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.”