Robert Guccione, the founder of Penthouse magazine and among the most influential figures of his generation in breaking taboos in sexual culture, publishing and pornography, died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 79. Once one of the world’s wealthiest men, his media empire declined with the rise of the Internet and the failure of assorted business ventures in the 1990s. Guccione had it all and lost it all.
His life and times are widely chronicled today, in obituaries around the world:
Bob Guccione, Penthouse Founder, Dies at 79 (The New York Times)
Penthouse's Bob Guccione: The Dark Prince of Porn (Time)
Bob Guccione: A life in pictures (guardian.co.uk)
From CNN:
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Well, that didn’t take them much time at all—Wednesday, an appeals court put a nix on gay and lesbian service members enlisting in the military. Sorry Lt. Choi, you’ll just have to wait a little longer.
Excited veteran Lt. Dan Choi, who started the enlistment process yesterday while declaring his sexuality openly, says he’s “angry” and “disgusted” that the president he respects has not delivered on the promise to repeal the ban. The DADT-less military lasted about a week before appeals sent by the Obama Administration—even though Obama himself has gone on record as saying the policy is discriminatory—went through the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. It was an “emergency request” the administration sent, and now the full case might not debated until next February. Thousands will still be waiting for their equal rights to resume and the ban to go away.
One unnamed janitor at the recruiting office summed it up nicely, “This would have happened a long time ago,” he said, “but we’re dealing with politicians.”
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Think reality TV rehashes the same tired old ideas over and over again? Not this time; a new show is slated for production that explores the connections between clothing, social status and relationships—while filming everybody naked, of course.
The Nak'd Truth is the brain child of Harris Salomon, who’s produced shows for Comedy Central and the Travel Channel, and it plans to depict strangers living in an upscale nudist colony near Tampa, Florida. While the stars of the show will have their unmentionables blurred out for cable audiences, we will get to watch non-nudists tossed into the nudist lifestyle.
“Clothing is something that often defines who we are and how we act,” as Salomon said in the Tampa Tribune. "It's going to be fascinating to see how people react when they no longer have it.”
The Nak'd Truth is casting right now, so send in your bios and your photos—no nudity needed to apply.
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Yesterday was the National Organization of Women’s Love Your Body Day, and it seems lots of people around the globe are loving their bodies—including Belgian model Tanja Kiewitz, who is blonde, gorgeous, and disabled.
Kiewitz was born without the lower section of her left arm, but that hasn’t stopped her from appearing in sexy underwear for a provocative Belgian ad supporting disability awareness. The ad spoofs the time-honored Wonderbra spots that appeared in the mid-nineties, suggesting that we “look them in the eyes.”
“They have to see that I'm a woman above all and that I can be beautiful and sexy, and the handicap is secondary,” Kiewitz said. “It would be good if handicapped people started to be used to advertise other things. Why shouldn't somebody with a disability be a model? It would make a change from those models who all look alike.”