In a misguided attempt to come up with something unique to say about Penthouse’s going out of business, Reason’s Sara Rimensnyder floats a silly hypothesis.

The conventional wisdom is that Penthouse can’t compete with more explicit fare available anonymously available on the Internet, and I’ve added that softcore magazines like Penthouse and Playboy are also getting squeezed by the wave of “lad” magazines such as Maxim, FHM and Stuff, which offer better writing and scantily clad celebrities.

Rimensnyder writes, “It’s possible that Penthouse’s readership has gravitated toward more violent fare now that it’s readily available. But if that’s the case, why has the comparatively tame Playboy consistently outsold the smuttier Hustler?”

The question is not how Playboy is doing relative to Hustler but how it is doing relative to what it used to make when it was the only game in town. The same holds true for Penthouse. As I wrote before, Playboy is still losing millions online while amateur outfits that make a nice living for themselves appealing to adult market niches.

Rimensnyder continues:

Surely mainstream attitudes about sex are governed by more than fear of being caught with raunch. Could it be that mainstream man’s high regard and respect for woman governs his taste (and, sometimes, distaste) for porn? That would be news to both Penthouse’s founder and one of its foremost critics.

Could it be that by framing her opinion in the form of a question that Rimensnyder avoids the risk of actually stating what she believes? That would be news to me.

There’s no evidence at all that overall trends in the adult market are turning toward softer material. Indeed, the success of the “lad” magazines depends in large degree to the easy availability of porn on the Internet. That is where people go to see the hard stuff, and the Maxim subscription is for ogling sitcom starlets.