Party Down

Playboy Magazine has long managed to be "adult" in the sense of "pornographic" without being the least bit "adult" in the sense of "not juvenile."  From its lousy cartoons and it lame jokes to the leering double-entendres that accompany its photographs of women young enough to be your daughter, it has long been a monthly reminder to American men of just what it was like to be a horny pre-teen.

Or, uh, so we've heard.

Then, yesterday, it seemed that Playboy had turned over a new leaf, and started treating sex as a grown-up thing, to be engaged in thoughtfully and with mutual respect by the people involved.  Even if they were drunken frat boys.

Specifically, Playboy's annual list of Top Ten Party Schools -- or something like it -- was published on the web, with a truly touching preface:

 Over the years, it has been brought to our attention that some of our long-standing party picks have a not-so-toast-worthy, rape-ridden side to their campus life. 

Somewhere in the countless hours we spent tallying up co-eds and scoring beer pong, we lost track of the most essential element of the Playboy lifestyle: sexual pleasure. Rape is kryptonite to sexual pleasure. The two cannot co-exist. For our revised party guide to live up to our founder’s vision, we had to put a new criterion on top. Namely, consent. 

In other words… A good college party is all about everyone having a good time. Consent is all about everyone having a good time. Rape is only a good time if you’re a rapist. And fuck those people.

A couple of great paragraphs, and we wish that the real editors of the real Playboy had written them. We also wish they'd come up with the prudent list of "commandments" for mutually respectful collegiate nookie that follow.

The site is a hoax -- or anyway, a parody -- put together by FORCE, which is committed to "upsetting the rape culture."  Apparently, they also came up with a lot of fake press coverage, too, and planted it all over the web.  Very impressive work.

Parenthetically, let us pause to ask:  What kind of horrible world do we live in where groups like that are necessary?  Where there is an identifiable "rape culture"?  Lord, have mercy.

Anyway, we applaud FORCE for doing such a fine job of this.