It was recently announced, in a watershed moment for aspiring Ivy League pornographers the nation across, that Harvard University has approved for publication a student periodical to feature “art, sex advice, and fiction-as well as photographs of undressed Harvard undergraduates.” Hilariously titled “H Bomb,” the creators-two elaborately named, presumably nubile young women-describe their prospective as “an outlet for literary and artistic expression that is both desired and needed, not a pornographic magazine.” The Associated Press couldn’t reach Katherina or Camilla for direct comment (their description comes from largely skin-free student paper Harvard Crimson), but it would probably be fair to presume that their discretion will improve in coming months.

I stumbled across this excuse of a story at CNN.com late Wednesday night. After resigning myself to the melancholy eventuality of a Bill O’Reilly uproar, I started to consider whether Washington University’s finest should consider cranking out something along the lines of “H Bomb.” (I can’t type that without laughing. We could name our porn magazine “UnWashed” and still come out classier.) Harvard’s not the only institution leaping on the bandwagon; both Vassar and Swathmore Colleges have established “sex-themed magazines,” according to the AP. Perhaps it’s high time we join the queue.

It’s a fact barely concealed that our school’s publications are a little lacking in the pizzazz department; Cadenza was folded into the neutral pages of Student Life this year, while other publications continue to underwhelm their audiences with striking regularity. Do we need a snazzy new student-made magazine to reawaken the loins of campus rhetoric? Could the line of free-read racks in Mallinckrodt (no pun intended) stand for a little skin?

How laughable would that be-Washington University porn. Businesslike descriptions of dormitory sex, filed tastefully in the “erotica” table of contents, interspliced with poorly-lit breast shots snapped somewhere between Wash. Ave. and Waterman (Forest Park, maybe, for that occasional “natural” flair). Student attitudes being what they are, someone would probably work a rant about the Subway lines into their tale of bathroom lust in Duncker Hall. Jill Ringold could move her helpful Making WUpee column into the new book-or perhaps not if she hoped for it to remain helpful. I might be willing to guest-write an occasional Celluloid Paralysis, presuming the porn is so awful that frustrated self-gratifiers will actually be compelled to read the articles. (Things being as they are, I might actually get more readership that way.) And oh, the staff meetings! What would they be like?

“Anybody have some ideas for features this month?”

“Well…um…I had a thought. We could do a story about f**king. And then we could, like, re-enact it. With pictures and stuff.”

Message to Katherina and Camilla faux-Hefner-college students should not be making porn. Seriously. You can call it self-liberating, you can call it a creative outlet, but the safest bet would be to call it exactly what it is: stupid. There’s nothing particularly wrong with undergraduates being stupid, especially about sex; it’s just that we’re supposed to keep it relatively to ourselves, and not brandish it in glossy-paper form as if we actually know what the hell we’re doing. A cosmically vast majority of collegiate sexual experience is at least mildly ill-advised, and to produce a referenceable document of said activity is just a plain bad idea.

The Business School major who loosens her bra straps on a self-important quest for fulfillment and parental shock is probably going to regret that shot of her sliding some fingers southward. Future coworkers with even a remote grasp of Google would quickly be finding and posting the incriminating download near the company water cooler. It’s just not wise, kids.

Students of Harvard, Vassar, and Swarthmore-do us all a favor and slip your dignity back on. Undergrads anywhere have never had any trouble shocking and disgusting the general populace; let’s stick to the old traditionals-pregnancy, frat hazing, binge drinking-and not give Bill O’Reilly any more ammo. Even if the pictures are hot.

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