The day I started my new job at Penthouse, in September 1985, the company was holding an Evelyn Rainbird sample sale.

Most magazines have sample sales when they want to clear their storage closets of merchandise—say, last season’s hot cosmetics or the no-longer-latest in muffin tins. But Evelyn Rainbird didn’t make hair products or oven mitts. This was a merchandising division of the Guccione empire, one that was devoted to sex toys, lingerie and other kinky treats. A short, white-haired gentlemen standing beside me rooted around in a bin and triumphantly extracted a cat-o-nine-tails. I later learned he was a staffer at Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense and Technology International, another of the company’s then-myriad of publications.

Proceeds from such events usually go to charity, and this, I assume, was no exception. The office manager’s favorite cause was Citymeals-on-Wheels, so my purchase of teddies, thigh-highs and a dusty package of seventies-vintage sexy cocktail stirrers (each featuring a Penthouse Pet who magically stripped before your eyes) probably funded at least one hot meal for an elderly shut-in. Not bad for a first day’s work.

I was an ad sales promotion copywriter, and that was a very good gig. But I soon realized it was the editors who had all the fun. They hung out with musicians, actors and comedians and their lunches were even longer and more drunken than ours. I proved myself worthy of a transfer by banging out “Pet copy”—the text that accompanied the pictorials. Bob Guccione cared deeply about this material and personally signed off on every word. But because he didn’t create the layouts or even choose the photos until the last minute, it was a scramble to get the pages done in time. If the model was unavailable for a phone interview and had failed to complete the biographical questionnaire given to her at the photo shoot, I had to make everything up. When this happened, I liked to plug my own favorites, which explains why so many Pets in the eighties were Sinatra fans.

By now, some of you may be wondering how a woman could possibly enjoy working at a magazine like Penthouse. My response, then and now, is this: Not all feminists are anti-porn. As long as it involves consenting adults, pornography has never bothered me (unless it is boring, or badly produced). What did bother me was when people assumed that a grown woman who signed a contract and took off her clothes for a photograph had somehow been manipulated into doing so. Seemed awfully patronizing. Especially since no one ever seems similarly worried about nude male models—Levi Johnston, anyone? (OK, for those who disagree, I’ve zipped up my asbestos suit and am eager to read your comments below.)

Bob rarely came to the office. He worked out of his home—aka, “The House”—a 26-room mansion near Central Park with a magnificent art collection, including works by Picasso, Degas, Matisse and Chagall. An indoor swimming pool glowed blue on a lower level just off the entryway; a gilded piano that had belonged to Judy Garland stood sentry in the parlor. Kathy Keeton, who was Bob’s partner in work and life, came to the office more often, marching purposefully down the hall in an up-to-there mini and flanked by an equally sky-high Rhodesian Ridgeback (whose snout once came snuffling under my stall door in the ladies room).