Karen Owen Duke: The Latest on the Duke List Sex Scandal
It's official: Karen Owen's "F*** List" has gone viral.
The Duke University senior's thesis on her sexual escapades has been shooting through the Internet like wildfire.
As if the Internet wasn't enough, even the mainstream media's gotten in on the act, as Owen's list was a topic on the CBS Evening News.
The full PowerPoint presentation of the Duke senior's adventures in college athletics can be found on deadspin.com, but reaction has been widespread and mixed.
Must Read: Karen Owen and the Top Sports Sex Scandal Whistleblowers of All Time
Let's take a look at what some of the reaction has been from the media and the general public.
All of this analysis of Owen's list begs the question: why did she only sleep with athletes? And why so many lacrosse, baseball and tennis players?
Are there no other attractive men at Duke to choose from? Did she not like basketball, and if not, why go to Duke?
For all we know about her sex life, there are still so many questions left unanswered about Karen Owen. Maybe she'll publish another thesis on her next batch of sexual escapades, and combine it with this one to make an actual research study.
Owen's list has been a hot topic among men and women alike, and the reaction has understandably been mixed.
There are those who condemn Owen for her sexual promiscuity, claiming that women should be chaste until marriage. Some of these critics want chastity from both sides, but others are abiding by the old double standard regarding men's and women's sexual habits.
Then there are those who are outraged at those who are outraged. They saw Owen as a girl who was sexually active, who will now be much more careful with who she beds down with. In short, this group claims, Owen was a dream girl, and they went and ruined everything.
Finally, we have the normal, sensible human beings. They don't condemn Owen for having sex, even if she had it a lot. They see the slideshow for what it is: not a symbol of the dangers of the internet, not the sign of a morally loose woman, but instead merely a joke between friends that went public.
Was it a funny joke? Yes. Is Karen Owen still laughing? Probably not. Is she still friends with whoever sent the slideshow out? Highly unlikely.
Another common theme in the media coverage of Owen's endeavors is the fact that Duke's reputation will take a hit with the release of this list.
How? Why? Because students at Duke drink alcohol like students at every college in America? Or because Duke athletes engage in sexual acts with other students, like every athlete and single male at colleges across the country?
If anything, Duke should be touting the fact that one of their students went to the trouble of breaking down each of their sexual partners' Parcheesi skills and analyzed them, then compared them to one another to compile a powerpoint presentation. At most schools, students would just record their encounters and send them out.
Plus, this will be a huge boon to the Blue Devils' recruiting efforts, for obvious reasons.
The reaction to Owen's list has been strong (college kids have sex before they're married?!?! NO WAY!), she isn't the first person to have her sexual habits aired out for the world to see and read about.
Search the internet and you'll find blogs devoted to women grading their partners' sexual aptitude. Owen's was not voluntarily disseminated to the masses, but it was shared among friends and it's no worse than a lot of what's out there.
Owen wasn't the first, and she won't be the last, either. Some other idiot is going to accidentally send something inappropriate to their entire contact list, or forward an inappropriate email to other people.
While it's clear the powerpoint was never meant for public viewing, has anyone really been harmed by seeing it?
Owen's chances of sleeping with more college athletes have completely vanished, but she's already graduated anyway. Besides, she sent it out there, it's not like her computer was hacked and someone found this list.
As for the general public, we all knew that there was promiscuous sex running rampant on college campuses, and that young women can have multiple sexual partners. So if you were offended or hurt by Owen's list, you were probably looking for something to be offended at.
The only potential victims here are the men. Sure, they were analyzed and critiqued like they really were some sort of graduation thesis. But odds are good, they've told their friends about conquests who were good or bad in bed, so why shouldn't she be able to? Just because the list is out there for public consumption doesn't make her a bad person, just an idiot.
Besides, if you're one of the top three, or just one of the top half of the list, who all got 7 or better out of 10, what are you complaining about?
Now, if you're in the ranks of the guys who got a four or lower, you might take issue with her findings. But whose fault is it that you did a subpar job of dancing the horizontal tango?
Owen has no one to blame but herself here. If the people she sent the list to were "Close friends", wouldn't she know if one of them couldn't keep their traps shut? If she didn't want it to be shared with other people, she should have made it as mind-numbingly boring as possible.
From what I've seen of it, the slideshow is witty, and well-written. She's heavy on the humor and sarcasm, and when a guy's performance was bad, she makes it clear.
But it doesn't change the fact that if she was sending it to close friends, she had to know this thing was going to spread. Not as quickly or widely as it has, but campus legend status was all but assured the instant she clicked send.
While Owen's list has been a hit on the internet, many news media outlets have taken this as an opportunity to discuss the dangers of the internet.
The common theme in most reaction pieces is this: Nothing is sacred online. Anything posted on the internet is going to hit the masses, be it via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, whatever. If it's remotely controversial, it'll go viral in a heartbeat.
While that's true, it's also not exactly news, now is it? We've known for a few years now that you can't post things like lists of people you've had sex with on the internet.
Owen's list was featured on the TODAY show on NBC, and the tone of their piece seemed to condemn Owen for her promiscuity.
The reporter talks of her drunken state during several of the encounters, then makes the leap from consensual sex to the Duke Lacrosse rape allegations of 2006. Because, clearly, drunken consensual sex is on par with being accused of rape.
NBC then brings on an "Internet Security Expert", Donna Rice-Hughes. Rice- Hughes goes on to state the obvious about how nothing is safe on the internet.
Talk about must-see T.V.



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