Karen Owen Duke: If There's Fault, Duke Athletes Are Just As Much to Blame

By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard about Karen Owen and her infamous “thesis.”

For those who haven’t, Owen is a Duke graduate who created a PowerPoint presentation grading and ranking the sexual performance of the athletes she slept with during her time at Duke.

The slideshow went viral and spread like wildfire across the Internet, sending people into a frenzy. Owen herself has been criticised by various media outlets, most notably in a piece on The Today Show.

In the segment, the on-site reporter’s tone implies that Owen’s behavior was not only reprehensible, but that her drinking and sexual habits were well outside the norm of society. Various social media sites have used the words “slut” and “skank” quite liberally.

While I won't debate the fact that Owen was certainly promiscuous, the fact is that she has yet to do anything wrong. Was she stupid? Most definitely. But wrong? Absolutely not.

According to what I've read so far in response to the issue, the concensus is something akin to: Oh my God! College students drink copious amounts of alcohol?! They have sex on a regular basis outside of marriage?! This is awful! I had no idea this was going on!

Anyone who’s been to college in the last 30 years will tell you that the vast majority of college students drink alcohol frequently and have plenty of sex during their four or more years at their alma mater. If you didn't know that, you’ve been living under a rock.

Most people who have gone to college have also gotten kicked out of their room because their roommate had brought a "friend" to play Parcheesi. Most of them also remember girls for whom 13 guys was a month’s worth of horizontal tango. Frankly, it’s not that bad.

College is the time to do those things. You can drink, you can have sex, and if you choose not to, that’s fine, too. But don’t condemn her for having what sounds like a fairly typical (if slightly promiscuous) college experience.

As for the athletes, they are far from victims. It’s not like these athletes didn’t want to sleep with her. Clearly, they all did. In that sense, they’re just as much to blame as she is—even the one who getting married this weekend. There’s no way his soon-to-be-bride thought she was his first. If she did, well, he was wrong for lying, anyway.

But the sex and drinking aren’t the real issues here, are they?

It’s the slideshow itself—the fact that Owen went to the trouble of making a PowerPoint presentation about her adventures between the sheets (or in the library), analyzing and breaking down her partners’ performance for the world to see. She pokes fun at many of them, particularly if they didn’t perform up to par. To many, this seems cruel.

These guys didn’t know that they were going to have their skills broken down in front of a worldwide audience when they slept with her, you say. It’s unfair, and it puts them in an unfavorable light.

But does it really? All Karen Owen did was put the conversations countless numbers of guys in this country (and probably all 13 in that slideshow) have on a regular basis. Men critique their sexual partners to their friends all the time.

There are hundreds of fraternity chapters in the U.S. that have lists very similar to this, which are available to all members and anyone who asks them nicely. They tell members which girls put out and rank them based on who is the best in bed.

It’s not just men, either. If you’ve seen I Love You Man with Paul Rudd, dated a woman who has female friends, know someone who has female friends, or are a woman yourself, then you know that women talk about and you probably critique men’s performance as well. It happens all the time.

So don’t blame Karen Owen for putting her fine Duke University education to good use. Most students at other schools would just record the encounters and distribute the tape on the Internet. Owen breaks down and grades each performance based on a set of variables. She’s got a bright future in whatever business endeavors she pursues.

Owen was just doing what everyone in America does: critiquing her sexual partners. Odds are good her conquests did the same with her and the other girls they slept with.

Was she dumb for putting them in a form that was easily distributed beyond her friends? Yes. But the blame does not rest solely with her.

What about whichever friend broke the code and forwarded this to everyone else? Everyone knows that you don’t go blabbing about other people’s sex lives; let them do it. If someone wasn’t sent the e-mail, there was probably a reason for it.

What about the athletes? They share just as much blame here. Owen had to know about the fraternities’ lists, and odds are good the teams the athletes played on had them too. So she made one of her own. Big whoop.

What about us? We didn’t have to look at the slideshow when we found it. But we did. If people had just ignored this thing, no one would know or care that there was a tennis player at Duke who was bad in bed.

In other words, before you hand Karen Owen the blame for all of this, realize that maybe the athletes aren't victims here. Perhaps they're just as much to blame as she is.