Literary sex magazine debuts

By Sarah Rutledge     4/10/08 7:00pm

Harvard may have the H Bomb and Cornell may boast the SMUT, but next Friday, Rice will join their ranks with Open, its first sex magazine. Editor in chief Rachel Solnick plans to distribute the 68-page black-and-white magazine's 1,500 copies to Rice and the surrounding Houston community.The magazine is composed of seven sections: Perspectives, which features individuals speaking as part of a group; editorials; articles, which cover news and historical events; short stories; poetry; the post-secret section, from campus-distributed postcards which garnered student input; and the results of an online sex survey from earlier this semester, which received over 800 responses.

This issue will feature a Buddhist monk's experience with celibacy, reactions to abstinence-only sexual education, the AIDS prevalence in Botswana, the Kama Sutra as a historical text, as well as a personal essay about the way sex is treated in the United States and India.

Solnick, a Wiess College sophomore, said anyone could submit work for the magazine. Solnick posted flyers in Houston parks and invited students from other universities to submit their work. Solnick said Open also received several anonymous submissions.

---

---

"As a writer, you're sharing your very personal details, so the fact that we allow things to be anonymous gives people a lot more flexibility in how honest they would like to be," Solnick said. "You don't always have friends who have had these experiences but you can definitely grow through reading about them."

Solnick said she got the idea to start a sex magazine at Rice when she heard about other schools' publications. She said she originally thought of publishing the magazine twice a year but realized the magazine lacked the money and manpower to cover production in the fall and spring semesters.

Open received Rice's Dr. Bill Wilson Student Initiative Grant, which will cover its $3,300 in publication costs this year. The launch party, which will be held at Willy's Pub next Thursday, will include an auction of posters with images from the magazine, which Solnick said she hopes will help the club break even for the year and raise money for next year. Students can pick up a copy of Open during the launch party or from a representative at their college next Friday at lunch.

Solnick said Open differs from peer schools' magazines in its more academic focus.

"I think it's a lot more content-driven in terms of well-researched stories, whereas others are more flashy," Solnick said. "We're trying to approach it rather academically. I think we're realizing that . sex is such an intricate subject that you can approach it with maturity and still have it be interesting."

Solnick plans to distribute copies of the magazine to area businesses to enhance readership. She said area Starbucks were not receptive to the idea but she plans to leave copies at nearby coffeeshops.

Solnick said several areas of the magazine deal with relationships and not directly with sexuality.

"I'm worried that there are a lot of misconceptions [about Open], that it's going to be a porno or something," Solnick said. "They see 'sex magazine' and automatically think of Playboy, but it's really more literary than anything else."

Solnick said she plans for Open to continue coming out each year.

"I want Open to be something that you can read and feel like you got to know someone better through the topic of sex," Solnick said. "In that way, you can be more comfortable with your own sexuality and realize it's not something that has to be kept under wraps. It can be acceptable."

Solnick said this philosophy, however, has proven problematic for potential publishers, one of whom shied away from printing the magazine because of its content. She said she hopes Open will help convince people to think of sex more maturely rather than as a hot-button issue.

---