I found it funny when my name was dropped in a letter to the editor, even though it had nothing to do with the topic of my column. A reader was writing in response to a previous letter to the editor that basically accused men of being chauvinistic and only caring about women because of their bodies.

My name was mentioned in the letter because the previous week I had noted in my column that I have a “hot boy wall” in my dorm room. This was used for evidence to show that women view men as sex symbols too.

And I will personally never deny that. I believe strongly that women are just as driven by sexual desires as men. I have actors on my wall such as Heath Ledger, Taye Diggs and Shane West not because they have great personalities, but because they are eye candy. When women are talking about a hot guy that just walked by, you might hear them say to each other, “That guy has a nice, firm butt.” Rarely, if ever, will you here them say, “Did you see that sexy brain just walk by?” It just does not happen that way.

Many women would like to think we are above looking at physical appearance first, but we are not. Just like with males, looks cause the initial attraction. We are no better at profiling a person’s true self just at first glance. To me it seems the days of double standards for men and women in the sexual world are coming to a halt. Sure, guys will always have their macho magazines like Maxim, Playboy, and Hustler that make them seem like the only sexual creatures. However, women will have theirs too, like Cosmopolitan.

This magazine, lovingly referred to as Cosmo, is one of the items that proves women share similar desires of men and look at males as sex icons. It even goes as far to print “kama sutra” to better enhance a woman’s sex life. Also Cosmo’s Web site, www.cosmomag.com, offers sex tips and even identifies the erogenous zones on a man’s body. This magazine seems to be at the forefront of leading women through a sexual revolution.

Evidence that such a revolution is already in place exists, right on university campuses. In recent studies it has showed that 94 percent of men and 90 percent of women in college have had sex. Granted statistics can easily be skewed, but the closeness of the numbers is still strikingly close for those who still believe women to be pure and virtuous. Women are not as sexually repressed as they were in other periods of time.

But this really is not even about sex as much as it is about how we view the opposite sex. Guys may tape scantily clad women on their doors but females will do it too. I would like to mention, though, that currently all the boys on my wall are fully clothed.

I guess I do not see anything wrong with someone showing off their sexual desires. I am not offended when I walk down the guy’s halls in Birch where I see women wearing string bikinis, lounging on the sandy beach. I know it would be rare to see a man in a Speedo posing the same way, but that certainly would not bother me either. In fact, if you can find a picture of Heath Ledger like that, bring it my way.

Ayrel Clark is a freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication from Johnston.