A Conversation With Mish Barber-Way Of White Lung And Penthouse Magazine

Photo by Tim Mosenfelder

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Hear a Mish Barber-Way interview on today’s episode of the Culture Creature podcast. Listen via the player above or in your podcast provider of choice. Mish is the frontwoman of White Lung, the executive editor of Penthouse, and an accomplished author. In today’s interview, Mish says that White Lung are working on a new album. She also discusses her job at Penthouse, her creative habits, her affinity for true crime stories, and much more.

White Lung

Mish Barber-Way Interview Highlights

Mish Barber-Way on her editorial vision for Penthouse: “I’m still trying to navigate that with everyone else that works here and with my editorial staff. I just want a diversity of opinion. I like controversy, I like throwing ideas out there and seeing what sticks. I’m not worried about offending anyone. That was the whole premise behind Penthouse and Hustler: you’re already offending someone who’s uptight with the fact that there’s sex in this magazine, so why worry about everything else, you know? [laughter] It’s just like, this is the place – if we’re gonna go no holds barred, then let’s do it here.”

Mish Barber-Way on pornography in 2018: “We’re in a really interesting time right now, because I feel like there’s this really puritanical, Victorian way of looking at sex and sexual interaction that’s coming in. But it’s also in conjunction with this overexposed ‘sex sex sex’ in our face all the time – camera culture, this and that. There’s this clash there. Erotic entertainment serves an interesting purpose. It kind of knows no bounds. It throws something in your face that makes you feel a big chunk of different emotions. I think when people try and over-analyze it and dig too deep in it, then it starts to get so complicated and then … It isn’t what it was supposed to be anymore, [which is] adult entertainment that’s erotic and supposed to turn you on and make you wanna fuck, you know? It just becomes this thing to pick apart and politicize – and that sucks. [laughter]”

Mish Barber-Way on over-analyzing: “I have a degree in gender studies, and I feel like a lot of the things I was taught made me unnecessarily miserable. Looking at the world through this over-analytical, deconstructing, everything-means-something view that kind of starts to become exhausting. I can’t think like that any more. You start to grow up, you’re like, ‘I don’t wanna be upset about the world.’ [laughs] No thanks! I understand that there are problems – there always will be – but I also don’t wanna walk around pissed off…”

Listen to the complete Mish Barber-Way interview on the Culture Creature podcast.