"As I recall, the law school students at the University of Minnesota conducted an annual election — the Plonsker-Baine Poll — to determine the women at the law school whom the men would most like to sleep with."

"The voting was conducted on the law school premises and the results were posted in the law school’s administrative offices. The posted results noted the top 10 women as democratically determined."

So writes Scott Johnson, in a post at Power Line called "The Persistence of 'Locker Room Talk.'" I've quoted the paragraph that jarred me — because it's not about locker room talk at all. It's one thing to say men are going to talk about sex when they are alone with other men — because what fires up male sexuality more than being with other men? — and that it's too repressive and too at war with nature to outlaw it. But it's something else altogether when that male-on-male talk breaks out into the common spaces of an educational institution. Then it's not the male bonding of the locker room, and it can be motivated by an intent to communicate that this is a male-dominated institution where women are subordinate creatures.