Your recent “sex” section, in the August 10 issue once again provided my friends and I with fodder for our bi-weekly discussion about its merits and faults. While some of my friends enjoy it and some ignore it completely, I try and search for a deeper meaning behind the pieces. Sadly, nearly a year after its first publication, I’m still searching.

The appearance of a sex section in the paper is no surprise to anybody who followed the media frenzy around the publication of Harvard’s “H-Bomb” magazine in 2004. “H-Bomb” is a student run, yearly, erotica magazine that “takes a multi-media, omnisexual approach to discussing sex and sexuality at Harvard and in general.” Lost in the initial craze of its publication is the fact that “H-Bomb” was preceded by Vassar College’s “Squirm” magazine. According to Elizabeth Ehrenbern, a “Squirm” community relations official, the magazine “was started by a couple of Vassar students who wanted to have an intelligent and provocative magazine that promoted a positive sex culture on campus.”

The informed and adult discussion about sexual topics in the Harvard and Vassar publications is missing from the Northeastern sex writing. First off, the majority of the pieces are anonymous, automatically preventing any discourse. How can anybody take the pieces seriously when we have no idea who wrote them? In the latest “Forks and Spoons” piece, (“It’s a tough job, but no one’s got to do it,” Aug. 10.) the author chastises those who aren’t “progressive” because “Going around ‘the bases’ ended when we got too old to register for Little Leagues.” Apparently oral sex is the “progressive” way to express one’s sexuality but handjobs are pass