date, but the date for their male friend doesn't go well. In the end, the male friend joins their "coupling."

To sum up the rest of the book, women fix their husbands up with call girls, a short girl marries a guy with a freaky heel fetish, women who have been friends for years suddenly want to eat each other, etc. Then, near the end in the fetish section, there seems to be a lot of food-related stories. The whole time, everyone is shapely and can orgasm every 30 seconds. Tada!

This is a simple paperback book. The cover is red, white, and blue with a woman's bottom half covered by a blanket displayed at the bottom. If someone were to see the cover of this book, they would most likely think that this was erotica or a romance novel, and so it is not discreet. In the back, Penthouse puts its own ads in, which is sort of tasteless in my opinion (though common). The pages seem well bound into the cover with no gaps. There are absolutely no pictures included with the different writings, as is common with erotica. However, in this case, I feel that pictures could've spiced things up. After all, Penthouse Magazine itself seems to be more porn than decent writing. The book is a small paperback...maybe 6 inches or so long and 4 inches wide (guesstimates, not actual measurements). Finally, the book is slightly thick. Cutting a few of these writings would probably have helped and definitely would've been beneficial for my attention span.

This is where I offend a few by saying that I personally found the amputee stories to be disturbing as well as contradictory...one writer insists it's not sexually attractive, while another basically says that all men love stubs. It's also not relatable for many of the readers.
Terms such as "love box" and "organ" also dried me up like the Sahara Desert. I think there's a list of terms that are disliked when used in erotica, and this book used every single one.
I also wasn't particularly fond of the food stories. After all, introducing sugar into your vagina is a great way for that awesome weekend away to become that week that you had to worry about a yeast infection.
Finally, to sum it all up, many of the stories were unbelievable. I thought that genuine people would be portrayed in this collection, but apparently only porn stars who can have earth-shattering, drenching orgams every 30 seconds starred in this book. Everyone is in great shape with rockin' bodies except for the senior citizen in one story who still gets hard at a moment's notice. I just can't get into this book no matter how hard I try, and I honestly had to force myself to continue reading it.