So I read the article, which is subtitled “’sex positive’ young women reconsider abstinence”, and to be honest, I kind of feel like how Jaclyn Friedman must’ve felt after her CNN interview. Jaclyn, who is the executive director of Women, Action, and the Media, the Cambridge-based non-profit I interned at this semester, wrote recently about “how CNN turned [her] into a sex scold” by using selective quotes that did not at all reflect what she was trying to say about sexual assault. And despite being a women’s rights advocates, she came off looking like a victim blamer (and I can personally attest that she is absolutely not).

If you look up “Lena Chen” and “abstinence”, you will see a long history of me being critical of the abstinence movement. So first off, before I launch into dissecting this baby, here are some huge disclaimers about the conference itself:

• “Rethinking Virginity” does NOT mean “reconsidering virginity”. Not. At. All. I was/am not preaching sexual abstinence (or ANYTHING for that matter). Just, no. Off the bat, let’s get that straight.
• In part, I was inspired to host this conference because of my senior thesis, which I wrote on the evolution of virginity norms. I was extremely critical of the way contemporary ideas about premarital sex have evolved, arguing both in my thesis and at this conference that virginity is a social construct encouraged only because of its historical and economic importance toward the sociolegal institution of marriage.
• This was not a solo effort, a vanity project, or an attempt at personal redemption. I organized the conference on behalf of the Harvard College Queer Students & Allies, which was not mentioned in the article at all. If you have followed the Sex/Abstinence Wars at Harvard, Harvard has a very visible student abstinence group called True Love Revolution, which used to be somewhat queer-inclusive. (I debated the then-president two years ago, and it was a fruitful discussion inclusive of all genders and sexualities.) However,TLR has since released platform statements stating that queer relationships are inferior and that “true feminism” requires saving yourself for marriage. By holding this conference, the QSA wanted to represent the faction of students here who feel completely excluded and alienated from the often heteronormative (and often moralistic) discourse about abstinence.

I’m glad that Grose stated that I don’t “apologize” for my past, but I wish she refrained from listing every single horrible thing that happened to me as part of the backlash against my blog and then insinuating that I really did regret it after all. Maybe I’m just overreacting but the article, to me, reads like this:

1. Lena Chen starts sex blog.
2. Lena deals with consequences like gross, misogynistic comments online.
3. Lena deals with more consequences, such as leaked nude photos from crazy ex.
4. Lena goes through “the cycle of rebellion and regret”, reconsiders blog, and takes time off from Harvard.
5. Lena becomes  domesticated and revamps herself as a “third wave radical Marxist feminist”  (yes, accurate) who writes “serious articles” (c’mon, ONE article for The American Prospect versus countless entries referencing Hello Kitty vibrators).
6. Lena plans Rethinking Virginity Conference using her newfound wisdom only to shame women who act like the way she used to!

This is just NOT AT ALL what happened. If you read the entry I wrote about the events of the spring of my junior year (when everything more or less blew up in my face), I make it very clear that I stopped blogging about my sex life not because of fear over employment prospects but because I realized that I go to school with some incredibly fucked-up people who have absolutely no qualms about making my existence at Harvard miserable. Amanda Hess, who writes the column The Sexist, has interviewed me extensively about the subject of the public slut-shaming that I endured at Harvard. I planned the Rethinking Virginity Conference for a lot of reasons, but not because I was “dedicated to making sure no one else goes through what [I] had to endure”.  I can’t speak for Emily Gould or Meghan McCain, who are referenced in this same article as fellow regretful oversharers, but I can speak for myself and assure you that the following does not at all accurately describe me:

• “part of a handful of women bloggers who are sobering up quickly after their youthful indiscretions”
• “bow[ing] to [my] professional future”
• “[calling] for a government-mandated safe area to save a hypothetical virgin from the risks—and the joys—of youthful trial and error.”

Especially not regarding that last point! First, the attitude I had going into this conference was that we needed to create an inclusive and safe space for people who might ordinarily feel left out of the discussion about sexual abstinence. I also wanted to be sensitive to those who had not yet engaged in intercourse, many of whom had encountered shaming and ridicule as well. In the last panel of the conference, “Toward A Sex-Positive Vision Of Abstinence”, I wanted people to take away a more inclusive view of sexuality and realize that being sex-positive and being abstinent are not mutually exclusive. And obviously, it is really, really hard for older virgins who could be abstaining for a variety of reasons but may actually be really comfortable with their sexuality. The discourse on sex needs to include those viewpoints instead of just writing them off as not truly sex-positive. Bullshit! But beyond that — and this was really the key theme to the entire event –, we shouldn’t judge others for their sexual behavior, especially given how nebulous the concept of “real sex” is and how much individual preferences vary. I wouldn’t judge my friends who haven’t “done it”, because who am I to decide whether they’re ready? And that goes both ways.

Second, I will readily admit that even feminists and queer activists and sexual educators can and do “slut shame” and “virgin shame” but all of the panelists at the conference took great pains to not be judgmental of any sexual practices, except in the case of “having nonmonogamous unprotected sex”. Grose quoted the panelist as stating, “They’re doing something damaging, and careless, and it’s not a choice I personally approve of.” Which, yeah, sounds an awful lot like “SHAME SHAME ON YOU!!!” but if you were actually at the panel, this particular panelist was speaking specifically about the public health consequences and not wagging her finger at promiscuity. And for the record, if you were my friend having unprotected, non-monogamous sex, I would have NO QUALMS telling you that I really hope you’re at least using the freakin’ WITHDRAWAL METHOD. Because seriously, that is idiotic.

Third, the Rethinking Virginity Conference aimed to critically examine what we consider to be “virginity” (which, as it turns out, is a whole lot of baloney that really only applies to a hypothetical straight woman with a perfectly intact hymen), question why we place such a high value on sexual purity — especially female sexual purity, and finally offer a place for QUEER PEOPLE to join the discussion because sex positivity requires inclusivity and not just sex blogging figureheads who are all of 22 years old and living lives not representative at all of your average morally conflicted, possibly gay virgin. And that kid in the closet who is trying to make sense of their sexuality and the teenagers who are playing Just The Tip in order to “save it” — they’re really what this conference was supposed to be about.

SO, I think that just about covers it. Don’t hate me. I don’t care what you do in your bedroom. Really. I have no regrets about what I’ve done in mine.

Harvard Virginity Conference Pops Its Cherry, The Boston Phoenix

Slut Panel Postmortem: Shame, Shame, Go Away, Feministing

Educators Challenge Virginity Connotations, The Harvard Crimson

Rethinking Virginity—And Examining Our Assumptions About Sex, Jezebel

“Queer Sex Doesn’t Count” And Nine Other Myths Uncovered- And Debunked- at the Harvard “Rethinking Virginity” Conference, Feministing

Sexist Beatdown: Rethinking Virginity Edition, The Washington City Paper

Virginity Around The World, The American Prospect’s TAPPED blog

Now, all that stands in the way of me and my diploma are two 20-page papers and a final exam in German.

For the meantime, you can find me blogging daily at The Chicktionary, but I promise in the near future that something will happen with Sex and the Ivy. I may no longer blog about my sexual proclivities (at least not the way I used to) and I may no longer be having sex in the Ivy, since I moved off-campus, but I do hope to return to the writing I used to do: all that memoir-y, sometimes indulgent stream-of-consciousness that people thought was so profoundly transgressive and relatable back in 2008. (I know, it’s been ages, and sex blogs are so 2000s now, don’t you think?)

I don’t know how relatable I am anymore, but I do know that I’m glad — in so many ways — about moving forward from that über sensationalized sexual persona to become a somewhat legitimate voice on gender and sexuality. In a sense, this blog was both a blessing and a curse: instant attention, hard-won respect. I still feel like I’m proving myself nowadays, but I also feel a kind of ease that I never did at 19.

Stick around. There are only better things to come.

Granted, the male writer of the article definitely found True Love Revolution, Harvard’s abstinence club, a little silly and had no qualms about poking fun at co-president Rachel Wagley. German commenters have pointed out all week that perhaps my criticism is unwarranted in light of the fact that the article is more on my side than on TLR’s. (And despite my very basic German knowledge, I did realize that much.)  But you know what the writer should’ve done in that case? Lay off the sexist remarks. If there are substantive arguments against preaching no-sex-until-marriage as the golden standard, then one doesn’t need to resort to sensationalism to get the point across.

I have no idea if the rest of the content on Evil Daystar is this progressive, but I found this commentary incredibly refreshing. If you understand German, check it out.

Der Spiegel, one of the largest European newsmagazines, published an article about the American abstinence movement and feminist reaction to it. I’m pretty excited that I scored a mention/photo in a German publication, because all things German have become awesome since I’ve begun learning the language.

Unfortunately, my German abilities remain pretty rudimentary, so I’ve had a hard time translating … but they’re not so rudimentary that I didn’t realize that the piece is actually somewhat reactionary. Yeah, what a disappointment.

I was reading along happily until I got to the paragraph about me, which includes a reference to my “ultrakurzen Minirock” that excites the boys on campus. That means “ultra-short miniskirt”. Wait … why are they talking about my clothing choices? And where are these ultra-short miniskirts, because Cambridge, Massachusetts is sure as hell not the ideal place to wear them. (I may have been deluded about this my freshman year, but I — and my hemlines — have long since grown up.)

This is kind of like that time when The New York Times wrote a piece that featured me alongside the then-president of Harvard’s abstinence club. While the writer refrained from physically describing the other girl, the main subject of the article, this was what he wrote about me:

Chen was a small Asian woman in a miniskirt and stilettos…

This is after I already corrected the fact-checker prior to publication, telling him specifically that I was not actually wearing a miniskirt and stilettos. But whatever,I have sex so naturally, I also walk around naked in impractical footwear! Let’s just gloss over the fact that I was actually wearing a dress and shoes with a wide heel. The truth would detract from reinforcing the image of the sexually available woman. And while we’re at it, why not exoticize me a bit? I’m small! I’m compact! I fit in your handbag! It doesn’t matter what the other girl looks like; let’s check out the chick who’ll let dudes bang her.

Anyway, it gets better:

[Chen] ate every crumb of everything, including a ginger cake with cream-cheese frosting and raspberry compote. Fredell, when the dessert menu came, paused at the prospect of a “chocolate explosion,” said, “I may as well — I mean, carpe diem, right?” And then reconsidered — she really wasn’t that hungry.

I’m amazed at what passes for news. The fact that this food-sex analogy is so contrived is a testament to how stupid the virgin-whore dichotomy really is.

But I guess the German liberal media is just like the American liberal media: not incredibly progressive after all. While articles like the ones above approach sex more positively than Fox News, they still can’t help but think of female sexuality as a binary, something that can be neatly categorized in boxes labeled “virgin” and “whore”. I may have sex and openly write and talk about it, but that doesn’t make me representative of all sexually active women any more than it makes me conform to some tired vixen trope. And while I do hope that these types of stereotypical depictions decrease, I’m not terribly optimistic. After all, this is the explanation I received from the writer when I complained to The New York Times:

Lena is right that i described her outfit to draw a distinction from [the other girl], and it is also true that her outfit was distinct from [the other girl's]. Whether her dress was short or not is subject to interpretation, she is right, but I think almost everyone would agree that indeed it was very short and that her high heels were very high.

Which is why I’m not even going to both fact-checking Der Spiegel.

My friends have a tendency to categorize my college experience as pre- and post-Patrick (or pre- and post-domestication-of-formerly-unruly-sex-blogger), but I think the split really occurs not when I met the current roomie, but two Christmases ago. I’m referring to those infamous nude photos, whose surfacing and aftermath have been neatly summarized in a recent piece in a Canadian paper. It felt strange to comment on the incident for the article, given how much time has passed and how young I was then (not that I’m much older now). But though many things have changed since, I don’t know if I’d handle it any differently today, which is probably why I seemed “remarkably blase” in the interview. I think I did the best I could at the time.

In the winter of 2007, I was single and living alone in Currier House, still blogging primarily on Sex and the Ivy, and seriously considering writing a memoir (which has long been shelved in favor of my senior thesis). At 20 years old, I was completely unprepared to deal with such a deep invasion of privacy, though I wonder if that’s the sort of thing one is ever prepared to handle gracefully. It wasn’t about the fact that I was naked on the Internet nor was it about the sociopathic ex who I’d long written off. I was never ashamed of my body or of people seeing it, but rather, I felt victimized because I had been exposed without consent and doubly victimized by those who wrote salaciously about the incident. The initial IvyGate post was how most of my classmates found out about the photos, and the subsequent coverage on Fleshbot, Bostonist, who knows where else, informed the world beyond Cambridge.

In the weeks after, I encountered little sympathy and plenty of mockery. It was easy for strangers online to say that I was “asking for it” when they weren’t in my shoes, freaking the fuck out (quite literally, in the form of panic attacks), and very much certain that I didn’t ask for this shit. However, I was mostly appalled by the way I was treated by other Harvard students, who had no moral qualms about Googling the photos and sending them to one another. It wasn’t the first or last time I felt totally alienated, isolated, and violated by the campus at large, but it was easily the worst time because I was going at it alone. Unlike romantic troubles or an uncalled-for rude encounter, this was a situation that literally no one in my life could understand or empathize with.

So how did I get over it? By leaving Harvard. I made the best of finals and submitted multiple late papers thanks to a note from my therapist. I got a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication I never ended up taking. I went to Switzerland for nine days with two girlfriends, hiked uphill in snow to reach the peak of the world’s longest sled run, and had a lot of sex with someone who was not a sociopath. Thankfully, I emerged from my depressive haze without the least bit of generalized hatred toward men, since I met Patrick, a.k.a. “the Guy”, shortly thereafter. In the subsequent months of my junior year, I transitioned slowly away from my old blog and into this one. Mid-semester, sleuthing e-stalkers unmasked and defamed “the Guy”, pretty much cementing my belief that I could never return to writing openly about my own sex life. I also moved, for all intents and purposes, into Patrick’s then-apartment and never once looked back at the option of living on campus. By the time I got Ad Boarded for not turning in two final papers, I was just completely done with Harvard. Everyone was telling me to finish the damn papers — which were completely doable — and I was thinking, “What’s so bad about having to take a year off, anyway? I freaking hate this place.” When I left Harvard at the end of May, I had already long checked out emotionally. I hadn’t even slept in Currier for months and only showed up to move-out in order to shove things into boxes. Two months later, I turned 21 halfway around the world from Cambridge. I went back to Boston a few weeks later and moved in with Patrick, with whom I lived during my year off. Harvard has never felt like home again, not even after I returned as a student this fall.

This is all to say that even if I appeared “remarkably blase about the incident” in my interview for the aforementioned article, it was hardly an insignificant event in my life. I’ve said most, though not all, of the above before, and often, it feels like I’m repeating myself when I discuss this topic. Maybe that’s because I’m still grappling with what happened. The reaction to those photos simultaneously defined and epitomized my college experience, which often felt like a circus act performed before sadistic spectators. Someday, I’ll have to post the “reflective” essay I submitted to get readmitted to Harvard. It was more a condemnation of my classmates than it was an expression of remorse, and if the administration ever had doubts about how cruel Ivy League students can be … well, now they know. Back then, I was also very much of the mindset that the bloggers and reporters who wrote about the photos were simply doing their job: writing about the news. Only in the year afterward did I realize that having a sex blog hardly makes one newsworthy and that furthermore, gossip is not news. It would have saved my sanity had a few individuals simply thought twice about clicking “Post Entry”. In retrospect, I regret that I wasn’t more critical of the writers who exploited the source of my personal anguish for page views.

In a few short months, I’ll have a Harvard degree in addition to hundreds of unfavorable Google search results to show for all this trouble, yet I’ve never quite forgiven or forgotten the on- and off-line masses who judged, dissected, and mocked my younger self. In a coming-of-age film, the above drama might be characterized as the experience necessary for eventual personal growth or finding Mr. Right or whatever. Winding up with a bulldog-owning Yalie is kind of the perfect happy ending to the Ivy League version of Sex And The City. But outside of HBO world, no one needs to nearly get their life ruined in order to emerge triumphant. The reality is that people are often mean without justification, you may or may not learn from this stuff, and the guy you end up with in the aftermath is not necessarily the pay-off for putting up with bullshit. Though I survived my ordeal more or less intact, with a boyfriend and a puppy dog to boot, I have never regained my former faith in others’ inherent goodness. Which is good, because I was really just being naive. The crazy ex who posted those photos could have easily been written off as a psychotic exception to the generally sane population at large, but what happened in the aftermath demonstrated to me how thoughtless, judgmental, and unkind normal individuals can be and that this tends to be the rule, not the exception, and that Harvard kids with all their privilege are not exempt from moral failings despite being in a position where they should theoretically “know better”.

And that realization, not Patrick, is what really prompted some rather radical changes in my life. Harvard has a knack for fooling its students into becoming incredibly invested in their peers. The cult of the Ivy and all that. The belief that your success is mine and vice versa. Even at its rawest, my blog up until that point reflected a painful desire to be liked. I was well-aware that my subject matter was slightly edgy and my reputation slightly soiled, but hardly unsalvageable, nothing a book deal couldn’t fix. It wasn’t until the ugly aftermath of the photos that I started to question what I was trying to prove and who I was trying to prove it to. It was then that I stopped participating in superficial social interactions, ceased going to anonymous parties, and completely disengaged from communal college life. In other words, I no longer viewed my classmates as flawless individuals who I should be grateful to know.

Up until then, my go-to future plan had always been Move To New York, Write A Memoir, Become Carrie 2.0. Now that graduation is actually on the horizon, I don’t find any of the above particularly appealing. I will almost certainly stay in Boston, at least in the short-term, and perhaps I will still publish a book, but not because I feel the need to apologize for my sordid past by seeking redemption via commercial literary success. As for Carrie 2.0, I’d rather aspire to be Jessica Valenti. But the truth is that I don’t even have New Year’s resolutions, not to speak of a multi-year life plan. I don’t have any idea how 2010 will turn out, since I didn’t do corporate recruiting in the fall, haven’t looked for a job, failed to apply to grad schools or take the GRE, and have no real intention to think about post-graduation life until I actually graduate (or at least until I finish my thesis). Two years ago, this would’ve struck me as terribly complacent, perhaps even boring, but right now,it just feels liberating.

Usually, misogynistic viewpoints upset me. And then there are times when a presumably intelligent person makes such a sexist ass out of themselves that it’s almost hard to feel outrage over their ignorant assumptions. This is one of those times.

Jeremy Pham, a Dartmouth student on an exchange program at Wellesley, spent last weekend calling Wellesley students “a bunch of whores”, threatening to sue an online impersonator, and advising people not to “fuck with [him]” lest he “plant a dagger in your ass”. What’s with the hostility? Pham was peeved that someone was “writing false posts under [his] name”. He was referring to this post made on the website Wellesley FML:

Though Jeremy Pham’s name is absent from the post; though Wellesley has several students who do not identify as women; and though anyone, Wellesley student or not, can post to Wellesley FML, Pham clearly believed that the above poster was attempting to impersonate him. And if there was potentially one Wellesley student mocking his lack of sexual prowess, then surely the entire campus must be conspiring to cockblock him. The natural response? Sending a misogynistic, epithet-laced email over Wellesley’s online “community” forum, a discussion list read by not only the entire student body, but also by faculty and staff:

I don’t speak much, since I’m pretty reserved by nature and I’m never really around either (I’m always doing projects at the other school in Cambridge). But since Wellesley girls apparently insist on writing false posts under my name, as well as treating my friends that visit here like crap just because they’re not 5′9 and don’t possess the male-dominated social space of the MIT fratboy that’s fucking the shit out of you nightly, I present to you…what normal, rational people think of you girls:

1) You are all a bunch of whores. No, seriously. The stereotype that Wellesley girls obsess over men is so true that it’s not even funny. Go to a normal school like Dartmouth (where one of your girls won’t leave after 4 terms because she wants to milk the place for all it’s worth) and you’ll see that nobody there obsesses to the degree that the people in the 5th percentile here do. Consequently, you all make poor decisions. Which is why people on the Internet laugh at you. Which is why people on the Internet will laugh at you even more when I make a reddit post detailing my experiences here.

2) You are all undeserving of the education and opportunities you have received. The sense of entitlement here is actually kind of incredible. Just to make sure it just wasn’t me, my friend visiting right now notices it too. And he’s much more outgoing, friendly, and chill than I am. But he’s not 5′9, so sorry girls. But there are some insecure dudes littering the streets of Commonwealth for your amusement.

3) You are all too easy. Some of us refuse to participate in the orgy of sexual tension here because we want to be respected for who we are, not what we are. Of course, for others, it’s as easy as dropping the MIT/Harvard moniker. I mean, what idiot thinks a meaningful relationship can develop out of a superficial encounter at a party? Seriously, WTF. At my school, there aren’t that many relationships. But at least we’re honest about the fact that most of us are just merely infatuated with the other party, and not actually “in love.”

Do not make up shit under false pretenses. Do not treat my friends like shit. Do it one more time, and I will sue you. It’s so funny that there’s this Wellesley Community discussion group thing going on, but if you girls can’t do something as trivial as leave me alone to do my own thing, you guys have no shot at forming a cohesive community. No fucking chance.

And I’ll just sit back and enjoy the schadenfreude.

Jeremy, who does not at all harbor a Napolean complex, has demonstrated — with his sweeping generalizations — the intellectual laziness which probably got him rejected from MIT and Harvard in the first place. (That he was accepted to Dartmouth and to the Wellesley exchange program is nothing short of a minor miracle.) And I know I’m not the only one who’d like to ask Jeremy how a girl can simultaneously be a whore and picky about height.

When his email prompted a flurry of responses, Jeremy seemed to quickly realize the error of his ways:

Let me first begin by apologizing for my tone and perhaps the language that I used to address some of my own feelings as being one of the few, if not only, males on campus. It isn’t easy for me to be accepted in the Wellesley community. Wellesley has been be a wonderful learning experience and many people here have been welcoming to me. At the same time, hearing “What are you doing here?” when walking through the halls and being judged solely based on my looks can be hard for me. I hope you can understand that.

I fully respect women; strong, intelligent, and engaged women. I’m just concerned that people think of me as a male danger, and I understand that oftentimes comments get misconstrued as they oftentimes do on FirstClass. So why did I write my post? This all began when someone posted a recent comment referring explicitly to me on WellesleyFML. The fact that someone posted a negative comment using my identity without my permission naturally angered me as it would most people. I quickly wrote what I did with this emotion and some of the other incidents in mind.

From most of my experiences here, women time and time again at Wellesley have proven their intelligence. This occurred to me once again tonight when a group approached me and my friend while we were eating dinner. While we sat, a group of about 30 students approached us. Most wanted to talk to me and truly cared about my experience here. Others approached me with just anger and one even threw a glass of water at my face. I apologize for those who are angry and I would like for us to move forward from this point.

A college community is the perfect place to learn from one another. I have learned that many people do care about community and how I as “a man” can fit into it. This was my original hope when I wrote my first post. I do care about this community and do want to learn different points of views about a multitude of topics. But to do this, we need to respect each other. I hope that we can equally show each other some kindness and respect.

I can only be a productive and positive member of this community if we work together. But it can be hard when I feel ostracized here. However, many here have respected me and I have equally respected those around me. Just like you, I want to continue building community. So how will we move forward?

Uh, say what? As the recipient of some pretty disrespectful attention due to my blog (Sex and the Ivy), I can sympathize with Jeremy’s feelings of alienation. However, I’ve dealt with far worse situations than he has, and I’ve yet to send out mass emails with blanket assumptions about the recipients’ character, sexual habits, and taste in men.

Indeed, those unconvinced of Jeremy’s sincerity had good reason to doubt. While he e-bemoaned his ostracization from the Wellesley community, some students noticed that his Facebook status had been updated with the following:

alright so because someone wrote some false post about me on the intarw3b at wellesley, i wrote this post calling them all entitled whores and whatnot; clearly as a troll (and to some extent, you have to admit that that is true) on the open forum @ wellesley and there was a SHITSTORM of responses. while the whole community is out protesting and acting all butthurt, i’m just sitting around lol’ing. you fuck with me, and i’ll plant a dagger in your ass. simple as that.

Screenshot from Wellesley blogger WhatEstrogen.

While Jeremy was hammering in the final nail to the coffin containing his online reputation, Wellesley students — water-throwing girl aside — demonstrated that they, unlike him, were capable of differentiating between the views of a misogynist and the views of all other men. Commenters on Wellesley FML assured male visitors that guys will continue to be welcome on campus as long as they do not threaten to insert sharp objects into girls’ bodily orifices. A male commenter even chimed in on WellesleyBlue, an online community for alums, to say that he had crashed in his girlfriend’s dorm for five months and only ever encountered “friendly and welcoming” behavior at Wellesley, despite his illegal presence (which was never reported).

And then — a plot twist! More from the verbose Jeremy Pham:

I’m really sorry for ever coming here. And calling all of you whores. Clearly, some of you are still very upset about my Community post, but I have learned a lot about the difficulties that a woman faces every single day in America. It brings a tear to my eye (metaphorically) to know that some of you are very passionate about women’s rights, but I feel that your energies are misdirected. Sure you will deal with me and eradicate me from this campus in style, but your problems will still be there. Your inability to get to the root of the issues that plague our world will still be there. While other guys give me fist pumps and brag about their conquests at this school, I must endure the brunt of your criticisms so that you may all be united under the banner of activism.

And it worked perfectly.

There are real instances of women here actually being alienated from the rest of the Wellesley community. There are real cases of rape and belligerent boyfriends. My hope was that you would all unite to chastise such an extremely contemptible figure so that these issues cannot be ignored. Because honestly, what’s the difference between saying thoughts behind your backs, and posting them live? There is no intrinsic difference. And yet, the perception differs, and so I wanted to explore that today. My hope was that some of these alienated women on campus can venture out of their rooms and be embraced by a community that’s trying to flame me relentlessly. If I had written something benign, only a few people would have acknowledged it, and that would have been that. Nothing like controversy to stir up the day.

While I was writing the apparently insufficient apology last night, the police officer came into my room to make sure that everything was okay. I chuckled and told him that everything was okay. He wanted to offer me protection from the perhaps inevitable fallout from my polemic. Later, he read my letter and told me that it was cool, and it was the best I could have done…

Also, controversies like this happen all the time. Given the knowledge that the ACLU has my back and that I’m protected by the First Amendment, and the fact that friends who were journalists at other schools attempted similar stunts (with surprising degrees of success that resulted from open dialogue), I figured that this could turn out to be pretty sweet. And just so you know, nothing will happen to me. So for those of you seeking administrative intervention, you are only wasting your time. And for those of you seeking media attention, by all means. But understand that it’ll also mean that I get my facetime, and you just can’t spin a 2300 gang up on a lone campus figure in any positive way, especially given that I was trolling (even then, you wouldn’t need that requirement). Also just so you know, assault or throwing water at someone’s face is not protected by the First Amendment (or any). Of course, the event was trivial enough as it was, but if things escalate…

And do any of you honestly believe that I hold these misogynistic views? Please. Get real here. I hold a degree from the best trolling school of all time. I was pissed that you guys used my identity though. And to be honest, this whole debacle IS kind of hilarious. Let’s be honest here. It’s pretty damn hilarious.

Do you also feel like you just watched a particularly bad M. Night Shyamalan film?  Jeremy’s convoluted explanation is about as believable as the premise for “The Village”. Even if one accepts his excuse that he was just trying to rile everyone up so that they could unite to battle “real cases of rape and belligerent boyfriends”, that still leaves open the question of whether his actions were at all effective. Because if all it takes for progressive action to succeed is a fake bad guy, then marriage equality would’ve been achieved approximately 241 gay-bashings ago.

And in case those uppity Wellesley girls think they’re in the right, Jeremy would like you to know that he has the ACLU, a campus police officer, the Wellesley administration, and the First Amendment on his side. (Okay, maybe not the Wellesley administration.) So you see, he doesn’t need all you whorish, choosy women with your MIT frat boys and 5′ 9″ boyfriends!

But just in case the ACLU won’t sit with him at lunch, Jeremy wanted everyone to know in yet another email that he is, in fact, very sorry for the “general feeling of timidity” he’s provoked:

The mistake I made was that I clumped everyone together and called everyone a whore. For that, I am sorry. I said that all of you didn’t deserve to be here, but I was wrong for saying that. To reiterate, I believe the women here are very intelligent, and have worked hard to go here. There’s definitely an issue of the women here feeling victimized, and I’m sorry for bringing that general feeling of timidity into the community. Additionally, my Facebook status was extremely inappropriate, and I have since removed it. I apologize for that as well.

Thank you.

This surely must be the end, right? Someone must’ve schooled him on male privilege? Not so much. As reported by WhatEstrogen, Pham posted the following to his Facebook status less than a day later:

“Jeremy Pham thanks his friends and appreciates the outpouring of support from all people all across the nation. I have never been prouder to be a Dartmouth student. Thanks ACLU. Jeremy Pham also wonders just how the orgy of cattiness will proceed. Jeremy Pham also thanks Kerry and her friends for the death threats.”

Image from SarahPort.

Jeremy, here’s a piece of advice: hire a therapist to deal with your issues over your stunted growth and get a PR team to manage the inevitable professional fallout from this debacle. Damage control is obviously not your forté.

A special thank you to the reader who directed me toward the above gold mine of fail.

Some of Sommers’ points (everything in quotations are direct quotes transcribed during the talk):

• “I can’t take [Judith Butler] seriously … the obscurity with what she writes … gender as performance and so forth. I wish gender studies were carried out by psychologists, not English professors. She just doesn’t seem to engage with that literature.” Butler, like Sommers, is a philosophy professor. Butler may not be a psychologist by training, but she does in fact discuss Freudian thought and psychoanalysis in her work. I was floored by Sommers’ ignorance. There’s no shame in just admitting that you aren’t familiar with a particular theorist.
• Feminism is “victimology” and “male-bashing”. Like most of her other statements, there is nothing to back up this claim. She’s arguing against a strawman here. If you characterize feminism as victimology and male-bashing, then naturally, one would be against it. But you have to first prove that it is, in fact, a man-hating, self-victimizing movement.
• “Fierce” women have written feminist theory. Men have always written history, so radical feminists think that now it is not women’s turn to write history but “their turn” (referring to the radical feminists). I don’t know if “fierce” was supposed to be a funny Tyra reference or if she literally meant fierce. She might as well have said feminazi, because that’s what it comes off as.
• “I’ve never seen a women’s studies textbook treat conventional motherhood in a positive way.” To which I responded, I took an entire class on motherhood (”Myths of Motherhood” in the Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality department). Two other audience members mentioned the unit they were doing on pregnancy and childbirth as part of the methods course in WGS. These classes tend to treat motherhood and mothers in a VERY positive way, while recognizing that parenting is unfortunately not valued in our society in the same way as professional labor. I wonder when was the last time Sommers sat in on a WGS class.
• Men and conservative feminists are not welcome in women’s studies classes. Hardly true, as one male-identified audience member pointed out. And if men weren’t welcome, I wouldn’t have brought my male thesis adviser nor would I encourage Patrick to take the WGS Graduate Proseminar.
• “You hear so much in feminism that’s about achieving this parity, this statistical equality.” Pick up any classic feminist text and you will see that feminism does not come down to numbers, so I don’t even know what she’s referring to here.
• “I can’t find anyone who will take seriously the view that biology plays a serious role. Most agree it’s a social construction, and if you disagree, they call you essentialist.” Perhaps that’s because there is disagreement even within evolutionary biology and psychology about the validity of the studies being conducted. It’s not like science is infallible; these are inherently imprecise sciences, a fact admitted by scientists themselves. Do I even need to go into the folly of accepting one, single discipline as complete truth?
• “The women’s movement has been carried away a very strange agenda.” She also talks about a “feminist establishment”. A common theme in the discussion was that radical feminists have somehow hijacked the movement, but who is behind this “strange agenda” and what is the “establishment” she speaks of? NOW? The Feminist Majority? Because even I, as a feminist, cannot offer a universally agreed upon definition of feminism or its goals.
• Sommers said she is supportive of feminists “when they turn [their efforts] against true patriarchal societies in developing world, not toward us [the U.S.].” This statement smacks of cultural superiority, as if the West is light years ahead of the Orient, into which we must channel our efforts into saving. Ethnocentrism bothers me a lot, even more so than homophobia and sexism. Has she read Said? Spivak? Probably not, given her implicit assumption that women abroad will be better off if their societies are simply Westernized.

One audience member, a Ph.D student who teaches and takes women’s studies courses, pointed out that it seems like Sommers is still stuck in 1994 when her book, Who Stole Feminism?, first came out. Her conception of feminism does not take into account third wave feminism’s emphasis on intersectionality and on the acceptance of motherhood as a valid lifestyle choice. When Sommers claims that feminists emphasize the “drudgery” of domestic work, it became clear to me that in her mind, feminism hasn’t moved beyond  Betty Friedan. Third-wavers have long since pointed out that the choice to stay at home is itself a privileged one which only middle class women get to make. Poor or single mothers don’t get the same luxury, a problem that some third-wave feminists seek to address. If anything, feminists are the biggest supporter of making it possible for women to be mothers without sacrificing social status.

Sommers made a particularly questionable series of claims about how capitalist structures have made women better off: “I think that the free market has served women well. It’s no coincidence that feminism developed in England and America at the same time as the rise of capitalism. I think the more prosperous/free we are, the more men and women will be different. This is all part of the story of freedom. Capitalism has freed women. This is the golden age of female entrepreneurship in the U.S.”

I was genuinely curious as to how it’s possible to reconcile feminism and capitalism, so when Sommers said women — if given the choice — would rather “opt in” and be stay-at-home mothers or work part-time, I told her that women within a capitalist society are in the unfortunate position of not having their domestic labor compensated. I told her that there’s a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes and asked her how she expects for those women to exercise the same economic power as their male counterparts. I also said that no one has a true choice in a society in which working is a prerequisite for social and political engagement. According to Sommers, men report that they’d rather be breadwinners, but would they necessarily need or want to work full-time if it weren’t for the fact that money wields influence? I mentioned that this line of thought has a long history within feminism and was an extremely contentious point of debate between the radical and Marxist feminists (I personally subscribe to both schools of thought). My point devolved the second she asked me if I thought Marxist Feminism made sense and I answered in the affirmative. Given that Marxism, feminism, and Marxist Feminism all sound extremely radical and scary, I can understand if audience members weren’t familiar with the ideas I espoused — but Sommers is a philosophy professor and sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. Shouldn’t she have some basic understanding of the economic structures under which we all live?

When my thesis adviser brought up the fact that women in Nordic countries score higher than American women on a range of quality of life measures (presumably because their countries — which are still capitalist economies –  all have social policies that extend beyond food stamps), Sommers replied that because those countries probably have social services and high taxes, “There’s less opportunity for individual self assertion, so it’s an open question who’s better off. In the end, it’s probably a mix.”

Which is just false. It’s patently false, according to the Human Development Report from the United Nations, which is not exactly a secret study. Overall, everyone is better off (in terms of education, health, basic needs being met) but there’s also the highest gender equality and there’s more equality between the classes, which I think is a crucial and oft-forgotten component of feminism.

In conclusion, it’s possible to have reasonable discussions with people who disagree with your beliefs. But they have to be willing to educate themselves about what it is they’re arguing about. Sommers has an outdated view of feminism and a pitiful understanding of capitalism. That’s no starting point for a conversation.

I finally found myself face-to-face with a foot-long box containing my IUD. Thankfully, the size was misleading. The IUD is actually just 1.5 inches long. Still, that little device was responsible for the most painful experience of my life and I say this as someone who’s gotten five piercings and a tattoo … Unless you’re certain you can withstand a lot of pain, going the all-natural route might lead to a rude cervical awakening. Here are a few things that you can do to avoid my experience…

I spent years taking birth control pills on and off, depending on the state of my sex and love life, but when I met Patrick, I started a long, unbroken streak of pill-popping. Perhaps it was just my particular prescription, but over a year later, my sex drive had waned considerably and intercourse became uncomfortable — even painful. I’m really glad I decided to look into the IUD. It’s been more than a month since I’ve completed the switch, and my body (specifically, my vagina) is beginning to revert to its perky, pre-Pill self. I have to admit that when I decided to go off birth control pills, it was all based on a hunch. I didn’t know for sure why my body was behaving so erratically, but I figured that it couldn’t hurt to reduce the amount of hormones I ingested.

The one downside of the IUD? Putting it in hurts. In my case, it hurt a lot. Don’t let that discourage you, though. I accompanied Kennedy to her IUD appointment the week after mine, and she didn’t even realize when the doctor inserted it. There are also a lot of precautions which you can take to avoid my experience. If you’re considering an IUD, do yourself a favor and read my piece on SexReally.com.

We went through a whole slew of topics at tonight’s panel on Asian American women and sexuality. Some of the interesting points of discussion:

* The origin of sexual stereotypes: I attributed the image of the meek, submissive Asian woman to the history of Western colonization and occupation in the East, where forced and “voluntary” sex trade was rampant.  Since the majority of encounters were transactional, women occupied subservient roles. Prostitution aside, interactions between Asian women and male foreigners nonetheless tended to be inherently unequal due to the economic privilege of the latter group.
* Campus social scene: The presence of MIT frats in Boston allows for a much more diverse social atmosphere. When I went out to Halloween parties with Christine, we danced alongside students from Emerson, Northeastern, and BU. Harvard is completely insular (a bad thing, in my opinion), and Harvard girls are wary of outsiders, especially if they’re Wellesley students, who are viewed as potential competition. I also pointed out that at Harvard, like at many colleges, people speak of a pervasive hook-up culture, even though the numbers don’t add up. (A 2003 survey by University Health Services found that half of Harvard students had never had vaginal sex.)
* Yellow fever and Asian fetishes: The panelists were in agreement that the large Asian populations in schools like Harvard and MIT meant that non-Asian guys would be more likely to come into contact with and date Asian women. We talked about the difference between a fetish and an aesthetic preference and discussed whether Asian women have reverse fetishes on White men. I imagine I’ll be discussing this topic more in-depth on Friday (see below).
* Family, parents, and sexual instruction: Christine aside, the rest of the panel and audience commenters indicated that their parents had told them very little about sex beyond saying that they should not have it under any circumstances until marriage. I told everyone that my mother was slow to come around, but once I moved away from home, she had to deal with the inevitable (and I wasn’t about to maintain an illusion for her sanity). Recently, I mentioned to her that the Pill was killing my sex drive and she expressed concern that Patrick would become dissatisfied. So, things change.

There was a great turnout and audience participation (always better than just letting speaker ramble). Since I already knew the other panelists, alum Vivien Wu and MIT’s Christine Yu, I felt a bit less of a super senior out of touch with the rest of Harvard. It also helped that my friends came — all, uh, five of them. At least they’re loyal.

This event was part of Asian American Awareness Week, which culminates with a charity dance on Saturday. There will be events throughout the week, and I’ll also be a panelist for Friday’s Interracial Dating Discussion happening at 4:30pm in Lowell House’s Junior Common Room. I’ve written about my thoughts on intra- and interracial dating in the past, but it’ll be interesting to share these ideas in the context of a conversation. Send me questions if you can’t make it!

I had a lot of fun writing this piece, in part because it was an opportunity to debunk a common misinterpretation of Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs as a treatise on the consequences of feminism. Levy, who identifies as a feminist herself, does not blame second-wave feminism for vulgar music videos and crude lad mags emblematic of modern “raunch culture”. Rather, she argues that women who express their sexuality in a manner obviously conforming to the male gaze (straight women kissing in night clubs, for example) are falsely invoking feminism in justifying their decisions.

Levy herself has gone on the record as stating in an interview with sex-positive feminist Susie Bright:

OF COURSE I don’t think [sex radicals] are responsible for this…the whole point of sex radicals is to explore new and different and more creative ways to represent— and to have— sex. I’m all for creativity. I’m all for exploration. I’m just not for the incessant reiteration of this one incredibly dull shorthand for sexiness… Wet t-shirt contests! Implants! Brazilian bikini waxes!

…

You have always been about encouraging women to investigate what they really and truly want from sex. Raunch culture, on the other hand, is about performance, not pleasure. That’s my objection … As I say in my book, the women for whom this is *genuine* — the women who authentically get their kicks from flashing for GGW or stripping or whatever— have my best wishes.

It’s a shame that Levy’s work has been so often misinterpreted as it offers a rare, nuanced examination of how the male-dominated entertainment and pornography industry have hijacked “sexual liberation” for profit. This isn’t because feminism went too far; it’s because it didn’t go far enough.

Feministing editor Jessica Valenti has just publicly responded to critics of her wedding. In today’s post, she gives her take on media coverage of her nuptials and the appallingly cruel backlash and accusations of hypocrisy.

Though I admit that I was surprised to learn she decided to get married, I can’t fault her for wanting to take part in an institution and ritual so ingrained in our society. The festivities she describes sound exactly like what I hope the weddings of my friends will be like. I, on the other hand, don’t know if I’ll ever get married. I’ve written before about the problems with the institution but I still struggle with the idea of never partaking in a social ritual that most other people will get to experience. Though I could just choose to opt in (just this once!), I try to keep in mind the following:

1. The only reason I care about having a wedding is because I’ve been socialized to believe that this is a crucial life event. I wouldn’t want it if everyone else didn’t also have a “special day” for the sole purpose of a personal celebration.
2. Many people never get to have weddings, and I’m not just talking about same-sex couples. Think of those beyond the Western world who will never experience our conception of a “wedding”: women who have been raped or have dared to have premarital sex, couples from different religions/races/etc., or my own parents who were simply too poor.
3. I want the wedding aspect a lot more than I want the piece of paper. Beyond legal benefits, it is irrelevant whether or not I’m someone’s “wife”. The label has zero impact on how people about their partners. And if it does take state recognition to fully love someone, then that’s one screwed up relationship.

And yet, how I still yearn to don a floor-length gown as the belle of the ball. The desire to partake in some traditions is sometimes too deeply ingrained to be erased by a feminist awakening (and I’ve had about a dozen at this point). I can’t emphasize how much I don’t want to give in to my inner bride, but that’s easy to say when I’m 22 and co-habitating while my friends are off being young and single. (Right now, they think I’m the boring and domestic one.) I have no delusions about how tough it’ll be in a few years when they get into serious relationships, become engaged, and throw huge bashes while I play the supportive bridesmaid who will literally never be a bride. It won’t be easy, and quite frankly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to withstand the temptation or if I’ll just say, “To hell with it!”

Would doing the latter make me less of a feminist? I don’t think so, nor do I think Valenti is a hypocrite for getting married. She, of all people, is enlightened enough to realize the baggage that comes with the club she’s joining, and it’s unreasonable for anyone to expect her to resist the overwhelming urge to simply live like other people for once. Personally speaking, it’s not easy to live in a patriarchal, capitalist society which is fundamentally opposed to my beliefs about equality (gender, economic, and otherwise). Abiding strictly by my values would mean completely opting out of the world in which my friends and family live — and sure, some people do that but end up having zero impact on the mainstream, which is where equality really matters. Jessica Valenti and Andrew Golis negotiated that conflict by making their wedding “representative of the institution [they’d] like it to be”. In other words, they’re trying to change it. That’s precisely why I can get behind the idea of a feminist getting married or of a gay couple getting married. Weddings can be transgressive affairs, and mine will be if I ever have one.

Still, that’s a big if. I can be happy for those who make that decision and extraordinarily happy for gay friends who now have the option, but when I ask myself why I’d want a marriage, it ultimately comes down to wanting other people to celebrate my relationship and recognize its significance. And let’s face it, I could throw a big fat feminist non-wedding sans ceremony and marriage license, but how many people are really going to take that as seriously as “the real thing” or actually purchase plane tickets for the affair? So while I don’t need others to validate my relationship, sometimes I do just want to be treated like everyone else, which I know I won’t be if unless I get married “for real”.

It’s disheartening, then, that the marriage equality movement ignores people like me, who run the risk of losing domestic partnership benefits altogether if same-sex marriage is legalized en masse. The line of reasoning is that if everyone could get married, then there’s no point in having special rights for those “living in sin”. But there will always be some people who opt out even of a courthouse wedding, not because they have commitment issues or because they like living on the margins of society, but because they don’t think getting married changes anything, because they recognize that the only reason anyone wants to marry is because it’s one of the most basic expectations of American society, along with work and kids. Even without all its anti-feminist trappings, marriage would still be problematic, as is anything that becomes so much of a given that it’s just taken for granted that everyone should have one.

Can the personal ever not be political? I actually don’t think so. I applaud Valenti for an incredibly thoughtful treatment of a traditionally consumerist, gendered institution, but even if her wedding wasn’t consumerist or gendered, it was still a transgressive induction into an institution, one that people take for granted as desirable. So what does Valenti’s case demonstrate? That she, too, wants to be part of that institution. But a feminist who has a wedding isn’t any more of a hypocrite than a Marxist who buys groceries. You can be incredibly progressive and still not be willing to grow your own food or give up mainstream acceptance (or live in a cave — pretty much the only way to truly realize most ideals). While I’m sure that her marriage will set an example for other couples, perhaps forgoing a wedding altogether in the name of a cause is the type of sacrifice you couldn’t really ask of anyone, not even a completely self-aware feminist. That says much more about how effectively this cultural tradition has been spoon-fed to the masses than it does about Valenti.

what a spoiled little life you lead. how DO you pay for all your globe trotting and partying? you must have rich parents or a sugar daddy. or maybe you moonlight in addition to your ‘writing career’? anyway, enjoy your life of privilege while it lasts. someday you may find yourself scrubbing floors or pots and pans or caring for the sick or elderly. life is not a beach, as the saying goes. -comment by joe

The bottom line you Ivy league snob, is that you throw all of your globetrotting in the face of the 99% of readers who are less fortunate than your spoiled ass. Most college students are eating ramen noodles 5 nights a week, and living in a piece of shit apartment with second hand furninture you ungrateful twit. Maybe you should get some common sense. I can’t wait until you graduate and are unemployed. Maybe then you will learn some humility. –comment by Satsuya

I never cease to be amazed by the amount of vitriol spewed my way. Most of it is along the lines of “whore whore slut”, but occasionally, my blog also attracts bitter members of the underclass*. For example, I was heavily criticized last year when I chronicled the time I spent in Europe. Most of that summer was spent squatting in a dorm room where I shared a bed with my best friend (I was literally squatting, as in, I was not allowed to be there and did not pay rent, nor was my presence accounted for in any official way), and most of those nights, she slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Glamorous it was not.

But some of my more ignorant critics nonetheless view any traveling as jetsetting and Europe/anywhere outside of North America as some shiny place inaccessible to all but the wealthy. That’s just patently untrue. I don’t deny that Harvard offers certain advantages, such as well-connected friends who can offer free lodging or entertainment (see: my entire Ibiza trip). I know plenty of college students who eat ramen, live in small apartments, and are on full financial aid (like me) who also find affordable ways to travel and have fun, often on their school’s dime. Going abroad doesn’t automatically make a person overprivileged or mean that they come from money (or even if they do, it doesn’t mean they don’t pay for it on their own) just as going to an Ivy League school doesn’t automatically make me a snob. (And besides, what would be wrong with parents paying for vacations? I’d want to do that for my kids!)

Do I think I have it better than most college students? Yes and no. I probably have it better than most college students whose mothers are hotel maids. But that’s only because the children of hotel maids don’t usually attend Harvard, an institution as valuable for its social network as it is for its education. If I’d gone to UC Berkeley, I probably wouldn’t receive invitations to the South of France, but maybe I would’ve been invited to Napa instead. That being said, it’s not as if every Harvard student has a recognizable last name and comes from a family who owns second or third homes (most don’t). Those who do are usually humble about it, or at least, they’ve been taught to not talk about it.

Maybe instead of calling me spoiled, ungrateful, and lacking common sense, these commenters should be asking themselves why they’re so resentful. When I first got to Harvard, I very much felt like an odd girl out because of my background and I’ve always been acutely aware of the school’s air of privilege. I’m sure I know better than these guys what it’s like to be poor in the face of extreme wealth. But while I don’t doubt that there are plenty of douchebag Harvard alums stealing your jobs and girlfriends, I’m not one of them and it’s incredibly ignorant to assume that’s what every Ivy Leaguer is like.

The fact that these commenters think it’s impossible for a Harvard student to come from a lower middle class background (i.e. less than $30,000/year for a family of three) just demonstrates how little they know about socioeconomic diversity here. Besides its diversity recruitment efforts, the school also attempts to make money a non-issue one students are on campus by randomizing the housing lottery (so that everyone has a shot at the most desirable dorms) and offering a single all-you-can-eat dining plan (so that everyone can eat as much as they want without having to worry about paying more for it). So sure, you could say that most students who came from a similar background to mine are probably “less fortunate” but that’s because most schools don’t make it a priority to create the illusion of class equality.

I’m perfectly aware that Harvard offers certain privileges, but I’m not going to apologize for taking advantage of them.

* I jest.

Which means that I have a STI. That’s not so surprising, given that nearly 80 percent of sexually active adults will contract HPV at some point, nor is it cause for concern, since most cases clear up on their own. And yet … when I realized I couldn’t get my IUD last week because of the abnormal pap, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of shame. As if having a STI were something to be ashamed of. “What am I going to tweet?” I wondered in a panic. “What will my followers think?!”

Luckily, I’m not that indoctrinated that I’m ready to slap on a scarlet D for “diseasemonger”. But I’m not naive. I know that there are people who do view STIs as “shameful” (especially when you’re talking about more serious ones), but that’s a viewpoint that makes zero sense to me. No one would ever view leukemia as something to be ashamed of, nor would you blame a smoker for getting lung cancer, so why is there a tendency to blame individuals who have STIs? When it comes to something as common as HPV, everyone who has ever had sex in the world is accountable, meaning that someone had to give it to your partner who gave it to you who very well may have given it to someone else. That doesn’t make any of the above parties bad or irresponsible people. Because there are often no symptoms, not everyone knows whether they’re a HPV carrier. HPV testing is also not common, given that signs of infection are usually found through pap smears and often disappear on their own.

I’m sure I have plenty of followers on Twitter who cringed through my live-tweeting of my last two gynecology appointments (though I haven’t checked to see if my follower count is actually down). To some extent, I’m self-conscious about sharing too much, but I also feel comfortable enough with my body (and its failings) that I don’t mind talking about processes (pap smears, colposcopies, whatever) that are mostly shrouded in mystery. Is this an exercise in demystifying/destigmatizing sexuality? Abso-fucking-lutely, though I’d still be tweeting it even with zero followers. I’m sure some folks would consider all my cervix talk a major “overshare”, but there’s no reason why most discussion about STIs is only in the abstract. Pretty much everyone has HPV, so why can’t we discuss it and other STIs like we (and our friends) are potential carriers?

I went into MGH this summer right before leaving for Germany for an IUD appointment. At the time, roughly late July, I hadn’t had a pap smear in a year, so they recommended that I first get one to make sure I didn’t have any STIs or other issues that an IUD could potentially worsen. At that appointment, they prescribed me a couple painkillers and a mild sedative/muscle relaxant, which I was supposed to take prior to my next appointment, at which time I would get an IUD (assuming my pap came back fine).

I’ve had abnormal pap smears before, back in my sophomore year, as a result of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL). LSILs are often a sign of human papillomavirus (HPV), some strains of which can lead to cervical cancer. HPV is extremely common and usually harmless. The majority of sexually active American adults will contract it at some point in their lives, but not everyone shows symptoms and most cases clear up on their own, which is exactly what happened with me. After twice yearly check-ups, the LSILs eventually went away. I then immediately got vaccinated for HPV, since Gardasil protects against most cancerous strains of HPV (but not all).

Given my history of abnormal pap smears, I was eager to get back my results from July so that I could confirm that everything was peachy down there. They told me to expect my results in a week, at which time I’d be abroad, so I instructed them to call me instead of mailing a letter. A week passed and I’d heard nothing, so I called back and was informed that the lab hadn’t processed my pap smear yet. I waited another week before calling again, and after repeatedly being hung up on or directed to a voicemail box, I was told once again that my results weren’t in. I kept calling right up until the end of August (by this time, I had returned to the United States) and kept being told that the results “should be available in just a few days”. Meanwhile, since returning from abroad, I found a letter informing me that I’d been scheduled for an IUD appointment on August 17th, an appointment I obviously missed since I didn’t even know about it and wasn’t in the country. I wasn’t informed about it via phone call, and I had previously made it very clear that I would not be in Boston. I rescheduled for September 10th.

So, that brings us to yesterday. I fill my prescription for the painkillers and sedative (which by the way, cost $30), take the medication the morning of the procedure as instructed, and show up to my appointment with Patrick in tow for moral support. He’s blocked out his afternoon so I don’t have to wobble home by myself or navigate the T solo. By this time, I’m pretty woozy and a little absent-minded. (At first, I thought it might have just be a placebo effect, but two friends in different instances pointed out that I was behaving strangely, and though I didn’t realize I’d taken a muscle relaxant at the time, I felt too tired to go to the gym.) I’m told by the receptionist that they are running roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. An hour later, they call my name.

I’m led into a room, where I get my blood pressure taken and am told to undress from the waist down. The nurse asks whether I’m getting the five- or ten-year Mirena, and I decide on the five-year since it has a small amount of estrogen which decreases menstrual flow. She leaves so I can undress, and I’m generally feeling pretty good —- a little nervous, but calm (thanks meds!). And then, everything goes downhill.

My doctor (a different doctor from the one I saw the first time) comes in and informs me that I can’t actually get an IUD after all. Apparently, the pap smear I had done in July came back abnormal, which means I need a colposcopy. The lab processed my pap smear on September 3rd, a week ago. The doctor says I should’ve gotten a copy of the results in the mail (which I hadn’t because I just changed my address). I ask why no one called, and she doesn’t know. Keep in mind that I’m half-naked at this point. And drugged. My boyfriend and I have both blocked out the second half of our day so that I can get this IUD and he can take care of me in my medicated, crampy state.

This situation was entirely preventable. MGH should have told me that I couldn’t make an appointment for an IUD before I got my pap results back (though I should also mention that you need to make appointments weeks in advance). Conversely, they could have also just called me as soon as they got the results, which was what I told them to do after they asked how I wanted to find out. Why would you ask the patient what her preferred method of communication is if you don’t use it? I’m also pretty appalled that the lab needed SIX WEEKS to process a standard pap smear. God forbid I actually had something serious.

All in all, this is not what I expected, certainly not out of MGH, which is supposed to be the best hospital in New England. My colposcopy’s scheduled for next week (perhaps I’ll even liveblog the process) and if it turns out my cervix is just bluffing, then I can get my IUD on the spot. But this time, I’m not going to pre-medicate. I’d rather not make myself woozy for 24 hours for absolutely no reason.

[Correction to my comments on the Mirena]