A freelance writer
considers the ethics
of a writing career,
and comes up empty.
SUSAN SHAPIRO
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
ow can you write for a
magazine that runs pic-
tures of naked women?"
my friend Claire asked me
the other day.
Claire and I are old college
roommates from the University
of Michigan, fellow writers and
longtime feminists still proud to
use the f-word. Yet it seems I
committed the cardinal sin of sis-
terhood, or at least the cardinal
paradox: I contribute on a regu-
lar basis to Penthouse.
My first introduction to Pent-
house was 20 years ago in my very encouraging. Turns out
brother Brad's closet. Inside our Navasky is very nice and en-
big, white, West Bloomfield couraging to everyone he meets
house, he'd stashed a stack of at book parties. When he didn't
Playboys, Hustler, Penthouse and respond to my queries, I turned
Penthouse Forum. I loudly pro- to Ms. , multicultural monthly for
claimed them "smut," then all women of the world. They sent
sneaked into his room when he back my work with the form "We
was out, sat on the blue carpet don't read unsolicited manu-
and looked through them. For scripts." So they were only inter-
hours. The photographs fasci- ested in all women of the world
nated me. I decided that I would who had agents?
never pose nude for a girlie mag-
I wrote for a Jewish magazine
azine. It wasn't that I had high called Present Tense, which I
ethical standards so much as hips loved, until it went out of busi-
and thighs.
ness. I then queried the English
Though I've freelanced for 70 edition of the Jewish Forward —
different newspapers and maga- a nice Jewish girl in the big city
zines, when I began in 1980 I was with clips from other Jewish pub-
broke and naive. I tried publica- lications — it would be a mitz-
tions whose politics I admired. vah. I also tried Lilith, a Jewish
Since I was by then a left-winger feminist rag — a perfect ideolog-
living in New York City's Village ical fit. My pieces were assigned,
and the only one who read the OK'd, but never paid for. Until a
damn thing, I tried the Village nice Jewish lawyer friend sent
Voice. One snob editor with at- the editors a letter that elicited
titude lost my work — twice. An- checks messengered the next day.
other never responded.
A friend got me a steady gig at
I wrote a piece for the Nation the New York Post. I thought, "pol-
for $75. I bumped into Victor itics be damned," and I wrote
Navasky, the Nation's then-edi- three pieces a week for them for a
tor, at a book party and he was year. They still owe me $2,000 (I
had the sense to work for them
Susan Shapiro, a Bloomfield
when they were switching off be-
Hills native, is a New York
tween owners Kalikow, Hirschfeld
City-based freelance writer and
and Hoffenberg, who was just sen-
author of The Male-to-Female
tenced to jail for 20 years).
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52
Dictionary.
I found two terrific female ed-
itors at the New York Times Mag-
azine, who edited "endpaper" and
the "Hers" column, actually in-
terested in the inner lives of
women. I wrote about the real
meaning of Barbie dolls, trying
to qiiit smoking and stay thin,
and dying my hair. They bought
five pieces. They were brilliantly
edited. I was well paid. Both sec-
tions of the magazine were killed
last January.
I freelanced for New York
Newsday, which went out of busi-
ness, too. But before it died, I did
a 600-word piece called "The Real
Kramer," about the guy who in-
spired the Seinfeld TV character.
The day it ran, a Penthouse edi-
tor called and said, "Pll give you
$4,000 if you can make this 3,000
words."
"Penthouse?" I thought. The
thick glossy my brother collect-
ed, filled with photos of lesbian
sex, orgies and women with their
legs in less than ladylike posi-
tions? Though I didn't think
women looked very dignified with
cone-shaped objects in their
mouths doing splits on each oth-
er's heads, I enjoyed other, soft-
er porn: literary erotica, racy
lingerie, colored condoms from
the Pink Pussycat Boutique
(which I gave my Uncle Sol for
his 80th birthday) and X-rated
movies like Last Tango In Paris.
I liked pictures of one naked man
and one naked woman together,
or with some clothes on. Though
I never posed naked, one summer
when I was particularly thin and
tan, I let my boyfriend take a roll
of me lying on the bed in a silky
black teddy. I felt a little slutty
until he proposed.
I debated the Penthouse offer.
Wasn't liberalism about person-
al freedom? Whatever turns you
on is cool as long as it doesn't hurt
anyone? The idiots who try to
censor the media are the same
ones who are anti-choice and pro-
"family values." More important,
it would take 20 articles for me
to make $4,000.
But what would my family
think? When I told my mother
about the article, she said, "Your
brother used to collect that smut
in his closet." When I told my fa-
ther about the fee, he said, "Why
don't you pose, too?" Brad called
to ask if I could get him a free
subscription. Claire the con-
science said, "You're selling out!"
"I've been trying to sell out for
years," I told her. "No one was
buying."
I did the piece. When I saw it
on the newsstand, vanity over-
rode self-consciousness and I
quickly bought two copies. I
looked through the contents for
well-known writers to console
myself: Alan Dershowitz,.Erica
Jong, Jack Newfield, Emily
Prager. At least I was in inter-
esting company. I did have a
dream that a naked Andrea
Dworkin was chasing me
through Washington Square
Park, though when I woke up my
reaction was to go on a diet.
My first Penthouse article
looked great. OK, they printed
part of it next to an ad for "Pent-
house's Favorite Pets" videos and
two pages away were pictures of
two long-haired girls named
Crystal and Sean with long nails
and tongues entwined in strange
places. Still, they barely edited
my piece and I was paid in three
weeks. I've since written 20
pieces for Penthouse, mostly book
reviews. I've grown to love Pent-
house and I'd love to keep writ-
ing for them.
As a freelancer trying to make
it in Manhattan, I've learned
the essential facet of freedom is
learning how to make a living.
Of course, this is a rationaliza-
tion, but my rent is $1,500
a month. And why is it that
publications that pretend to
be politically savvy and run ar-
ticles on the atrocities of Bosnia
often treat their freelance em-
ployees like second-class citi-
zens? Hiring someone to do work
without paying them appropri-
ately, on time or at all, is true
exploitation.
I am proud to write for Pent-
house — or any other publication
that values my work and treats
me like a human. In the mean-
time, I get to plug books I love, al-
most pay my rent and collect
dirty pictures in my own closet,
for free. And I just sent a query
to Playgirl. 0
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