To the Editor:
I have no affiliation with the College, aside from living here in Hanover, working at an organization which occupies Dartmouth-owned real estate and knowing some people who are affiliated with the College (including some of the individuals who have taken it upon themselves to protect Hanover from the scourge of nude photography.)
Therefore, I have no reason to care if Dartmouth's reputation would be besmirched by having a few of its students disrobe for Playboy's cameras.
I have been following the controversy in the pages of The Dartmouth for a variety of reasons, the most important of these being that this whole business is a nice break from our community's usual stuffiness. Normally, we here in Hanover are too serious to talk about stuff like nudity, masturbation, etc., but it's fun to do so once in a while.
I would like to point out one of the many ironic elements of this story.
The recent anti-Playboy demonstration ended with a forum in front of the Hopkins Center. Inside this building, there are two exhibitions of art which are much sexier than anything shown in the pages of Playboy.
The protesters would of course argue that the oil paintings by Peter Thompson (a professor at Auburn University) and the photos by Jeff Burden are art and that those paintings and those photos are intended as explorations of form, color and light rather than as exercises in sexual stimulation, whereas Playboy photographer David Mecey's work is not art.
However, Mecey's work is art, albeit rather mediocre art, and one of the things which makes his work both mediocre and unsexy is the fact that he never gets beyond the superficialities of form, color and light.
