Karen Owen: After “Sex Thesis”, What Comes Next?

So…what comes next for Karen Owen.

This is probably the question that I’ve been asked most over the past couple of days (except if I know where she is…of course I have no idea).

Speculation is that she will either end up on the talk show circuit, one or more of the national morning news broadcasts or even a book deal.

I’ve heard the full spectrum of responses from “what an absolute whore” to “hey…guys have always done this…why can’t she”.

So…do you have an opinion? Do you expect to see her on TV? Will you read her book? Should she be embarrassed or is should she be proud of her “accomplishment”?

From the Washington Post:

Thanks to the ever-salacious public that have since made her list go viral, Owen may assuage that regret with plenty of cash. Jezebel reports that William Morris agent Ari Golds tried to contact her and HarperCollins is also champing at the bit.

The HarperCollins pitch said, “Even though I’m sure she’s horrified that her, uh, presentation, which was intended for a small group of friends, has gone viral, she’s a very good, funny writer, and I’m wondering if she has any interest in writing a book.”

Owen could join that vaunted legion of women who have cashed out on their sex scandals. After Jessica Cutler was outed from the anonymous sex blog “The Washingtonienne,” she secured a six-figure deal. Eliot Spitzer’s escort Ashley Dupre reportedly managed a $2 million deal, though she never did write the book.

From ABC News:

The 42-page PowerPoint presentation titled, “An Education Beyond the Classroom: Excelling in the Realm of Horizontal Academics,” ranked 13 men Owen was sexually involved with during college, according to their physical attractiveness, athletic ability and talent — in the bedroom.

The thesis was reportedly e-mailed by Owen to only a few of her close friends. But after one of those friends forwarded the document, and then that recipient did the same, the document soon went viral, first appearing on the blog Deadspin.com.

What Happened to Karen Owen…

I’ve had a lot of people asking me this since I posted about her “senior thesis” a few days ago.

Well…I hate to tell you…I have no idea! I’m not sure why people would think I know where she is to begin with! I just passed along information on her thesis and PowerPoint 🙂

As most of you know by now, Karen Owen, a Duke University graduate, compiled a “senior thesis” which was created as a PowerPoint presentation she entitled “An Education Beyond the Classroom: Excelling in the Realm of Horizontal Academics”. Since the presentation was leaked to the Internet, Owen has become the talk of the Internet (at least until Tiger Woods new best friend, Cigar Guy, became the new “it” guy yesterday!).

My guess is that she has gone into hiding, embarrassed at the publicity that her mock thesis has brought (or waiting for her book and possibly made for TV movie deal).

I’m sure that the guys who were included in the presentation are pretty upset (except the guy who finished #1) and planning lawsuits.

Anyways…in case you don’t know who Karen Owen is, or what she created, you can read more about it here.

Be warned, though, that the content is graphic and many will find it offensive. Like they say at the Haunted Houses: enter at your own risk 🙂

From MSNBC:

Owen’s sex ranking is nothing if not precise. She took a list of 13 men she slept with, drawing mainly from Duke’s lacrosse team — the same team that was embroiled in a sex scandal of its own in 2006 — and created a bar graph ranking their sexual prowess. She left little to the imagination in creating a 42-slide PowerPoint presentation, detailing sex in the university library during finals week, sex in cars and, most of all, sex while inebriated.

“In my blackout state, still managed to crawl into bed with a Duke athlete,” Owen commented on one escapade.

Owen called her presentation “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics,” and was clearly having fun mixing her book smarts with her partying experience. She treated her sex ranking as a full-on thesis, writing, “Senior year and college in general often bring about certain situations that result in the seeking of so-called ‘sex.’ Until now, no studies have succeeded in developing a methodology for quantifying and ranking these so-called horizontal academics. In this study, we used data from four years at Duke University to create evaluation criteria for such encounters and applied these criteria to evaluated subjects.”

Karen Owen and Her “Unofficial Senior Thesis”

All I can say is wow when I read about the story of Karen Owen.

In short, the story goes that Owen, a 2010 graduate of Duke University, kept some pretty detailed notes about her numerous sexual adventures with members of the school’s lacrosse, baseball and tennis teams.

These escapades took place over a four year time frame.

UPDATE: MSNBC did a story on this and the video can be found here.

Now…I can see some people keeping this for their own pleasure (although I’m not one of those people), but she then turned this information into her “unofficial” senior thesis which she entitled “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics”.

Nice title!

 

Karen Owen (Credit: Deadspin.com)

 

Once completed, the “project” was distributed to a couple of her friends and, of course, Owen did not expect for it to go further than that. Oh….Karen! How naive we can be 🙂 Did you not expect it to get out? Or…did you plan all along for this to get out? Hmmm…

Follow the link below for the full story, if I’ve peaked your interest. But be prepared, the details about each of the encounters is pretty graphic so if you are offended by sexually explicit content, I don’t recommend continuing!

Oh…and I want to know what you think about this story so please be sure to leave a comment!

From Jezebel:

Duke is in an uproar about a highly detailed “fuck list” that a recent female graduate made — in PowerPoint, complete with penis-size evaluations and dirty talk transcripts. We’ve got that document, and spoke exclusively to the now-contrite author.

Upon graduating, the author decided to pass on the wisdom she had learned, in thesis format. The subject: “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.” The thirteen subjects are each preceded by a tableau of photos of the men, most of which seem to be pulled from Facebook and athletic action shots.

From Spreadit.org:

What was meant to be a mock thesis which used pseudo-academic language soon turned out to be a horror story for Owen, when her friends ended up publishing the list online. The list contained all the men that Owen was sexually involved with and a rating out of ten. Owen put this forward in what was meant to be a humorous powerpoint presentation that ended up making many males angry, along with Duke University.

Apparently, making these lists is a regular occurrence for University students involved in fraternities. The lists aren’t meant to go public, however.

From The News Chronicle:

The list contained photos and names of the 13 members of Duke’s baseball, lacrosse and tennis teams who she had slept with. She ranked them based on several criteria, such as physical attractiveness, size, talent, creativity, aggressiveness, entertainment and athletic ability.

Since the list went viral, Owen has deleted all her social network accounts. In an interview with Jezebel, she said, “I regret it with all my heart. I would never intentionally hurt the people that are mentioned on that.”

From Bleacher Report:

Owen details a specific encounter where she and an athlete had to get a bit creative considering his roommates had visiting family members staying at his house. Not one to let a tiny roadblock get in the way of research, Owen and said athlete decided to hook up in his car. She said it reminded her of high school.

Considering that it will be near impossible for Karen Owen to get a real job after all of this, I smell a book/movie deal.