Introducing: Stiffed

What happens when a group of scrappy feminist journalists teams up with a porn king? The true story of Bob Guccione, VIVA magazine, and 1970s feminist porn.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's nineteen seventy three in New York City. Feminists are
marching in the streets. Women are demanding more than they'd
ever been given before, at home, at work, and also
in bed. They're experimenting with their bodies with different partners.

(00:25):
The clitteral orgasm was on the tips of everybody's tongues.
Sex is not only everywhere in nineteen seventy three, but
it's selling enter porn publishing King Bob Guccioni, there's nothing
sleazy about sex. Healthy sex is the most wonderful thing
in the world. Bob's just off the success of his
boundary pushing men's magazine Penthouse, and he's about to launch

(00:46):
his next big project, Viva. It was going to try
to be for women what Penthouse was for men. Within
the glossy pages of Viva are groundbreaking male centerfolds, along
side stories by legendary feminists like Betty friedan it's cover
stars or celebrities like Bianca Jagger and Shelley Duval. Anna

(01:08):
Wintour was even one of Viva's fashion editors. The covers
were gorgeous. Inside it was gorgeous. I just loved looking
at it. Viva was defiant Not only was it an
erotic magazine for women, it was staffed by women too.
But Viva has one bulging obstacle to overcome the man

(01:30):
in charge of it all, Bob Guccioni. I mean here,
he is a guy wearing, you know, open shirts down
to his waist and chains, one of which might have
had his own penis engraves on it. Well, I started Viva,
I thought I knew everything he was to know about women.
I thought I was the smartest guy in the world
as far as women were concerned. I learned as a
result of that experience that I didn't begin to know them,

(01:54):
nor as any other man I know. So how did
a group of scrappy journalists get involved with a porn
king at the height of the sexual revolution? What were
they trying to say with their feminist porn magazine and
could they actually pull it off? From crooked media and iHeartMedia,
I'm journalist and former women's magazine editor Jennifer Romalini, and

(02:16):
this is Stiffed, the true story of Bob Guccioni's Viva
Magazine and the women who made it possible. Listen to
Stiff starting March thirtieth, on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.