Penthouse?

Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human

Penthouse?

It sounds like a bad joke: two lesbian photographers went to a Penthouse photo shoot and all they shot was beefcake…

But there is no punch-line. And it really happened.

It started with an e-mail.

One of the things I have learned after nearly nineteen years of “domestic bliss” is that it is good to be flexible and supportive whenever possible. For my loved one to have adventures, outings and friendships that I don’t necessarily participate in is essential for her well-being (which is essential for ours as a couple). Joined at the hip is bad, very bad. So when my wife got an e-mail from a photographer friend a couple of weeks back that read, “Do you want to go to Yosemite for a Penthouse shoot?” and forwarded it on to me, with a, “What do you think?” I quickly answered, “You should go.”

And then I thought, “Penthouse?”

My wife gave no indication to me that she had hesitations about assisting her buddy to take pictures for a porn magazine (though from the beginning she was thinking, “What are the ethics of that?”). She took a couple of days off work, announced to all and sundry what she was doing, and drove fourteen hours with our friend to California in what ended up being a photo shoot for an article about the park, no naked women involved.

Though they both took a load of half-naked photos of world-class rock climbers, including one my wife described as “the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.” The writer of the article had to practically drag them away, with an uttered, “I know the guys are all very fascinating, but we’re not here to watch rock climbers…”

When my wife stepped into our friend’s van to begin the ride south to Yosemite, she didn’t even know what they would be photographing. She didn’t think it would be naked women in climbing harnesses, but it could have been au natural in the park. Having lived with me for nineteen years (and endured my feminist analysis), she knew that girly magazines weren’t a simple subject. She wanted to buy a couple of issues so she could get a feeling for what the magazine was all about, educate herself, but didn’t necessarily want to give them her money.

Her friend had no such reservations, and got her ex-husband to buy them one. When I asked her later about the ethical concerns about publishing in that magazine, she looked at me blankly, “What ethical concerns?”

Ironically, I have much stronger reservations about porn than my wife does. Ironic because I’m very pro-sex worker, very pro-personal expression, feel that self-exploitation can be empowering, and shook my booty onstage in the mid-eighties, resulting in my own inadvertent and nearly-naked appearance in On Our Backs (and because the first indication that I might turn out to be a lesbian was when I stole all the centerfolds out of my grandfather’s Playboys when I was six).

My wife has a live and let live attitude toward middle-of-the-road porn; sex is good, if people want to look at, or model for, naked photos, “whatever.” She does question the desirability of airbrushing the models to look like mannequins (and what that does to men’s expectations of women), but she’s not above thinking a sexy photo is hot, if oddly hairless.

I was a little shocked at how many other people felt the same. Not one person who heard of this expedition, including our many lesbian friends who consider themselves long-time feminists, made an outraged remark, or even questioned the political correctness, or advisability, of this endeavor. The gals at my wife’s office were all for it. Her guy friends thought it was cool. And even my mother didn’t raise an eyebrow.

I felt like a dinosaur for even questioning this activity.

And then I discovered, when I was reassuring them she wasn’t taking any naked pictures of women, that no one had thought she was.

“They do have articles you know,” they all told me.

Not one of them thought they were taking part in a centerfold shoot, or even a titillating photo essay.

Hey, I thought, wait a moment…

Which just goes to show that I’m torn; I can question the desirability of taking naked photos for Penthouse in one breath, and be outraged that anyone doubted my wife’s ability to do so in the next.

It would have been an interesting addition to her resume, and certainly something thrilling for our kids to talk about during sharing time. I guess we’ll cross that ethical bridge when we come to it.