As requested in the comments section, here is my analysis of the first issue of H Bomb Magazine (relevant Crimson articles here and here). I do not have a scanner, so if you want pictures, you will just have to buy the issue (which you can do online through their website). My issue is in less than mint condition, because I threw it into the bottom of a box when I was moving out of my room.
Page 1: Table of Contents. In my issue, this page is crumpled.
Page 2: The two female founders (Misses von Baldegg and Hrdy) write a short piece explaining once again that the magazine is about literary content, and not pornography. By the time they finish reading the issue, I suspect most Harvard students would concur. Those people who flipped through madly, gawking at the pictures, will probably fling it down in disappointment.
Pages 3-4: These two pages contain an exchange between the H Bomb founders and an unnamed Harvard dean and lawyer. They talk about pornography and trademark law ("Harvard Bomb," in my opinion, is less attractive than "H Bomb"), respectively.
Part of page 4 is devoted to an issue of censorship at Harvard from 1990 involving a Durer engraving of Adam and Eve and the shields of Harvard College and of Radcliffe.
Pages 5-6 - Spoiler Warning: An interview with Michael Rodriguez, who teaches two psychology classes at Harvard. He is also the Senior Tutor (a title which, like much at Harvard, makes no sense unless you are familiar with the area - in this case, the house system - in question) in Adams House. The pictures on page 5 have been tastefully covered with white stickers. Peeling them off reveals scantily-clad Harvard students from the Eleganza fashion show (Crimson articles here, here, and here).
Next up is a short pictorial entitled "porno fairies." It must be seen to be believed.
Also on page 6 is an untitled poem. Despite its obvious sexual content, it would not be out of place in The Advocate, another Harvard literary publication.
Pages 8 and 9 contain an article about condoms. Its thesis is adequately summarized by its subheadline, "better condoms = better sex."
A strange but interesting article appears on pages 10-13. It manages to combine Craigslist, Lacan, and sexual fantasy into a comprehensible piece of writing.
On page 15 is a very short piece of fiction about a sexual encounter between a girl and a friend of her brother. Because of its conciseness, it never really goes anywhere, and none of the secondary characters are developed beyond the barest of caricatures.
There is another poem on page 17. I do not have much to say about it, as I did not find it that interesting (the picture on page 16 was somewhat distracting, also).
Another interview occurs on pages 18-19. The subject of this one is Thomas Laqueur, a professor from Berkeley. His latest book concerns masturbation.
Pages 20-22 are occupied by a biographical article about being sexually liberated (the title of the article is "Sexually Liberated Urban Twentysomething," which makes up the acronym "slut").
The "centerfold" (in reality, a scene of twelve nude people and one inflatable doll) is on pages 24 and 25.
On page 26 is another poem. I would assume that most people would find its title, "tibi dabo" incomprehensible (actually, if not for its last line, I would not understand the entire thing). Searching the omniscient Google eventually brought up this page, about a mountain in Spain, which includes an amusement park, an observatory, a physics museum, and a church among its landmarks. While I am not sure whether it has anything to do with the poem, it seemed more applicable than other results.
Page 27 contains another short piece of fiction. Unlike the one on page 17, this one works, using the concept of a dream to interesting effect.
An analysis of the junction between art and pornography, using the art of Jeff Koons, is on pages 29-31. The upper left corner of page 30 contains my favorite piece of content in the magazine; a drawing on a napkin. A man sits watching a television below the words "Dear H-Bomb." He states, "This porn is weird." Too true.
An analysis of Vanessa Beecroft's gallery exhibits (referred to in the piece as "perfomance-installations") is on pages 34-35.
Page 36 contains another poem. This one, I am certain, is about sex.
Pages 37-39: An interview with Marc Hauser, who teaches an immensely popular course in the Core Curriculum called "The Evolution of Human Behavior" (nicknamed "Sex").
On page 40 is an article about Harvard women who I think will only be funny to Harvard men. It goes as far to use the word "Vago-American."
This makes an adequate segway into the next article, an entertaining piece by the (former) most requested person on crimsonhookups.com.
Alas, H Bomb returns to seriousness on page 43, with an article about depression and loneliness.
The next article generated quite a bit of contraversy, as this Crimson article shows. In my opinion, the article was less about rape than about youth and strange relationships. And maybe S&M.
And that is the end. I suspect my blog traffic will go up in the next couple of days as a result of it being placed higher on Google results for terms like "harvard sex," but it does not matter. I personally think H Bomb's biannual publishing scheduling will lead to a general lack of interest. except among freshmen, who have not seen the magazine yet. Even more important is whether they will be able to continue to convince Harvard students to pose in the nude. While a ridiculously large amount of Harvard undergraduates seem willing to run naked twice a year during "Primal Scream," the permanence of a paper magazine seems to dissuade them from taking off their clothes in this instance, regardless of the literary merits of such a decision.
