PENTHOUSE Magazine, Volume 19, Number 9, 1984 Traci Lords

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Hefner emerged from the scandal looking like the Not-So-Bad guy. He certainly said all the correct things about respecting a woman's sovereignty over her body and image, her right to say no. Maybe this does it. Peter Bloch, Penthouse 's then-executive editor: "It was the best-selling issue of Penthouse of all time. Hands down. A complete sellout in, like, two days. You couldn't get a copy. So there were guys paying—and this is something I saw with my own eyes—a dollar for a peek. A peek!"

An incredibly developed, full-figured girl, she easily deceived photographers, producers, and directors. Traci created somewhere between 80 and 100 X-rated movies between 1984 and 1986.By the end of 1995, Lords divorced her husband of five years, Brook Yeaton. [53] In 1996, she appeared in a commercial for GUESS with Juliette Lewis. [54] 1997–2002: Profiler, Blade and First Wave [ edit ] Jordan, Jennifer. "Traci Lords refuses to go topless due to breastfeeding", ParentDish, November 3, 2008. Confession: I have my own porn past. I’m teasing, but I’m a little serious. I broke into print by writing about Al Goldstein, founder of Screw magazine and a major figure in the adult industry in the ’70s and ’80s. (This is obviously way before I was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.) One afternoon in 2012, I went to lunch in the Valley at a Hamburger Hamlet with adult veteran Bill Margold, who’d codirected Traci, and adult agent Jim South, who’d represented Traci. Traci, and what happened 25 years ago, was the topic of conversation between these two. Not for part of the lunch, for the whole lunch. The way they told the story was as a noir, with Traci as the ne plus ultra of femmes fatales: She’d scammed the adult industry with a fake ID; had made one movie after the age of 18, a movie she owned the rights to; and then she’d blown the whistle on herself to make more money and become more famous. And the anger of both these men was still, all these years later, hot to the touch. I wanted to find out why. Why was Traci Lords the wound that refused to heal for the adult industry? And who was this Traci Lords anyway, this teenager who’d single-handedly almost taken out an entire industry of hardened professionals? By the beginning of 2007, Lords became unexpectedly pregnant. [64] [65] She first announced her pregnancy in June: "I kind of thought the children thing was off the table. Now I'm expecting a boy! We're stunned and thrilled. I just want you to know, these 36-Ds are mine. I haven't had a boob job, she laughed! I am 5 1⁄ 2 months pregnant! But now I'm starting to show. And my husband is happy with the changes in my figure." [66] [67] On October 7, 2007, at the age of 39, she gave birth to a son, Gunnar Lords Lee, her first child with her husband of five years, Jeff Lee. [68] Anolik, Lili (September 15, 2020). " 'A Felony Just to Own': The Sleazy Story Behind Penthouse's Most Controversial Issue". Esquire. Archived from the original on September 16, 2020 . Retrieved October 26, 2020.

As Guccione was prophetic about Williams, so Williams was prophetic about Guccione. She'd drop that suit against Penthouse less than two years after she filed it. At the time, her manager and then fiancé Ramon Hervey gave this as the reason: Williams accepted that the signature on the model release form was indeed hers and that while "she always believed the photographs were meant to be private and that Penthouse was ill-advised to publish them, she now recognizes that Penthouse had an absolute right to have done so." But in 2014, on Oprah's Master Class , Williams gave this as the reason: when she was ten, an older female friend had molested her. Her lawyer informed her that this would come out at trial. Not wanting to put herself or her family through anymore public ugliness, she let the matter go. In 1989, a philosophical-sounding Williams told a reporter that revenge against Penthouse would ultimately be hers: "So many people have gotten burned by those people that I think they'll eventually get it in the end and die a slow, painful death." Which is, more or less, exactly what happened. Guccione would forfeit his magazine in 2003, his fortune in 2006, and his life in 2010, when he died in Plano, TX, after a protracted battle with throat cancer. Gingold, Michael (June 13, 2013). "The 2013 FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards Results!". Fangoria. Archived from the original on December 30, 2013 . Retrieved August 27, 2016. Steiner, Amanda Michelle (August 25, 2015). "First Look: See the trailer for season 2 of EastSiders". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved October 29, 2016. Many Hollywood movies have had under 18 actresses pose nude. Thora Birch in American Beauty is one famous example, easily and legally available.

That Guccione zigged where Hefner zagged is no surprise. Out-Hefnering Hefner had, after all, been his goal from the start. When he brought Penthouse from England to America in 1969, he placed an ad in the New York Times depicting the Playboy logo, the bunny, in the crosshairs of a gun, the caption reading, "We’re going rabbit hunting." And Guccione shot to kill. To wit: the Pubic Wars (an actual coined phrase, appearing in such august publications as the Wall Street Journal), which he won by showing short-and-curlies in the February 1970 Penthouse, a full eleven months before Playboy. Trust, Gary (November 4, 2011). "Weekly Chart Notes: Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Traci Lords". Billboard . Retrieved August 27, 2016.

While those might not have resulted in convictions, I think an underage person posed as they do in Penthouse probably would.

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Williams, though, was also, at some level, a victim of herself. As it turns out, she didn't put up much of a fight for her title in part because there was a second set of photos, this set shot with a different photographer and with her in bondage gear. "People can forgive one mistake," Williams told Rolling Stone , in 1985, "but if the other pictures come out, everyone will say, 'This girl took us for a ride.'" (Guccione, incidentally, would get his hot little hands on those photos, too. He ran them a few months later, in the January '85 issue, the cover once more featuring Williams and George Burns, and this time reading "Oh, God, I Did It Again!") Lanham, Tom (June 21, 2016). "Fashion is Traci Lords' latest passion". The San Francisco Examiner. Archived from the original on October 8, 2018 . Retrieved June 22, 2016. As of 2020, Lords continues to act, and has had a number of films released over the last couple of years. Bob Guccione and his longtime assistant, Jane Homlish, watch Williams announce her resignation. Getty

Thank God I have lived long enough," said Rep. Shirley Chisholm, "that this nation has been able to select the beautiful young woman of color to be Miss America."And recent issues where young people were threatened with CP prosecution for “sexting” which I think mostly involves just standing in front of a mirror. In one case a prosecutor threatened a girl who was photographed from the waste up wearing a bra and therefore no more exposed than she would be at the beach. Michelson, Noah (November 19, 2012). "Traci Lords Discusses 'M2F2' Album, Her Porn Past, Sex Advice For Her Son And More". The Huffington Post . Retrieved August 27, 2016. Yes, most certainly there is a hysteria about sexting. Yes, some attitudes have changed so that seemingly every instance of nudity is a sex crime. Maybe this does it. Peter Bloch, Penthouse's then-executive editor: "It was the best-selling issue of Penthouse of all time. Hands down. A complete sellout in, like, two days. You couldn't get a copy. So there were guys paying—and this is something I saw with my own eyes—a dollar for a peek. A peek!"