Duke “Lay List” Makes It On "SVU"

Duke “Lay List” Makes It On "SVU"

Television News

By our guest blogger, Emma Gray

By now, the story of Karen Owen’s NC-17 rated list of trysts is old news. Two months ago, Owen’s PowerPoint of men that she slept with while an undergrad student at Duke University went viral. Aptly titled “An Education Beyond The Classroom: Excelling In the Realm of Horizontal Academics,” the document rated each “specimen” in excruciating detail. It seems that this sensationalized story is now being turned into a storyline for "Law and Order: SVU."

According to Jezebel, the writers and producers for the show took an instant interest to the Karen Owen story, finding her PowerPoint to be “clever” and quite funny. So naturally, they turned it into a story about lady murder.

The episode, which airs Wednesday, December 1, features the investigation of the murder of Caitlin Lamarck. Lamarck is a woman in her twenties who makes a PowerPoint of all the men that she’s slept with at her office, entitled “My Lay List: A Scholarly Treatise On Office Relationships.” After a party, she turns up dead.

It will be interesting to see exactly how "Law and Order: SVU" chooses to portray “Lamarck” and her co-workers. An excerpt from the script, obtained by Jezebel, shows a conversation between the female Detective Benson and her male colleague. She questions the double standard placed upon women who have a lot of sexual encounters – men as “studs” and women as “sluts.” The massive response to--and media attention about--Karen Owen’s joking document brought this issue to light. It is ultimately refreshing to see "SVU" putting a television spin on an entertaining and interesting real-life event. Thankfully, Owen’s real-life story did not end in murder.

I, for one, will be tuning into "Law and Order: SVU" tonight to see how this episode plays out. Does the televised version of the Duke “Lay List” strike your curiosity? Or have you had enough of sexy PowerPoints?