Comment: The Penthouse Paradox
A new image for Penthouse as it sets it sights on an older audience – but one thing remains the same

She’s been the twinkle of the Daily Star, she was a prize exhibit in Zoo, and now Lauren Pope is Penthouse’s first ‘pet’ since its 2007 relaunch. And it may prove a good career move for the topless temptress –the raunchy rag has been relaunched with a more cultured audience in mind. Worldly, sophisticated and confident with his sexuality – meet the mantellectual.

But while the magazine may have been radically rebranded, Lauren certainly hasn’t. It’s a familiar façade for her. Her arms strewn suggestively across her breasts, inviting her captor to pin them down by her sides. Her lips perched in a prurient pout. Her bottom protruding towards the reader – her new owner.

But surely the scholarly urbane mantellectual will be repelled by Lauren’s easiness – her undiscriminating offer. We’re told he has confidence in his sexuality – is he not confident enough to buy a broadside without such licentious flesh on the cover? Although come to think of it, if he’s so sexually confident, what does he want with a magazine whose cover promises ‘8 ways to last longer in bed’?

Or is the magazine really aimed at the lad born before his time? A lonely bohemian who missed out on the liberation of all things lad. The man who spent his stag night in his local rather than with the prostitutes of Prague. The man who hung up his dancing-shoes long before the chain lapdancing clubs came to town. Who courted in the age when it wasn’t acceptance to buy your partner poledancing lessons for Valentine’s Day.

Such a ladult would have had a troublesome time of late. He’s too prudish for the top-shelf treats (although he’d been pressed to find much difference between their content and Penthouse’s) and feels out of rhythm with the teenage kicks of Nuts. But now thanks to Penthouse he can leer over Lauren in comfortable surroundings – in his own habitat.

Yes, peer into its page and Penthouse is exposed as familiar filth with a new camouflage. The same thrills, with different fills. For pornography is the tonic in these crude cocktails. Mix 40% pornography with splashes of Playstation and you’ve got a lads’ mag. While 40% pornography topped up with Sunday supplement makes the perfect treat for the mantellectual – serve on ice.

Smut is no longer the doting darling of the adolescent. Now new eyes scan the contours of Lauren’s body – a maiden voyage across tides of vulgarity. But if Lauren could see back from that gaudy gloss she’d see something familiar in those eyes: that same predatory focus, those same inhuman desires, that same emotional vacuum. Men are all the same, she might say. And she’d have a point. Swap gadgets for golf, trade 50 Cent for Forty Licks, and their magazines certainly look suspiciously similar.