Voulting Playboys

When nights at the Crimson Sports Grille are not fruitful, when e-mail love fails to satisfy, some undergraduates turn to that old standby: pornography.

Of course, most people don't want to be caught with their metaphorical pants down among the racks at Nini's Corner or Out of Town News checking out the latest issue of Penthouse. Students want something convenient--something at Harvard.

In order to serve the Harvard community, I volunteered my time to search the campus for good old American porn, of both the hetero-and homosexual variety.

My quest began with HOLLIS. I ran a title search for Hustler: nothing. Juggs: "Sex": ordered but not received at Widener and Schlesinger. Playgirl: nothing. Honcho: the search produced "Honcho Goshi Yakuchu," a book by Eino Kano. But that didn't help.

Then I struck the motherlode: Playboy.

Of course. Playboy, with its interviews, fiction and cutting-edge social commentary, is just the sort of journal of opinion to be found at Harvard. You just have to know where to look.

There was a space for Playboy on the periodical shelf at Lamont, but it was empty. Deeply saddened, I inquired of Ed P. Tallent, the reference librarian, who led me to a locked closet in the back of the periodical section.

"We keep yearbooks and facebooks in here, and second subscriptions to 27 titles, like Time, Newsweek and the New Republic," Tallent said. "Things that might be stolen or damaged."

This category includes Playboy, or at least the last year's worth. However, students wishing to indulge their voyeuristic impulses need not worry that the librarians will find them lecherous.

"If someone wants to look at something from the closet, we take their ID, but we never question them," Tallent said.

Library assistant Colleen A. Bryant said the Playboy are requested maybe once a semester," Bryant said. "Much less than they used to be."

Bryant also mentioned other sources of titillation for the student body. "We used to have to lock up the New York Native, because people would rip out the ads in the back. Also, Schlesinger Library has On Out Backs, a lesbian magazine."

Backs, a lesbian magazine." One year's worth of Playboy was not enough for me. I headed down to the Gov Docs, where I found 27 reels of Playboy microfilm, ranging from 1964 to the present. (Incidentally, the Playboy film was on the same shelf as the Harvard Crimson film. You draw your own conclusions.)

On a whim, I grabbed Volume 20 from 1973. After rolling through January, I came to the February issue, where, to my surprise, I found an interview with Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman.

The interview promised "a candid conversation in which the maverick economist advocates the abolition of welfare, social security and the graduated income tax." But I turned to Cyndi Wood, the Playmate of the Month. I liked her ideas on supply and demand better than Friedman's.

My journey to Widener Vault, which I had heard so much about, no longer functioned as a den of sin.

"The Vault used to contain what we call XR material," said Kevin M. Tierney, the circulation supervisor. "Playboy, Yellow Silk [a journal of erotica], "The joy of Sex" and other assorted erotica. People think XR stands for X-rating, but I don't know what it stands for."

Unfortunately, most of the contents of the Vault were sent to the New England Depository in Boston a few years ago for space reasons.

"You can make a request for something from the Depository, and it will arrive within one working day," said Tierney. "Or you can go over there and walk around."

Only library staff were allowed into the Vault, but students could request to look at materials. "We had requests for XR material about once or twice a week. I remember once a couple had requested "The Joy of Sex' and they were all over each other while they were waiting for it. However, the book had been stolen, and they were pretty disappointed.

"Also, a lot of Playboy pictures were torn out of the magazines. I remember a whole group of magazines from the '60s and '70s had all the fun stuff ripped out."

The Vault still exists, but it no longer contains anything of prurient value. Along with the Widener X-cage, it contains "high-risk, high-theft" material, including rare books, old books and "XM" books, which are miniature books a few, inches long. No nudie pictures, though.

So while hardcore pornography is nonexistent on campus (except if privately purchased), Playboys are available for your reading pleasure. Of course, you only read it for the article.