Cathy Seipp, On Writing For Penthouse
"...To proper feminists who ask how I can work for a magazine that exploits women, my answer is always: Go write for a women's magazine before you talk to me about exploited women.
Lured by the prospect of what, ludicrously, always seems like easy money, I have occasionally over the years done just that. But after weeks of snippy, sorority, slambook-style fee negotiations -- 'And FYI, the editor said, 'Why does she think she should get that much?' -- and torturously rewriting and rewriting until the correct women's mag tone (perky, smarmy, know-it-all, generic) is achieved, that fatally tempting $2 a word shrinks to about five cents an hour. At Penthouse, on the other hand, the drill always went like this: Accept advance, turn in article, hear back from editor within hours about how much he liked it, see not one word changed, collect $6,000."
(Cathy's blog here)