June 2010
Public Service Announcement Of The Day
Okay, so just so no one else needs to look this up … the word “fugly”? Not a recognized word in the official Scrabble dictionary. Just wanted to get that out there.
Jun 1st
May 2010
3 tags
Anonymous asked: hi! i think you've talk about this before but aren't you anxious/scared about life postgrad especially since you don't want the normal 9to5? how do you keep so calm when you have no "safe" plan/base? i have to say i'm older than you and still in university and i have no real clue of what will happen or even what i want to happen after that part of my life is over and...
May 31st
3 notes
“It’s like getting one handful of skittles. I want the whole fucking bag,...”
– Unnamed male-identified friend, on ending a six-month sex drought and immediately feeling nymphomanic
May 31st
May 29th
12 notes
1 tag
Whoops, I think I left my optimism at security.
A horde of my Chinese relatives have descended onto the Back Bay. My father and his sister arrived at 8am and my mother, her brother, and both godparents at 5pm, though I’ve yet to see the latter group. I spent the afternoon in Harvard Yard listening to Class Day speeches, scoffing at the eleventh hour attempts to build solidarity, and generally being a sour puss with my once-suicidal...
May 26th
2 notes
Anonymous asked: Hey just read this article about a student who faked his way into Harvard..

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/17/wheeler-harvard-wheelers-applications/

What do you think about the story? and the fact that he had stolen scholarships from other deserving students?
May 26th
3 tags
Anonymous asked: In response to your recent entry on interracial relationships:
I am an Asian female at UC Berkeley and though I am open to dating people of any race, it's also important to me that my guy and I share family backgrounds and life experiences (...that we can travel to Europe together and both be stared at and later bitch in good-humor about it i.e.). I feel so many experiences just...
May 25th
10 notes
2 tags
May 25th
32 notes
May 24th
12 notes
1 tag
May 21st
3 notes
May 21st
1 tag
May 21st
3 notes
May 21st
1 tag
May 21st
May 20th
7 notes
1 tag
May 19th
61 notes
2 tags
I think this is the part where "life" begins.
I actually finished my final final a week ago, but never really had the chance to post about it, since I was in the middle of catching up on freelance assignments and dealing with the Slate fiasco, which somehow managed to monopolize a week’s worth of my time. (I will never get those 96 hours back. Or you know, my reputation. Though the latter was already soiled anyway.) Then I left Friday...
May 19th
3 notes
1 tag
May 19th
1 note
2 tags
Anonymous asked: Lena, what are some of your favorite foods to eat? Just curious, as you often post about meals you've made/eaten.
May 19th
3 notes
1 tag
May 18th
5 notes
2 tags
Anonymous asked: Well Lena, you look like a nice girl, but less so on your sad porn pics which are all over the internet which prove that you don't know how to have fun, and hanging out that Harvard thing is a bit cheapo as well. It appears that you lately thought about something else than your sorry sex life and phony college, but why feminism and marxism, both of which you do do apparently not understand? A...
May 18th
5 notes
3 tags
Anonymous asked: Hi Lena, I love your blog and respect your opinions so much. Recently I've been exploring my bicuriosity by messing around with some girls. I feel so bad about it, and I don't know why. I just feel like it's really immoral. I don't have weird psychological issues or a strange past or traumatic sexual experiences or anything like that. I'm not religious, and I'm...
May 17th
3 tags
Debunking Double X: Slate's Mischaracterization of... →
It’s been a busy week, but finally found the time to post an update to the Rethinking Virginity conference website clarifying the factual inaccuracies in last week’s Slate piece: Last week, Slate published an article that alleges the Rethinking Virginity conference was aimed at encouraging young women to “reconsider abstinence”. This is a misrepresentation of the event, which was...
May 17th
25 notes
1 tag
May 17th
10 notes
3 tags
I'm Not A Spokesgal For My Generation (& Other... →
Finally, someone gets it right. Tracy Clark-Flory’s piece in Salon today clears up some of the misconceptions about the Rethinking Virginity Conference. She refers to my characterization in Slate as that of a “wild mare [being] tamed”, which is a) highly amusing, and b) more or less the way they way they (inaccurately) portrayed me. Clark-Flory writes: What’s often lost...
May 14th
7 notes
Anonymous asked: Do you think you can be a feminist if you believe in everything the movement stands for and fights for - except on the abortion issue? Can you be pro-life/anti-choice and still be a true feminist?
May 14th
7 notes
3 tags
Slate: A Different Take On "Rethinking Virginity" →
I was really displeased with Slate’s inaccurate portrayal of the Rethinking Virginity Conference, so I contacted Jessica Grose and she published the official “Lena Chen Is Not An Abstinence Pusher” rebuttal to Double X, the women’s blog. I remain less than pleased that the original article is still up with the subheading “‘sex positive’ young women...
May 13th
16 notes
2 tags
Thanks For The Shout-Out, Andrew Sullivan →
But let’s not further promote the inaccuracy that I’m embracing abstinence because of the “oversharing backlash”. As I wrote yesterday, I didn’t decide to rethink virginity because I regretted my youth, but because the categories of “virgin” and “non-virgin” are actually really heteronormative, limited ways of viewing sexuality. Also, I would...
May 12th
3 tags
Anonymous asked: http://community.livejournal.com/ucb_anoncon/3065.html?view=14558969#t14558969

Lena, above is an anonymous thread full of UC Berkeley students procrastinating for finals. AnonCon (Anonymous Confessions) is put up every semester during finals season. This thread is about Asian girls dating white guys. It's pretty crude. As an Asian girl who has dated white guys, I was pretty...
May 12th
1 note
3 tags
Slate: Why Is a Former Sex Blogger "Rethinking... →
So, I am currently typing away from Currier House, my junior year dwellings, to which I’ve returned to retrieve some boxes from storage. I finished my final final yesterday (yes!) and woke up astonishingly late today, and thus, have only NOW even checked my email to find various frantic notes related to this article, which I did not read until an hour ago. It’s written by Jessica...
May 11th
87 notes
2 tags
May 10th
37 notes
1 tag
Last. College. Exam.
Churned out two papers this weekend (both of which wound up somewhat Marxist). Now gearing up for Deutsch at 2pm and then I am done with Harvard. Surreal! (But not ready to celebrate given the backlog of freelance articles I have yet to write.)
May 10th
3 notes
2 tags
What Does Feminism's "Whiteness" Problem Have To...
Does the topic of this article (whiteness within the feminist movement) have anything to do with the comments under this one (the grievances of the men’s rights movement)? I think so. First, a disclaimer: I think the men’s rights movement is terribly misguided in the way it portrays a supposed gender war in America and equally misguided in claiming that women are now so super-duper...
May 7th
33 notes
3 tags
Anonymous asked: Lena I have a kind of backwards question for a feminist. I'm 19-years-old now and am constantly teased by friends because I am a virgin. And while I think that the state of my hymen is no ones business but my own I also wonder if I'm making too much out of it. I've never boughten into the whole "purity" thing this culture is obsessed with. And I dont want to wait until...
May 7th
19 notes
1 tag
Metaphors vs. Metonymy & Other Lessons From The... →
I found this two-year-old blog entry, in which I responded to a then-infamous piece by a NYU student named Jessica Roy who was appalled by the behavior of a few sad young literary men at a gathering of the New York literati: Sebastian lives with his parents in a multi-million-dollar brownstone in Brooklyn. There were Persian rugs and chandeliers; the fireplace mantle had pictures of Sebastian...
May 6th
24 notes
1 tag
Lost In Translation: A Call Is Worth A Thousand... →
My latest piece on Sex Really is about digital miscommunication. Some factoids: Recipients of sarcastic emails in one study could only identify the sarcasm 56 percent of the time (a rate that is essentially equivalent to taking a guess). One (non-scientific) poll found that 43 percent of teens use instant messaging to deal with awkward situations Tumblr’s Jess Chu wants to “cut the...
May 6th
1 tag
My Life Is A Tragicomedy: A Mid-Finals Haiku
Hard drive fried. Apple! Why have you forsaken me? Worst timing ever.
May 6th
4 notes
2 tags
jaimeleigh asked: Thanks for posting your thoughts on your IUD. Two follow up questions:

1. The biggest reason I'm in the pill is that it makes my skin totally perfect. I mean, the no babies thing is a huge plus, but for me it is all about the skin. Does the hormonal IUD have the same amazing side effect?

2. About the wham bam thank you mam thing. Waitaminuterightthere. Do...
May 5th
6 notes
3 tags
Anonymous asked: I know that you had an IUD inserted a couple months ago, and I'm thinking of getting one myself. How do you like it so far? I know every woman is different but is there anything you don't like about it? Or do you possibly have any other recommendations? I was reading about the Ortho Evra patch and seems some forms of birth control can do horrible things to our bodies.
May 5th
8 notes
5 tags
Rethinking Virginity: Post-Conference Press &... →
If you weren’t able to make it to Rethinking Virginity, check out the #rethinkingvirginity hashtag on Twitter to relive the conference through live comments and photos from the event. You can also read about the conference in the following outlets: Educators Challenge Virginity Connotations, The Harvard Crimson Rethinking Virginity—And Examining Our Assumptions About Sex, Jezebel (by panelist...
May 5th
17 notes
Be still, my beating heart →
I just discovered Plndr, essentially the Gilt Groupe of high-end streetwear (online sample sale on designer brands). And just in time for a Hellz Bellz sale tomorrow. Like stuff like this? Join Plndr with my referral code.
May 4th
3 notes
2 tags
May 4th
4 notes
1 tag
sannisideup asked: I've been reading your blog for almost two years now. I was wondering, how you (or believe it was your sister at some point) got the pictures into the design of your blog? I have the same photo software but I don't know how to "write" them into HTML or CSS. I know it's probably a stretch to ask, but I thought at least I'd tried ;)
May 4th
2 tags
Can't Make Rethinking Virginity? Follow Us! →
Will be tweeting live from #rethinkingvirginity all day! All attendees are being encouraged to use the official event hashtag, so folks who can’t make it can follow along :) Opening remarks (just written) are on in FIFTEEN MINUTES!
May 3rd
4 tags
Advance Press For Rethinking Virginity →
I’m mildly surprised this conference is, in fact, happening, but look at that: it’s here! (In about half an hour, in fact.) In any case, if you had any second thoughts about attending, please be enticed by our advance press, which includes: “A summit on the state of sexual purity.” —The Washington City Paper “The Rethinking Virginity conference [is] designed to challenge not just...
May 3rd
3 notes