Oh boy, it's Playboy.

Early this past spring I received an email from an editor at Playboy magazine inviting me to participate in a sex columnist round-table discussion about, well, you can guess what about.  And since I'm an optimistic person and enjoy taking things as they come to me I agreed to participate.  I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting, but I was definitely  hoping for a free trip to Chicago, some good (free) food, a celebrity host (Dan Savage, please) and  a little undivided attention.  That bubble soon burst, however, as I didn't hear back from the editor for about two months after I agreed to participate.

In the end there was a discussion, although not around a round table.  The discussion was conducted via email, which of course meant no free trip to Chicago, no free food, and definitely no celebrity host.  Us sex columnists were left to discuss things as we wished with the occasional interruption by Rocky, the Playboy editor, with questions such as "Do you think Playboy is porn?"

I didn't participate much in the discussion.  This is partially because I was busy graduating from college, being irritated with Playboy (for reasons that will be discussed in a moment), and being "over" the topics at hand.  Not that the issues the other columnists brought up weren't things I cared about, but I'd just finished my stint as a sex columnist and was ready to move on to other things.

As for being irritated with Playboy, during the ongoing "round-table" discussion Playboy sent us each a questionnaire that we were meant to fill out and return to sender.  It included questions such as "How many times did you get laid during Spring Break?" and "How does that compare to the average college student's spring break experience?"  And so on.  Maybe I should have expected this sort of thing, after all this was Playboy, but I was honestly hoping this was going to be one of those "I read Playboy for the articles, truly" type of deals.  I was hoping they were going to be looking for a little more substance and a little less "oooh, college girls and boobs!!"  In fact, I was pretty offended by the type of questions that I was expected to answer.  After all, I'd put a lot of work into my columns and I hadn't written them to simply promote the idea that college is a four year long orgy.  But after sending Rocky a curt email informing him that I wouldn't talk about my personal life and a bit of debating, I returned the questionnaire with some silly sarcastic answers.

The fruits of our labor came out in the October 2007 issue of Playboy.  It was massively edited and didn't really sound anything like what had actually taken place in the email correspondence.  The editors had taken any personal story, anything related to lesbian hook-ups, and any mention of how girls really want it (it being any sexual act, just you name it) and combined it into a "discussion".  After reading it I was glad I didn't really participate that much. 

In total, in the final product, I say three things all of which were taken out of context and none of which I'm proud of.  The one that stands out the most is "girls make out with one another at parties all the time," which I can't remember saying, but almost makes me wish I'd attended more college parties while they were readily available.  Or not.  The other two quotes attributed to me are a little better in terms of intelligence and substance, but not by much.  Honestly, the whole article (to me at least) sounds ridiculous.  Just check out the catchphrase "Eight College Girls (And One Obnoxious Guy) On The State Of Sex On College Campuses Today."  Well, of course the guy who's getting laid and writing about it is obnoxious.  Otherwise he'd be a threat to the every male Playboy reader's masculinity and we wouldn't want that, now would we?

But if you still feel like reading "Students On Students", go right ahead. 

 

Comments

[jessica gold]

Lara, as a fellow participant in the "round table" -- thank you for writing this! You've articulated exactly why the entire interview was troublesome/exploitative. I feel the same way as you do and it's nice to see someone else write about that publicly.