Get ready,

ladies. Your chance for stardom is here.

Actually, by

the time you read this it's probably gone. According to a report I heard

on the radio this week, Playboy magazine was coming to Atlanta to interviewer

prospective, shall we say, participants. It appears that the magazine

intends to select Miss July 2002 from the Atlanta pool of applicants.

What a fantastic

opportunity. At least, that's what hundreds of young women are undoubtedly

thinking right now. Sadly, that's the way most people think when all they're

thinking about is immediate gratification and not long-term consequences.

Consider the

case of Becky Lynn Gritzke, for instance. She, like many others, is facing

many years of answering for a seemingly harmless indiscretion during her

college years. As is so typical in this era, she is seeking retribution

in the courts, and she has no business doing so.

Ms. Gritzke

is suing the producers of the "Girls Gone Wild" videos because

she appears in one of their videos as well as a commercial for them. If

you watch television into the wee hours of the morning, you may have seen

the commercial or one like it.

"Girls

Gone Wild" is a series of videos chronicling the naked and drunken

escapades of college students and other stupid young adults across the

country. Filmed mostly in various spring break hot spots, they are filled

with scenes that can only be seen in the TV ads with a bunch of those

psychodelic squiggly boxes used by technicians to blur the picture.

It seems that

young Becky Lynn took a break from her studies at Florida State University

a few years ago to take in the sights and sounds of Mardi Gras. As many

of you probably know, it is a time-honored tradition on Bourbon Street

for young ladies to display their, ahem, assets by lifting their shirts

in exchange for some cheap beads. Wanting to get into the spirit of the

occasion, young Becky Lynn did just that.

Imagine her

horror when she found out some time later that an enterprising video producer

had made her a nationwide star.

I don't know

the specifics of her lawsuit, but I'm sure it mentions mental anguish,

pain and suffering, and the like.

From a purely

economic standpoint, the producer of these videos is a genius. He's probably

a Hugh Hefner wannabe who got his start with Mommy and Daddy's camcorder

at assorted frat parties. I went to college with dozens of guys like this,

except for the fact that this one went on to make his mark in a recession-proof

industry video porn.

According to

news reports, the defendant responded to Ms. Gritzke's lawsuit by saying,

"There is no privacy protection for people who take their clothes

off in public, especially at a big public event where many people have

cameras."

Not a lot of

gray area there, from where I'm sitting. Anybody who takes his or her

clothes off in front of hundreds of people on a public street deserves

whatever humiliation is coming. Besides, if Becky Lynn didn't mind a few

hundred people gazing at her breasts (all I did was type the word "breasts,"

and I'm embarassed), then why should she mind if a few million dysfunctional

males drool at her image on their television sets?

Although I've

never had the pleasure of meeting this young woman, I imagine she has

something else on her mind. First of all, a large number of friends and

family members are now aware of this episode. That's something to keep

in mind the next time you think, "I can (name your indiscretion here).

Nobody will ever know. " That's a lie. Someone always finds

out, and it's usually the last person you want to know. A large number

of participants in last year's Gold Club trial found that out the hard

way.

Second, there's

the matter of Becky Lynn's future family. Should she ever be blessed with

children, she could very well face this scenario one day: "Mom, so-and-so

at school showed me a picture of you, and you didn't have clothes on."

That'll make most parents cringe. Speaking from the other perspective,

the thought of people seeing pictures of my mother in the altogether gives

me the creeps.

So it comes

down to this: How important is your reputation? Do you want it tarnished

forever on video because of one silly thing you did as a young person?

Think about that the next time you consider stepping on a stage at a wet

T-shirt contest or getting intoxicated and possibly doing something humiliating

or even criminal and not even remembering it.

That's an image

that should be forever etched in your brain, clear as crystal with none

of those squiggly TV boxes.

[Monroe Roark

can be reached at [email protected] .]