I couldn't really care less about that site but then you had to mention the pencil case. Gooooooooooood how I hate those cutesy products adorned with the playboy bunny. As if this is something we should aspire to? As if carrying around a folder with a bunny on it to class makes some kind of positive statement about your feminity?

Spew.

Supposedly Playboy U is the new facebook, and the draw is that it supposedly offers social networking with Playboy material college-aged women? The point of this is if Playboy U takes off, which I know it will, Heffner is going to turn a social networking site into some sort of a paid site in which college students are posed nude.

Although a pro-sex feminist, something about enticing my friends and classmates to pose nude for money, so that Heffner can make more money from it, and misogynistic consumers can oggle at these women, seems to scream comodification and objectification to me.

It goes to show, though, that money does talk. Suppose college-aged women had the economic power and autonomy they need to sustain themselves while getting an education, how many would actually join this site, knowing its intended purpose?

I'll bet that in six months, Playboy U, like facebook, will go public.

At least they used the operative word for the students who would use this: "Lonely."

Speaking of facebook, you can become friends with Walmart on facebook.

Just type "Walmart" in the search term. Funny stuff.

If you can be friends with Walmart, I think you should also be able to be friends with Kim Gandy. But, alas, Kim is not on facebook. :( Nor is Ellie Smeal.

"It goes to show, though, that money does talk. Suppose college-aged women had the economic power and autonomy they need to sustain themselves while getting an education, how many would actually join this site, knowing its intended purpose?"

ProFeministMale, you're exactly right - and that's a good argument for stipends [that is, the government giving students money to live on while they're in college - a lot of countries in Europe have been doing that for decades, our country should join the club!]

I agree with profeministmale, this is going to turn out to be just another ploy to get college age women naked for Playboy, especially since they've been having problems with that in the past, for issues like their Pac 10.

How I know this is I was a student at USC and about a year, or maybe two, ago Playboy came to our campus to scout for potential models because they were reviving their Women of the Pac 10. The turn out was highly disappointing for them and not what they were expecting. We had an article about it in our school paper about it and if I remember correctly it wasn't just our school that had dismal numbers, it was a majority of the Pac 10.

It made me happy in a way. :)

Hey UltraMagnus...when was this? I graduated in 04 (Fight On!). Don't remember any Playboy ploys, so it must have been after my time. Do you have a link to the DT article?

That's just... sad.

"Speaking of facebook, you can become friends with Walmart on facebook.

"Just type 'Walmart' in the search term. Funny stuff."

Meanwhile, you can be friends with the American Planning Association on MySpace:

http://profile.myspace.com/american_planning_assoc

If anyone I know joins that ridiculous networking site, I think I'll just have to remove them from my Facebook friends list.

Okay, I won't be mean, but I really don't want Heffner or the Girls Gone Wild crowd to have any more influence on my generation's culture than they already do.

Ariel Levy is right; this generation is being swallowed up in the porn culture. The pouty pictures on the main page made me want to gag.

The PlayboyU site has a box on the right side where you can give them feedback. Maybe we should all tell them what we think.

I left this message for them:

Just what women at my school need: more messages telling them that fitting one old man's idea of what is sexy is what we should strive for, and there's no better power we can achieve than making men horny. Our young men are also being told that women exist to fulfill their fantasies, and anyone not up to their standards is a fun-spoiling waste of space. It used to be that guys would have a couple Playboy magazines hidden in their mattresses, which was all fine and dandy, but now women are expected to love Playboy too, buy all the shirts and accessories, take pole-dancing classes, and alter everything from their lips to their labia so they can look like the Bunnies. While I understand people are occasionally in the mood to look at nude photos, I think it's dangerous to make porn a central part of young people's lives, so that it's as mundane as checking one's e-mail. I don't appreciate money-hungry companies trying to get the intelligent, independent women in my school, who are on their way to careers in politics, medicine, education, etc., to pout and show cleavage for the camera.

Well, with all the half naked lady pics on Facebook, it pretty much IS the same as Playboy. How much more convenient to tie the two together!