ART

Thai cabinet ministers criticized the July issue of Penthouse magazine Tuesday for publishing a likeness of the Buddha, an act which they said was obscene and sacrilegious. A government spokesman told a press conference the cabinet was “horrified” by a picture of the Buddha in a pose of sexual self-gratification. The Thai Embassy in Washington sent Penthouse a letter of complaint saying, “Even the so-called art of eroticism which is the staple of your magazine must have its limit and sense of propriety.” Replied publisher Bob Guccione: “Buddha would not have objected. Masturbation, in Buddha’s terms, would be a living expression of the universal love and joy by which the unceasing fabric of all life is eternally and inextricably interwoven.”