Fun_People Archive
22 Oct
Posters of Naked Women Fail to Draw Real Naked Women to Dorm Room

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 97 16:46:21 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Posters of Naked Women Fail to Draw Real Naked Women to Dorm Room

[Definite material for the Annals of Improbable Research...  -psl]

Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Jeff Moore <jbm@instinet.com>

"Posters of Naked Women Fail to Draw Real Naked Women to Dorm Room"
	The Onion, October 8, 1997.

MANHATTAN, KS--A trio of posters depicting scantily clad women, hung
recently in a Kansas State University dorm room, have been found to have
"little to no effect" in facilitating the presence of actual naked women in
that room, reported a Kansas State housing department study released Monday.

The posters, printed by alcoholic-beverage manufacturers as promotional
items, were intended to establish a fun, party-like atmosphere, in which
the presence of naked women would be suggested and encouraged. Their actual
effect, however, was "minimal if not entirely nonexistent," the study found.

"Our thinking was that these posters would set a tone," freshman Chad Durham
said. "We enjoy beer here in Selham Hall West room 508, and we share an
equally enthusiastic interest in naked women. We thought that by combining
these two elements via these posters, we would establish not only a mood of
beer-drinking fun, but also one of casual female nudity or semi-nudity."

"The idea was to create an environment in which attractive women would find
themselves comfortable and at ease, not only drinking beer, but also simply
being naked," Durham added. "We also sort of hoped that they might have sex
with us."

"None of these things have happened," Durham added. "It would appear that
our conclusions were completely unfounded."

The housing department report, compiled over the course of three weeks spent
monitoring the dorm room and its immediate surroundings, categorically
concluded that "there exists no measurable cause-and-effect relationship
between the presence of the naked-women posters and the willingness of
non-photographic human women to appear naked at or near that location."

The study went on to report no notable relationship between the number of
naked women in the room before and after the decision to acquire the
posters, other than the fact that in both cases the number was zero.

"I can't understand it," roommate and hotel-management major Kurt Beem said.
"We had it all planned out. I just can't see where we went wrong.  Perhaps
we need to know more about women in general, clothed and unclothed alike,
before we can accurately affect and predict the behavior of the nude ones,
specifically."

Surprisingly, the study did find the posters to have a significant effect
on alcohol purchase, causing a notable rise in the roommates' consumption
of the alcoholic beverages advertised by the posters, including a 35 percent
sales increase for the wine cooler associated with the poster featuring the
largest-breasted model.

One reason for the roommates' initial optimism regarding the poster project
was the earlier success they had had with other, differently themed posters.

"Everybody liked the Miller Lite poster and the Bud Dry neon sign, and they
did in fact seem to be successful in establishing and facilitating a
bar-like, drinking-oriented dorm interior," Beem said.

"Similarly encouraging results seemed evident after our decision to display
our 'Rockin' USA' poster, which depicted a guitar rocketing into the air
with an American flag in the background," Beem added, noting that the poster
had indeed made the place seem, overall, "more rockin'."

"Unfortunately, the strategy does not seem to have any effect on glamorous,
product-endorsing models," Beem said. "In fact, the only effect of the
posters so far has been that we tend to get real horned up when we look at
them. Jesus Christ Almighty, get a load of that rack. Man!"

© 1997 Peter Langston