Starting in 1977, Playboy visited Ohio State periodically to recruit women to pose for the magazine in pictorials of college women. 1991 was one such year, where OSU was the last stop in the Big Ten pictorial. However, there were protests, although fairly small, all around the nation against Playboy‘s visit. The University of Michigan had the largest demonstration of about 200 people (Harrell, 1). One student from the Feminist Women’s Union reports criticism of the portrayals of women in Playboy to the Michigan Daily, “They’re trying to eroticize women college students and thereby trivialize us” (Harrell, 1). Another student from Indiana University who went to the try outs disagreed saying, “I don’t think it is degrading at all. I went more for fun.” One spokesman for Playboy responds to the protests by using feminism as his argument, “…I think all people want to make up their own mind for their own ideals…seems to go against the fabric of American Feminism” (Harrell, 1). He said that applicants must be 18 or older, and they can choose whether they want to pose in street clothes, bathing suit, semi-nude or nude.
Groups from Big Ten schools, saw the situation from a very different approach. Indiana University picketed the photographers headquarters. In Madison University of Wisconsin, flyers were disseminated of an altered playboy ad saying, “Playboy‘s photographer is here and masturbating” (Harrell, 2) At the University of Illinois, a group called Men Against Sexual violence protested outside of the photographer’s hotel, demonstrating with the idea that Playboy promotes sexual violence on campus and in broader society.
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