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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. Jennifer
roll Maalini is an award winning writer,

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editor and auditor author. I'm sorry, I wouldn't make you an auditor if

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you weren't one, working with Talk
Lucky, Glamour, Cosmo and many other

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magazines. She's the host of Crooked
Media's latest series called Stifft, which tells

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the true story of a groundbreaking magazine, Viva, and you can hear that

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on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere else. Viva. Why was it such a

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ground breaking magazine? It was a
really interesting magazine. It's one of the

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first female erotica magazines ever, and
it's stopped by these really dynamic, smart,

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scrappy feminist journalists. So it's got
all of this like playful male nudity

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next to all this groundbreaking writing and
journalism. And it's also like this very

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beautiful magazine. It was a high
production value, it was beautifully designed.

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The fashion was done by Anna wind
Tour, So it's kind of this forgotten

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time capsule of this very interesting time. You know, Jennifer as well as

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I do there's really only a few
ways to get a real woman going,

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and that is to present pictures of
a man taking out the garbage, doing

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the dishes, changing the baby's diaper. No really did it was? Was

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it initially a success? It wasn't
a success. And part of that was

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because all of the erotica aspects of
it, all of the pornography. It

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was what a man thought a woman
a woman wanted. BASCUCCIONI controlled all of

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the pornograph, and male photographers shot
it, so it was in a lot

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of ways clumsy. It was almost
like a parody of It was a parody

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of what do you think this magazine
was? It's it's very silly, uh,

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And well, I know it's it's
it's just guys being naked. And

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if they aren't in, if they
aren't displaying any type of of of reason

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for the woman to be aroused,
then there then it doesn't work, right,

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no think. So, I mean, look, I don't want to

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make any sort of broad generalizations,
but this absolutely didn't work. And why

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it didn't work is so interesting,
Like it's just it's so silly, it's

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so clumsy. It's this, you
know, there's like a there's one like,

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what, women don't want this,
you know, And that's what they

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said to me again and again.
All the women who worked there, they're

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like, we did not want that
at all. We're talking to Jennifer Romalini.

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She is the uh she's in.
She is a part of the series

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called Stiff, telling the story of
the story of the ground baking magazine Viva

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And it's the podcast you can hear
on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get

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podcasts. And these these women,
these these were qualified journalists, they were

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tops in their field. What made
them say, yeah, I think working

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for Bob gucci On He's going to
be a good thing. You know.

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He paid them really well and he
let them write about whatever they wanted and

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that was not something they were getting
anywhere else. So the price of admission

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was, Okay, I'm going to
work for this pornographer in this weird like

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house of porn with all of these
other pornographers, but I'm going to get

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to write whatever I want. And
in nineteen seventy three, that was really

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radical. What was the women?
Yeah, well, how did they distribute

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the magazine? Was it by a
subscription only? Was it on the newstand?

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It was. It was subscription.
It was mostly subscription based, but

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it was on the newstand. But
you know, it couldn't be in the

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news stand like next to Good Housekeeping. It had to be in this sort

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of dirty magazine section. And that
was a real disadvantage to them because women

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did not shop in the dirty magazine
section at the time. I don't know

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if they do. No, I
don't even know if that dirty magazine section

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exists, to be honest, I
don't know that, you know, I

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don't want I was at an airport
newsstand and I think I saw a copy

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of Penthouse and I said to myself, well, that's not something I've seen

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since maybe college. Yeah, exactly
exactly, so, I mean so yes,

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So people weren't really buying it on
the newstand because it wasn't displayed anywhere

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that the audience for it would shop. And Jennifer Romalini's with Us Stiff as

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the podcast it's about the magazine Viva
from the early seventies. Did Bob Gucci

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only have any problem finding contents?
In other words? Or was he just

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using what he was already using for
his other endeavors. He did a lot

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of He did a lot of repurposing, let's say, whenever he could.

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You know, he's very he is
very frugal, and if he could,

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he would. But no, he
had no problem because you know, ultimately

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Bob Guccioni, who nobody knows,
was this very sleazy seventies pornographer, at

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least he looked that way. Good
changed overtan the whole thing. But he

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was also weirdly an artist, and
he had wanted to be a classical artist

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and a classical painter. So I
think one of the things he loved about

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Viva was really being able to make
it this beautiful art magazine. And to

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this day it is on a lot
of designer's mood boards. It's kind of

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a secret handshake in the design community
because it was so beautiful despite all this

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clumsy male porn. Well, the
graphic that is uh that is displayed for

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your podcast, I mean, is
that kind of along the lines of that

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of that commercial art that you're talking
about. It's precisely, yeah, precisely.

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The team, the team of Crook
Media made that art and it's it's

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a it's a really good representation of
this sort of beautiful design of this magazine.

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Jennifer Romalini and the podcast is stiffed. It's about the magazine Viva,

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which was trying to appeal pornographically to
women. But at what point did everything

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kind of start to turn south?
Well, you know what happened was they

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couldn't make money. They're not able
to sell in newstands, and you know,

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Maybelene doesn't want to put an ad
of muscara next to a penis,

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So it's just they can't sell advertising. And ultimately, like any endeavor,

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it all comes down to money,
and Viva just cannot make money. How

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long did it end up lasting?
I mean, was it a couple of

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years or did it even make make
a couple of issues. No, it

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made it. It made it for
six years because Bob Guccioni was a stubborn

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man and he did not like to
admit defeat. So he kept trying all

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different things, all different editors,
all different angles, all different kinds of

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photography. And that, you know, that's what the podcast tracks, is

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just like one sort of fumble after
another. And I, you know,

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I personally find it hilarious. It
is because it sounds to me like he

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had a staff full of women who
could probably provide him what he needed.

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I don't mean exactly if he had
listened to them, No, I don't.

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I don't mean they had to pose. I'm saying they could have said,

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Okay, why don't you do this
instead of this? Didn't listen to

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them. He thought he knew best, you know, like a lot of

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our bosses do. He thought he
alone knew best, and he he just

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didn't listen to them, and he
didn't ask for their opinion. And so

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Viva is ultimately what a man thinks
women want, and that, as we

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know from most of history, is
usually a misstep. Are there still copies

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floating around? Hard copies of the
Man magazine? There are? I mean

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I have a full set almost of
the whole six years, but you could

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still find them on eBay and etc. And sometimes in like a vintage store,

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you know, if you're in,
if you're in like a thrift store

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sometimes or like a you know,
garage sale. I've actually seen a couple

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in those, but they're they're hard, They're harder and harder to come by.

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And that was really why I wanted
to do this podcast, because I

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didn't want people to forget this magazine. I wanted them to remember this magazine.

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I think it's really a time capsule
of an important moment in you know,

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our our history and the history of
women's liberation, and you will hear

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it in the podcasts Stiffed with Jennifer
Romalini, Who Is It's all about the

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magazine Viva and available on the iHeartRadio
app and everywhere you get podcasts. This

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is an interesting story that I think
a lot of people didn't know even existed,

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and I thank you for bringing it
to the public. Jennifer, thank

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you so much, and thank you
for having me. Thanks for listening to

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Late with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to

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The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation