‘Surprised And A Little Bit Shocked’ Pacific Lutheran University Students Part Of Playboy Sex Survey

When Playboy magazine wants to check out sexual mores on college campuses, it tries for a representative sampling. That’s how small, private Pacific Lutheran University got into the mix.

“I think everyone was really surprised, and a little bit shocked to have PLU associated with that article,” said Jenn Tolzmann, president of the Associated Students of PLU.

“At the same time, people feel there is nothing they can do about it now.”

PLU, which has nearly 3,600 students, was one of 12 U.S. colleges surveyed for the story published in the October issue of Playboy.

The 152-item sex-survey questionnaire was distributed to students by professors at each college, but neither the professors nor students knew it was for Playboy, said James Petersen, who wrote the story.

Playboy wanted a mix of schools - public and private, large and small - to reflect different parts of the country.

Including PLU “certainly nailed down our conservative and Northwest school categories,” he said.

The school is owned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is considered a relatively conservative campus.

The 12-college survey found that nine out of 10 students are sexually active and about half are having sex at least once a week. The survey included 10 essay questions that were anonymously quoted in the story. Two quotes were attributed to unidentified PLU students.

The Playboy story created a buzz on campus, but school officials reported no complaints about it.

“I thought it was kind of funny,” said Alicia Manley, editor of the student newspaper, The Mast. “Here I look in other big magazines, like Newsweek or Rolling Stone, and see their surveys on colleges and we’re never in them.

“What’s the one we get in? Playboy.”

Some were annoyed that student respondents weren’t told how the survey would be used.

“It concerns me that students were asked to fill something out and they didn’t know where their answers might end up,” said Ben Egbers, a senior and Mast reporter who wrote a story about the Playboy article. “When a professor hands you a survey you feel some sort of responsibility to fill it out.”

He said he hopes the incident will teach students to ask more questions before agreeing to participate in such surveys.

“That is a very serious concern,” said PLU provost Paul Menzel. But he said PLU would not try to figure out which professor distributed the survey or curb future research.

“The practical result of being so wary would be to significantly stunt information gathering in this society,” Menzel said.

“This is a small curiosity, of no great importance,” he said. “I don’t want to make light of it, but I don’t want to give the issue high credence.”

Playboy didn’t want its role in the survey to skew the results, Petersen said.

Professors were contacted about the survey by story co-author Marty Klein, a sex therapist based in Palo Alto, Calif., and past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex’s west coast chapter.