Playboy hoax
The Internet was abuzz Tuesday with the surprising news that Hugh Hefner had taken a stand against rape culture.
Replacing his list of the top-10 party schools was the Ultimate Guide to a Consensual Good Time, listing 10 commandments for achieving sexual consent. And this university, coming in at No. 9, made the grade.
“Go forth and spread the good news,” the commandments read. “For all students to be safe at your college party, everyone needs to know about consent. Carrying this truth forth, one upperclass-woman designed, the student body petitioned for, and the student senate ratified a pilot program that passes the good news of consent onto incoming freshman.” Throughout the day, it appeared BroBible, The Huffington Post and Upworthy picked up on the news with several articles linking to the site, partywithplayboy.com.
But Wednesday, the truth came out: The article and attached interview with Hefner himself were only pranks.
“I’ve had sex with thousands of women, and they all still like me,” the fake Hefner said in the interview. “That is because I never used coercion or force.”
It was a statement some students wanted to believe but found hard to trust.
“When I initially heard about the article, I thought it was a really progressive step for Playboy,” said Monica Parks, senior English major. “But I was immediately put off because they hadn’t seemed to be moving in that direction. It was a really sudden change.”
Behind the hoax articles was FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, a group of feminist students from schools across the country, including Maria Romas, a Diamondback opinion editor and senior English major.
Though she was disappointed by the article’s lack of authenticity, Parks said the creators of the hoax succeeded by grabbing the attention of a broad audience and getting people to talk about the subject.
“It was to energize a new demographic and make them more aware of something a group of college feminists may already be aware of,” Parks said.
Playboy magazine hasn’t officially responded to the hoax except to say is not responsible for the article.
So is Hefner not actually “a feminist before there was such a thing as feminism,” as he said in his interview? Given the amount of attention the consent list received — the fake Huffington Post article alone got more than 5,800 likes — he might want to reconsider his marketing strategy.
