Playboy Caters To Society's Lows

The front-page Crimson headline says "Students Interview With Playboy/Fifty Harvard Women Apply to Pose for Special Ivy League Issue" (news story, Apr. 18, 1995). The inside headline, though, says only "Bunnies?"

The Crimson headlines say it all, really. By applying to pose for a pornographic magazine, these 50 women reduce themselves to "bunnies."

The rationale offered by the "bunnies" that The Crimson interviewed should be disturbing to all of us. The women quoted spoke of being comfortable with or proud of their bodies, or talked about breaking stereotypes of Harvard women. If they are out to prove that Harvard women, too, can be held up as objects for the drooling slimeballs who flip through the magazine, then they are certainly on the right track. Great, we too can be Playboy bunnies.

These women should realize that they are contributing to a destructive and immoral industry which uses the bodies of women as its raw materials and the scum of humanity as its consumer base. Pornography is not art, and it is not about women's identities or personalities. Women do not have to give in to this type of sick sexual objectification. I urge the "bunnies" who applied to Playboy this week to withdraw their applications. Olive C. Langendorf '97