Can I confess some-thing to you, gentle reader? I have read Playboy magazine. I was 13 years old and sitting in my best friend Tom’s garage. One of his older brothers had given him a copy of the sacred text we called Playboy.  There she was. Real. Naked. Woman. Bare as the day she was born. I remember her name. It was Gem. I liked the sound of it, like a crystal or precious stone. That young lady shone like a thousand suns in full supernova.

     Amazing and breathtaking were hardly the words. Amid the smell of car exhaust, grease and paint, my friend and I were transported to a world of splendor to match the highest flights of poetic fancy.  Simply wonderful.

     In the intervening seven years I have read Playboy a few times. Once for a photo spread of Marilyn Monroe. Intimate portraits of the woman who defined sex and sexuality in this century seemed like a very nice collector’s item. I also purchased the recent millennium issue, to complete a collection of millennium issues from a multitude of magazines for a small time capsule. Never once did the naked images on the page affect me as much as my first time.

     Now you must be thinking: Pervert! Of course you are, after all a real man would never admit to looking at beautiful naked women. He would just say some flim-flam about how he “reads it for the articles.”

     I read it for the articles too. The beautiful naked women also make the experience enjoyable.

     So now you know, I read Playboy. I like looking at beautiful naked women. I am, by some standards, a pervert. I am, not apologizing for any of this. I am, however, taking a stand against the lunacy of radical feminist thought that wants to see Hugh Hefner crucified and the bunnies burned at the stake.

     Feminism is not an enemy of mine, I am speaking here of the kind of feminism that has slogans like “All men are born rapists” and go after magazines like Playboy for “exploiting women.”  Let us address the latter point since the former is so imbecilic that it defies any attempt to rebuff it. The exploitation of women is a very real concern of mine. When I read figures that state that by and large women make 60 cents on the dollar compared to men, this enrages me. When I hear my mother, my cousins, my female friends tell me about being afraid when walking at night, this enrages me. When I see a woman choose to pose naked in a magazine, I am not enraged in the slightest.

     The fact of the matter is that radical feminist thought is more misogynistic than Hef and his bunnies could ever be. Women who choose to pose naked in Playboy are well-paid, and often do it with the hopes that the exposure will lead to bigger and better things.  This idea is not a total impossibility. Look at Jenny McCarthy, Cindy Crawford, Carmen Electra, Bo Derek—all of these women started, or jump-started, their careers by appearing in Playboy. These women made conscious choices. They were all of age and responsible for their own actions.

  Individual responsibility: What a great bugbear of all modern discourse, but here is the center of the issue. The women of DePaul who choose to be part of the Playboy pictorial should do so with the full knowledge of the impact that this choice will have on their life.  That wonderfully lovely photo of you posed in a slinky nightgown may seem like the tops today, but what about when your young son finds an old dog-eared copy and gawks at that same photo. A shudder-inducing thought, but further consider that any man you meet may have spent quite a great deal of time perusing your naked form during their college years.

     These points may not seem like the “pro” side of the argument. But there are, I assure you. For I believe that any young woman who bears these, and myriad other possible pitfalls, in mind and still wishes to pose, should do so. The difference between the pro and the con is the confidence I possess in the mental faculties of these women to make the right decision for them.  Women are equals to men, and should have every right to make any decision related to their bodies as defined by the laws of this nation and whatever god you may believe in. Simple as that.

     As for the point that DePaul  will be disgraced by this pictorial spread, I say simply and resolutely, Balderdash. First of all, Catholic institutions around the world, from the Sistine Chapel to Reubens’ work in Belgian cathedrals, are decorated with the nude form in all its glory. To argue that the naked human form is sinful or immoral is to use the same argument  Michelangelo's critics used. For a dramatic reading of this specious argument I direct you to “The Agony and the Ecstasy”—the book or the film.

     Also, DePaul has a proud 100-year tradition, and it is highly unlikely that the naked photos of a few students will bring an end to that tradition.

     Remember the Joey Meyer dismissal? What about “Video-game-gate?” Not ringing any bells? Of course not.

     They passed quietly into the history of DePaul as footnotes for historians and yearbook enthusiasts. Scandals happen; they live, they thrive and die off quickly. This will not hurt DePaul’s image. Examine this from both possible reactions. In example one you have the libido-frenzied high school junior who absolutely demands to go to DePaul just to meet the “really hot babes” in his latest issue of Playboy.

     Then you have the same student, minus the libido-induced frenzy, who is deeply offended at the lack of decorum showed by DePaul students and refuses to put his hard-earned loans and grants into the DePaul kitty.  Frankly, neither of these students are of the caliber DePaul is in dire need of.