Ahh, Penthouse. That venerable rag that has been unfairly compared to Playboy over the years....much to the detriment of Playboy.

It's difficult to pin down the mag, as the results of our men's group poll show. Almost two-thirds of the group wanted to describe it as "political," but only because Alan Dershowitz writes a column. Other wanted to put it on par with Playboy, which drew pistols and broken beer bottles asmodern-day rapiers until the group decided that it wasn't like Playboy at all. Except for the women, of course, but that's beside the point.

"It's porn, plain and simple," stated Louis Mussolini, unrelated to the late, beloved Italian leader. "It's not like Playboy in that respect. I think the women are more....slutty, for some reason."

Another participant countered: "I always thought women liked to be photographed in soft lighting. If men could get away with it and roll around in silk sheets, we would."

Penthouse made a "political" decision to include photos of sexual intercourse recently, a point not unnoticed by our group. "I found it offensive," said one man from Boston. "I mean, to add hard core pictures is to take it one step further to the realm of pornography."

So what is pornography for these men? Almost all of them disagreed that naked pictures alone constitutes porn. But when pressed about Penthouse's inclusion of hard core pictorial essays, the men shifted as though suffering from so much jock itch.

"Some articles are good," said one participant. "Investigative reports about stolen military materiel being sold for profit by soldiers, or the effects of global warming. And while I don't mind the centerfolds, it's all the cheap and sleazy porno ads."

That trait put Penthouse more on par with Playgirl, with its over-reliance on ads for hard core movies or telephone sex that put off a lot of men in the group. "Most of us are white collar," stated Mifume Andressen, a stock broker from San Diego. "We know what we're looking at, but we prefer to maintain that it's all 'men's entertainment,' not a high-school circle jerk party. And quite frankly, that's were Penthouse falls apart."

"I always think of [founder and publisher] Bob Guccione as a lounge lizard," stated Matthew Johansen, "so I find it hard to consider Penthouse a well-rounded mag of politics, sports, issues and naked women. It's like, the magazine is saying, 'Me, too!' and that's a turnoff."

"Yeah, and his son goes off to startup SPIN magazine which totally sucks," chimed in Manuel Estrella from Oxnard, California. "Who does he think he is? Jan Wener?"

One self-described political homosexual decried the entire concept. “What is entertaining about pictures of body parts? The sexuality portrayed in magazines like Penthouse or Playgirl are cartoonish, out of touch, totally unrealized. And having it all surrounded by political commentary or so-called erotic fiction doesn’t make it entertainment for anybody. It’s just magazine units waiting to be sold.”

So while the men's group did like the pictures ("for scientific and educational purposes") and did find some of the articles interesting, the participants were hard-pressed to find relevance for the mag. "It could go away tomorrow, and I wouldn't miss it," stated Emmanuel Sanchez. "As long as there is Playboy, who needs this bullshit?"

Penthouse publishers declined to comment.