As any great white rapper knows, where there’s a little controversy, there’s a lot of money to be made — and plenty of fame, if not infamy, to be gained.

I’ll be honest: I am more than a little jealous of the online debate inspired by Darren Franich’s howling critique of the OSA (see last week’s “Ire and Vice” for full coverage of the carnage — the bulk of which occurs in the text following Darren’s witty identifier). Most of my readers (my mom, my little brother’s friends, and, when I tell them there’s a direct reference to them, my friends) rarely have the time or the inclination to comment on my columns, and, even when I manage to attract a few strangers, none of my columns has instigated the type of voluminous, heated feedback Darren regularly receives.

Yes, I’ve gotten several memorable emails and one adorable Facebook message/date request (which, given that it was in response to “Smart, cute, and unavailable,” suddenly clarified how Carrie Bradshaw gets so many men — if you write about sex and/or dating, you’re essentially publishing one long personal ad).

But I’m not talking about valentines, notes of appreciation, or marriage proposals, though I’m sure Darren, Eminem and their fellow controversy-lovers have gotten a few of those. I’m talking about honest-to-goodness, incendiary, fist-pounding intellectual argument. The kind that starts riots and sit-ins and hunger strikes, if not world wars and policy changes.

However, this is not Berkeley and the year is not 1969. No, we Stanford students of the 21st century prefer the low-impact warfare of anonymous online commentary, delivered from behind the safety of the screen and the pseudonym.

I am not excluding myself from this critique. There’s a reason why my columns generally go down quietly; my skin is far too thin to tolerate personal attacks, and my person includes my writing, style and content.

Which is precisely why I’m tip-toeing in to this week’s column about the lack of sex magazines on this campus.

That’s right. Sex. Magazines. As in magazines that contain graphic depictions of scantily-clad bodies and various not-so-subtle versions of the non-verbal intercourse that occurs all over our 8180 acres. As in the sticky-paged Playboys and Maxims lying in most Row house bathrooms. Except, in this case, I’m interested in the versions created of the students, by the students and, obviously, for the students.

If you prefer the aforementioned publications to The New York Times, you probably missed last Sunday’s long, in-depth article on “Campus Exposure,” in which the high-brow periodical took an intellectual walk on the scandalous side by investigating university-produced porn. But unlike most of The Times’ collegiate “education” articles, in which Stanford is mentioned alongside its Eastern counterparts, the Farm was conspicuously absent.

Over the past decade or so, while we dutifully attended classes and carefully selected our single piece of clothing for Exotic Erotic, the provacateurs of Harvard’s H-Bomb and Columbia’s Outlet, as well as Yale’s SWAY, UChicago’s Vita Excolatur, and BU’s unofficial Boink, shed their polo shirts to get down and dirty with digital cameras. A few of the lucky (and entirely PG) ones even made it into The Times.

But we have Roxy Sass, you say. No, no, the article said, there is a difference between these magazines and the “common sex columns — usually written by women and often explicitly confessional — that have popped up like little red-light districts within the respectable black-and-white confines of established school newspapers.” That would be Roxy to a T (although, ever cautious, we keep it anonymous here at The Daily).

So what’s the deal? If 23-year-old Alecia Oleyourryk, a 2005 BU grad and the founder of Boink, is correct, then sex is “everywhere, and it’s always been everywhere for this generation. A body is a body is a body, and I’m proud of my body, and why not show my body? It’s not going to keep me from having a job... It’s not, like, ‘The Scarlet Letter’ anymore. It’s a little badge of honor.”

Does this mean that we’re a campus full of Hester Prynnes and Arthur Dimmesdales? Yes, we have a tradition wherein the men’s swim team runs across campus in their Speedos and sneakers, and a handful of brave souls have been known to bare all under the year’s first Full Moon. But I think it’s safe to say that, save for the bikini-clad Claw bathers and their tan-seeking friends, we tend to keep our t-shirts on and our OSA-funded activities squeaky-clean. If we’re too disruptive to study in the Law Library, it’s hard to imagine the powers that be would agree to let us drop our drawers — in indelible colored ink, no less — with a University stamp of approval.

The next obvious question, given my controversy aversion, is just how far I’m willing to take this argument. Would I “read” such a publication? Probably. Would I write or pose for it? Hell, no. My parents live in the Faculty Ghetto, within walking distance of any conceivable distribution point, and I don’t want to know what my little brother’s roommates would think. Including those with whom I share DNA, there are very few people on this campus who have seen me thus exposed, and I intend to keep it that way. Unlike Alecia, I believe in the powerful combination of future employers and Internet search engines.

Old-fashioned as it may seem, I feel rather exposed right now — and this is just my writing. But at least I’m not alone. If Carrie Bradshaw proved anything over the course of her seven seasons, it’s that the power of the press extends into the bedroom. Particularly in light of my prior column-as-personal-ad comment, I think I’ll stop here.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Consider this a test of readership. Comment online, send a Facebook message, or email Lisa at lisame@stanford.edu.