Yale feminists pay students not to pose for 'Playboy'

Some Yale University students have decided to fight Playboy's forthcoming "Women of the Ivy League" issue not with protests -- but with checkbooks. The Yale Women's Center is raising money to pay fellow students not to pose for the magazine, the Yale Daily News reported Monday. Last month, Playboy came to the University to photograph women for the October issue, which will feature naked or semi-naked Ivy League students. Playboy last ran an Ivy League photo spread in 1986. According to College senior Susane Colasanti, who was photographed for the issue last month, the magazine pays $100 for a picture of a clothed model, $250 for a topless pose and $500 for full frontal nudity. The Yale group is prepared to match Playboy's offer and pay the four students selected to represent Yale in the pictorial $500 each not to pose. The organization has already raised $1,000 in donations. Yale senior Sarah Haan, a member of the school's women's center, said Playboy's pictorials are degrading to women because the models' bodies are given more significance than their intellects. "Men just look at their breasts, and forget their other achievements," she said. But some University feminists said they think the Yale students' good intentions are misplaced. College senior and Penn Women's Alliance member Jesse Hergert said that "paying women not to pose seems goofy." There are many more deserving feminist causes which could benefit from such fund raising, Hergert added. No one at the University made such a visible protest of Playboy's presence on campus last month. Still, English graduate student and Penn Women's Alliance member Debra Pickett said University students are not apathetic to women's issues. She noted that the University feminist community was divided over the issue of pornography, and therefore its reaction to Playboy cannot be used as a litmus test of political activity. Hergert commented that there were some protests at the time of Playboy's visit to the University, but that she "has no real problem with adult women making money any legal way available." The Coalition held a rally in February to protest a speech by Playboy Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Christie Hefner on campus. Yale sophomore Richard Edelman said that "interest groups at Yale sometimes take things too far." Edelman said he supports the right of college-aged women to decide what they want to do with their bodies. "For people who claim to be liberals, this shouldn't be a big deal," he said.

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