About 60 McGill students stripped down to their skivvies and birthday suits this week, vying for the opportunity to appear in a special issue of
Playboy.
The legendary men's magazine was in Montreal last week casting for its "Girls of the Top 10 Party Schools" spread.
Playboy recently ranked McGill tenth on its annual list.
Auditions were held at a hotel on Sherbrooke over three days. After filling out forms asking for information ranging from measurements to hobbies, potential playmates were taken into a bedroom suite where they were asked to remove as much clothing as they were comfortable with. Each woman then posed for a handful of Polaroid pictures.
Some ladies donned lingerie, while others went completely nude, perhaps taking to heart the words of David Rams, a photographer who has been on the Playboy masthead for about 10 years.
"We probably won't pick you if you don't take your top off," he said with a smile as a surprisingly demure set of applicants completed paperwork. "Why show up for a Playboy casting if you're not going to take your clothes off?"
Gen Friesen, who said she attended casting to "break the mould of chemistry students," posed topless.
"I'm a bit of an exhibitionist, [so] I was comfortable being nude," said Friesen, U2 Chemistry, adding that she decided to try out after friends encouraged her.
Most applicants described the shoot as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"A lot of girls do it so that they can look back and say, 'I was hot before I had kids,'" said Eden Orfanos, producer of the shoot.
The girls were picked to represent McGill's party-school title. According to a statement released by Playboy the list was determined by editorial staff, who considered aspects of the campus social scene such as proximity to off-campus entertainment, general vibrancy, social opportunities and male-to-female ratio.
McGill officials were not pleased with the ranking.
"This is clearly a promotional or marketing gimmick," said Jennifer Robinson, associate vice-principal communications. "It is not credible and not appreciated."
Robinson said she found it unfortunate that the magazine is using McGill's name.
"We are known for very high-quality students, professors and research," she said. "This is the first time that we have ever been ranked in something like this."
Theresa Hennessey, publicity manager at Playboy, said that being featured as a top-10 party school does not detract from a university's image nor trivialize its academic merits.
"I don't think it tarnishes the university's image at all," Hennessey said. "We're not saying that it isn't a great place to get an education. [Rather], it is also a great place to have a social college experience."
Hennessey said that Playboy hasn't received any complaints from other schools in the ranking, which also includes University of California at Santa Barbara and Florida State University.
Though McGill may take issue with its appearance on the list, Playboy is not violating university policy by recruiting local students.
"We don't do anything on campus," Hennessey said. "We make it clear that we are not affiliated with the universities."
Students, campus groups ambivalent
In all, six McGill students were selected to pose for the magazine. They were photographed over three days in different settings, the primary location being a loft owned by a McGill PhD student.
Madison Chi, U2 Anatomy and Cell Biology, posed for the magazine after attending the casting call with her roommate. She asked that the Tribune use a pseudonym.
Chi said she was surprised that she had been selected.
"You picture these magazines as featuring only the skinniest girls with the biggest breasts," she said. "But then my roommate called from her photo shoot and said they wanted me to come in and pose."
Though Chi felt slightly awkward "getting into it," her overall impressions of the experience were positive.
"It was really laidback and relaxed," Chi said of the shoot. "They looked us in the eye while talking [to us], even though we were in lingerie."
The reaction of campus groups was subdued. Liberated Bodies, a club that promotes healthy body image, did not applaud or condone the recent recruitment.
"We do not want to dictate what others should find liberating or oppressive," the club said in a statement. "We also respect the decisions of the women who chose what was right for themselves when posing for Playboy."
The Union for Gender Empowerment was unavailable for comment.
The "Girls of the Top 10 Party Schools" issue of Playboy hits newsstands on April 7.
It's not too late to bare all for Playboy. Check out www.playboy.com/on-campus/collegecastings.
