Penthouse Gets Their First-Ever Big Beautiful Woman Model
Penthouse is welcoming its first-ever big beautiful woman (BBW) model in their upcoming January 2016 issue, The Huffington Post reports.
Kelly Shibari, a 43-year-old, half-Asian, BBW adult film star, is a far cry from what we usually think of when we see Penthouse models (if I had to picture one right now, she'd be a tan, blonde, 19-year-old who weighs 120 pounds, max). It's also shocking to Shibari, who says she grew up in Japan, where the women who were considered beautiful were "very small and petite and slender and didn't really have a lot of curves."
The move to Penthouse came after she was asked to model for Penthouse Forum in 2014 and the issue sold out quickly, which made Penthouse realize they needed to put Shibari in an issue of the main magazine as well.
Managing Director Kelly Holland confirmed the news in a press release, saying the issue will feature "BBW star Kelly Shibari, Giraffe Woman Sydney V. Smith, and adult actress Sarah Jessie - allowing Penthouse to once again showcase the multifaceted magnificence of women in the modern world."
Shibari says she's nervous about being the first BBW model for the magazine because she fears some people will hate the idea, but also says the time is right for a BBW model to go mainstream because of "all of the feminists saying, 'yes, size acceptance, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.'"
Interestingly, Shibari told Cosmopolitan back in 2014 that BBW was "not necessarily a fetish, just a preference. There are a lot of people in the country who are plus-size. I think it stops being a specialty product, and it's becoming mainstream." It doesn't get much more mainstream than being in the pages of Penthouse, so Shibari was right on.
The issue is set to hit newsstands Dec. 22, 2015, and I'm pretty hyped about it.
Correction: A previous version of this article said that Kelly Shibari would be the first-ever BBW Penthouse cover model. She will be featured in the upcoming issue, but not on its cover.