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BY ALYSSA WORK

In print | Published October 21, 2004

“What could be more universal than sex?”

Nothing, thought three Swarthmore students, and so they embraced that common thread and set out to form a new erotica magazine, ! mag.

“Bang mag,” as the magazine’s Prince-like title is pronounced, fills the void left several years ago when Unmentionables, the last erotica publication on campus, folded. Nostalgia for an erotic magazine resurfaced last year when The New York Times ran an article about H-Bomb, Harvard’s erotica magazine, and mistakenly cited Unmentionables as an existing example of sexy campus literature.

Amanda Winters ‘08 said she remembered reading about Swarthmore’s erotica magazine last year. “I think it’s awesome it’s coming back,” she said.

“The article said we had [an erotica publication],” one of !’s founders said, “which made us all wish it was true.”

The students behind !, who, along with the first issue’s contributors, prefer to remain anonymous, said they realized last year that most campus publications have “a pretty narrow readership.”

“We thought it would be nice to have a publication accessible to everyone,” they said. “Especially at Swarthmore, there’s a lot of untapped sexual tension that is usually released in the form of violent masturbation between one’s soc-anth paper and physics problem set. We provide a more creative and public outlet for this energy.”

Prose, poetry, photography and art are all fair game for the magazine, said its founders, who are “embracing the ‘DIY’ ethos of the early 90s” and publishing the first issue on their own before asking for funding from the Student Budget Committee “if it’s well-received.” If no funding appears, they said, “perhaps an erotic cake sale is in order.”

But it appears the magazine will be well-received so far, or at least free of the administrative resistance that H-Bomb and several other erotic college and university publications have faced in the last few years. The founders admitted that they “actually haven’t talked to anyone in the administration” but pointed out that “as we see it, silence is complicity.”

Students, for the most part, seem supportive of the magazine’s first issue.

“I think it’s a sign of a good liberal arts institution,” Ian Malinowski ‘08 said, "but I don’t find it that exciting myself."

Kristie LaSalle ’05 said it was “good to have all points of view,” adding that “there are so many different forms of expression, ways of expressing yourself — it makes campus really interesting.”

But she questioned distribution of the magazine: “It’s not something you want to force on people,” she said.

Submissions for the first issue are open until Nov. 12; contributors can send writing and art to BANGmag@hotmail.com or to “!” through campus mail. Anonymity is guaranteed, !’s founders said.

“We don’t want to set up specific rules until we see what we get,” they said. “Anything goes” for now in regards to submissions of art and writing, although as with any publication, the publishers will use their discretion as editors to choose what’s in and what’s out.

As a new publication, ! has few precedents and fewer rules. As for what makes a good erotica submission: “In the words of Louis Armstrong, ‘If you’ve gotta ask, you ain’t never gonna get to know,’” one founder said. “If you think your piece of writing or art would be a good edition to ! it probably would be … and since we guarantee anonymity it’s not going to hurt to try.”

All art and photography will be printed in black and white for the first issue, said the founders, “although we’re confident we can make it look awesome.” They remain mysterious about the distribution policies of the magazine, revealing only that students should “expect copies to pop up like an ill-timed erection: When you least expect it but you’re most ready.”

For now, the brains behind ! are hopeful about the magazine’s future. “If Swarthmore’s not ready now,” they said, “we might as well all drop out.”

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