After Hiatus, Rethinking H Bomb

In a Quincy House dorm room late in October, a half-dozen editors of a campus publication brainstormed ways to make the third issue of their magazine in four years a successful one.

For most of the hour-long session, they discussed the mundane: Who’s advertising? Who’s postering? But when the talk turned to content, the mission of H Bomb, the student-run Harvard sex magazine, came under scrutiny.

H Bomb’s editor-in-chief, Martha “Martabel” Wasserman ’10, displayed a photograph of a penis that a graduate student had sent in. The picture gave her ideas. “If he painted his penis, that would be an amazing thing,” Wasserman said. “There needs to be more fine art. We’re going to try to get more fine art.”

Under Wasserman’s small, close-knit group of editors, the magazine that slid into obscurity after attracting a burst of nationwide publicity several years ago is undergoing a bit of a revival.

At a general interest meeting in November attended by more than a dozen people, the editors planned a New York “naked party” with a well-known nude photographer. But they also sought ways to make their magazine’s content more diverse. It is scheduled to reappear in doorboxes on Feb. 14 after a three-year hiatus.

“How I interpret H Bomb is that it’s not supposed to be arousing,” Wasserman said. “Sex is pretty broad. Not everything has to be about fucking.”

‘NOT PORN’

H Bomb’s editors insist that their magazine is aimed at a broad audience, and still sound vexed about a 2004 Crimson headline that called it a “porn magazine.” “Throughout our proposal we said very clearly that [porn] was not the point of H Bomb,” co-founder Katharina P. Cieplak-von Baldegg ’06-’07 said recently.

On the official College Web site, H Bomb is referred to as “the Harvard College journal of sex and sexuality.”

Whatever the definition, the magazine’s best-known component—pictures of naked Harvard students—is here to stay. The naked party in New York attracted 40 to 50 students and alumni from Harvard and other schools, people there said. Photographs from the party will be featured in the February issue. The photographer, Spencer Tunick, is known for his massive installations of naked people, such as one in Mexico City this May that attracted 18,000.

“It definitely seemed a lot less sketchy than any other party I’ve been to,” Thea S. Morton ’06-’08, an editor of H Bomb, said of the party. (She is also a member of The Crimson’s photography staff.)

H Bomb was founded by Baldegg and Camilla A. Hrdy ’04-’05 in spring 2004 with the goal of fostering “smart discussion of sex,” according to Baldegg. As the planned magazine drew media attention around the country, the College said it would reconsider H Bomb’s status as a recognized campus publication because of concerns that it would include pornographic content. In the end, the College allowed H Bomb to be published—in making the decision, administrators cited, among other things, the prospect of a “slippery slope”—and the Undergraduate Council allocated $2,000 to the magazine.

But after publishing issues in spring 2004 and spring 2005, H Bomb fell upon hard times, facing financial troubles and the graduation of the original core staff. Last year, the magazine’s new president, Ming E. Vandenberg ’08, wanted to take H Bomb online as part of rethinking its mission. But that never happened. Faculty adviser Marc D. Hauser, a psychology professor, said he opposed a move online because of concerns about student privacy—but he also emphasized that he did not play a role in decisionmaking.

In the end, Vandenberg was unable to keep H Bomb’s registration as a student group because College rules require recognized organizations to have two officers, and she was the only one. Vandenberg, also a member of The Crimson’s photography staff, declined to comment for this article.

The controversy surrounding the magazine’s launch wasn’t a bad thing all around. When Current TV, Al Gore ’69’s cable channel, did a story about H Bomb, the crew interviewed co-founder Baldegg, who happened to be looking for a job at the time. She now works for the network, soliciting content. “H Bomb looks great on your resume,” Baldegg said.

REINCARNATION

Wasserman heads a primarily female editorial staff but describes it as diverse and notes that not everyone is the “stereotypical H Bomb contributor.” Wasserman, a co-op resident with a mass of curly brown hair, maintains a polite but wary composure and admits to being cautious of the media for what she says were inaccurate portrayals of the magazine in the past.

The Nov. 5 general interest meeting yielded mostly freshmen. It was the only larger event the magazine could hold without official status, which was granted later in the month.

Sitting before students sprawled on couches and the floor of a Quincy dorm who snacked on Dunkin Donuts Munchkins and flipped through old copies of H Bomb, Wasserman introduced the magazine as a “great combination of dirty and smart.” She described the content “pretty all encompassing” with topics including science, medicine, and art. Slated for February were pieces about widow burning, sex in Classical societies, and a profile of a porn star.

“There are lots of ways that sex affects you,” Wasserman said in an interview afterward. “It’s not only about the act of sex.” She said that H Bomb had solicited contributions both from campus sex blogger Lena Chen ’09 and the abstinence group True Love Revolution, but that both declined. (Chen, also a member of the Crimson magazine staff, said she simply didn’t have time; TLR could not be reached.)

After the meeting, editor Brandon D. Perkovich ’11 described working in the public health field and constantly “running into social stigma about sex and sexuality.”

“H Bomb is motivated in part by a larger social need,” he said.

For Hauser, the faculty adviser, the magazine is valuable as a parenting tool.

“I have a nineteen-year-old daughter who’s a freshman in college, Hauser said. “I’m curious to hear and read about this stuff that helps me talk to my daughter about these things too.”