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]

Of course, it’s not as simple as wanting flat abs and substantial cleavage for beauty’s sake itself. Our idea of what constitutes beauty is inextricably linked to the way we view success, lifestyle, and class. Unfortunately, my Gen-Y comrades and I grew up on a diet of Seventeen, not Sassy, and we now reach for Cosmopolitan instead of Ms. Magazine. That means that the way we define wealth and a desirable lifestyle is influenced by fashion spreads and make-up tutorials. (Don’t even get me started on the blowjob tips.) Like they say, you can never be too rich or too thin or nowadays, too tan. And as sick as it sounds, dropping from a size 12 to a 6 is the type of social mobility that any girl of any background can afford.

I just returned from Ibiza this morning, and based on what I saw on the nude beaches and the VIP sections of superclubs like Pacha, I’m astonished that magazines continue to Photoshop their models. There are women out there who look so close to perfection that they almost seem unreal from up close and not in a freaky Barbie doll kind of way either (though there are plenty of those too). Presumably, the girls I saw over the past four days –many of them models, dancers, or actresses — are the type of women who wind up on the pages of women’s mags, and yet, even they are constantly under the scrutiny of image editing software and ridiculed for imperfections. When Playboy’s first issue came out, photo manipulation and boob jobs were unheard of, but as beauty has become a consumer good to be purchased and acquired, Photoshop has become a tool for fueling consumption. Today, it’s not enough that affluent American women have been brainwashed into being gym rats and plastic surgery patients. These companies want these ideas to become the norm. That is, they want women with enough wealth to hand it over, and they want women without it to aspire to be consumers.

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I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am. I am. I am.

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Right now, I want to disappear. I haven’t felt this in a long time, perhaps because in the past year, I more or less succeeded in doing precisely that. I traded in Sex and the Ivy for a far less personal tumblelog. I left school and then the country. When I returned, I moved to Beacon Hill and avoided campus, final clubs, and the Class of 2009. My already shrunken circle of friends shrank even more. Agents asked me if I still wanted to write a book, and I would say this really isn’t the right time, but it’s on my mind and I’ll get in touch on my own, thank you. I guess it was reassuring to know that I was, in fact, still relevant. But for once, that mattered less than the sliver of privacy I’d found. Public and private life finally seemed distinguishable, and I was happy. I am happy.

When Harvard kicked me out of school last spring, I felt like the Ad Board didn’t believe or care about my story. Sure, I never did well in college, and hell, I admit that I was a pretty mediocre honors student in high school, but there’s a reason why I went from getting abysmal grades to simply not passing a class. That doesn’t just happen on its own. The problem is, I don’t know how I could have expected anyone at the time to believe me when even I thought my story was unbelievable. It was so unbelievable, in fact, that I called it a “story”. I thought of it as a book, perhaps because I was trying to write one, but also because there wasn’t any possible way that it was actually happening in real life. Yet it was.

I started Sex and the Ivy in the beginning of my sophomore year. At first, it was exhilarating to feel inspired enough to write everyday. It was the biggest high I’d ever felt and I still sometimes fear I’ll never replicate it again. But what I initially considered an incredible creative phase soon turned into the worst period of my life up to that point. Because I believed in the best in people, I wrote naively and with abandon. I wrote about my fears and my uncertainties and my insecurities. I always wrote the truth. Most of the feedback was positive but some people were critical, not in a constructive way, but in a purposely hurtful, malicious way. Judgments were made about my character based on the presumed number of sexual partners I’d had. Strangers felt justified in calling me a “slut”. Their IP addresses suggested they were posting from a computer connected to the campus network. For a period of about six months, I went through a series of highs and lows. Most of my blogging was done when I was in a slightly manic state. The rest of the time, I slept a lot, missed class frequently, and tried to extricate myself from most social activities. Someone, a professional, suggested I might be struggling with a high-functioning form of bipolar disorder. I met with a psychiatrist, decided I wasn’t that crazy (at least not yet), and promptly went back into hibernation mode until the spring. By then, I was doing better and just wanted to finish the school year so I could spend summer in New York. None of what I’m writing here is new. I’ve said it all before, so many times before that it doesn’t feel real now to look back on it.

Sometimes when I spoke to my junior year therapist about this, I felt like she didn’t believe me either. I felt like no one believed me, or at least they couldn’t feel what I felt. Back then, I thought I was going crazy, not crazy enough to take pills, but enough to question whether this constant feeling of being watched and judged was merely a mental affliction. I almost wanted to ask Sara if she thought I was actually making this all up in my head. In retrospect, what I considered unconfirmed paranoia at the time was pretty much confirmed by my junior year. I just didn’t want to believe it. But then you hear enough people whisper your name (or something that vaguely sounds like it) whenever you’re in the vicinity. You catch enough people looking at you. You catch pointing. And sometimes, you overhear something that no one intended for you to hear. What you used to wonder about, you come to expect. But I never learned the full extent of it and I never will, which is why I thought for so long that I was crazy in a very literal sense.

I want to point out that I have never, ever been harassed in person. None of these people who gossip and say or think or write terrible things about me would ever have the courage to publicly stand by their words. Every time anyone has approached me, they’ve been gracious and kind and polite; and though I am grateful for this, it also terrifies me, because I can’t put an identifiable face on my attackers. And yes, I do feel attacked.

It may have been an unhinged ex-boyfriend who put nude photos of me online two Christmases ago, but their dissemination was a collaborative effort between IvyGate and my peers. I know for a fact that people who personally knew me — as well as others who didn’t –  were sending those photos around while I was in hysterics at the end of fall term and struggling to finish papers just so I could finish them, just so I could leave the school and the country and all this inexplicable malice behind. When Patrick and I started dating last spring, I didn’t tell anyone but my closest friends about him. I actually kept my relationship a secret from the majority of my acquaintances. And yet, someone who knew the both of us, someone who must’ve seen us in public together or something, outed him on JuicyCampus. When it got picked up on AutoAdmit, online vigilantes decided to take matters into their own hands and send indignant emails to Harvard professors and administrators demanding that Patrick be kicked out of his Ph.D program for a breach of ethics that never occurred. Thank god he was in a five-year relationship during the entire time he taught me or people might’ve actually not believed us.

I suppose the fact that I’m still blogging is a testament to my emotional strength or to my stupidity. To be honest, I’m terrified of returning to school this fall because I’m running out of the former. I’m tired of being strong and I’m tired of having to just put up with it and I’m worried that what’s happened thus far is the beginning, not the end. In retrospect, I’m surprised my 19-year-old self lasted as long as she did. I’m turning 22 next month and I’m getting too old for this. I used to get so many sexist or downright misogynistic comments that I became numb to them. I hit delete, delete, delete and moved on to the next entry. And now? When I read something terrible that a stranger has to say about me,  I stop and think about it. I think about them and the person they might be. I think about myself and what I’ve done to deserve this kind of scrutiny. I think about how a website could provoke concerted efforts by other human beings to make my life miserable.

Maybe blogging about my personal life means I’m “asking for it” but if my only crime is writing openly and honestly about sex and not having the decency to feel ashamed of myself, then yes, I suppose I asked for it. I realize now, two years late, that I was incredibly naive for expecting better out of people, out of humanity, as dramatic as that sounds. When I was 19, I didn’t think anyone understood me. Not my mother, who didn’t know about my blog. Not my therapist, who nodded at the right times and knew my secret resentments. Not my friends, who were often the ones I resented. And now I know there’s at least one person in the world who understands me, pretty completely, and I’m still miserable, just because a stranger decided to be shockingly inhumane tonight. How did I do it at 19? How can I ever write that candidly again if even a mere comment (or in this case, 15 of them in a span of minutes) conjures up all the unpleasant memories I’ve pushed to the recesses of my mind? I have never once regretted writing Sex and the Ivy, but it’s not until now that I’ve acknowledged the full extent of what I lost because of it. I spent most of college disassociating myself from my peers, physically running away (to New York, to Philadelphia, abroad), and questioning my own sanity. And sure, I was defiant, and more importantly, I was in the right. But what good is being right when you’re an unhappy, suspicious person? Now that I know the alternative, I could care less about my writing or what others see in it or what they see in me. I’d rather be happy than defiant on principle.

None of these people who have done me wrong will get their comeuppance. There’s no such thing as god or karma and even if there were, I’m not looking for justice. I’m looking for happiness, and thus far, I’ve only found it in a private life. I could wait endlessly for divine retribution, or I could try to be happy knowing what I know about human nature and what people are capable of. I could try to be happy the one way I know how. I could try to disappear.

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I’m incredibly scared of loss. And I know I shouldn’t feel like I lose something by sleeping with someone, but I do. I decided to stop having sex because I was sick of giving away all these pieces of myself and subsequently worrying about unintentional attachment, ill-advised yearning. It felt like I had no control.

I rarely reread entries on this blog, but tonight, I clicked on this link on the sidebar. I feel so far away from this girl, and yet, I think I finally understand what people mean when they tell me that my blog entries make them wish that they could give me a hug. Lame as it sounds, I wish I could give 19-year-old Lena a hug.

I wrote this when I was in New York the summer after my sophomore year of college. I lived across the street from Tompkins Square Park and spent as little time as possible with other Harvard kids (pretty easy, since they all worked in finance). I had spent four months forgoing sex after dating two guys in a row who both turned out to have girlfriends. I stopped trusting men almost completely, and I say “almost” only because my best friend is a guy (albeit one with zero sexual interest in me). It was pretty much impossible to sleep with me, and I’m certain that I was an insufferable date. I didn’t even go on dates with the goal of falling in love or whatever it is people hope for when they set up contrived meetings with total strangers. I dated out of boredom, and I genuinely didn’t care when I didn’t get called back. If a guy had told me he wanted a relationship, I would’ve laughed in his face. Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am?

Now, when I read myself, I feel sad. I feel sad that I was so utterly broken that I was incapable of experiencing any sort of emotion toward men. I had made up my mind at this point that this blog meant more to me than social acceptance, that what I stood for was more important than the existence of a love life, and that there was no possibility of love in any case since no man would willingly sign up for this. It’s not true, of course. There are plenty of progressive, open-minded men. I knew some even then. But I wouldn’t have sex with even those guys, because I could no longer differentiate the bad apples from the entire population. When I said “no”, it meant, “No, I don’t need any of you.” I was miserly with trust, and once I had mentally checked out of the dating game, no one had any chance of penetrating my emotional armor or anything else for that matter. And yet, as closed off as I was, I was undeniably happy that summer and happy to go back to school and happy to be alone. I was finally free of seemingly endless heartbreaks and disappointments, because I had ceased to hope. And in a strange, satisfying way, I was incredibly at peace for the first time in a long time. In the back of my mind, I thought, “I’m going to be alone forever, and this suits me just fine.”

It’s strange to read words I wrote years ago, but even stranger to think about the subjects of my stories and the people they’ve become. For an extremely public blog, I did a damn good job of not letting anyone’s identity get revealed, which is why it still boggles my mind that someone out there managed to figure out, spread rumors about, and viciously attack who I was dating. Patrick is the first and only man I’ve ever named, and obviously, not by choice in this case. Him aside, I suppose I’m grateful that the only person who ever got hurt from Sex and the Ivy was me. But even after the controversy subsided, I never did put much of my relationship with Patrick down into words. In retrospect, it was because he meant more to me than anyone ever had, and transcribing my feelings to text suggested a permanence I wasn’t ready for. It’d be admitting that he meant something to me, and even if he didn’t know it and my readers didn’t know it, I would certainly know it.

I met Patrick during what was probably the most emotionally tumultuous period of my life. I was so utterly terrified of loss, of losing Kennedy, of losing my family’s support (if they found out about this blog), of losing him, and honestly, of losing myself in him. I was so afraid of losing the ability to be alone and happy at the cusp of 20. And while I desperately wanted this to work out, I simply couldn’t envision a future with him. I couldn’t envision a future with anyone, because I had become so fully cynical in my views about love. It took me months to admit to myself that he cared about me. I spent half of our relationship in doubt.

To some extent, I regret never recording our beginning, if only because the compulsive chronicler in me feels like memories will slip away unless I jot them down in the moment. But on the other hand, I’m glad there won’t be a Patrick to reread years from now. I don’t want him frozen in time, unchanged from sheer force of will. I refuse to turn him into a character, even if it means preserving his memory. When we have problems, I don’t think to write them down. When we’re happy, I don’t think to write it down either. That impulse has simply disappeared, in part because the unstated goal of blogging was always to figure out who I was and who I wanted to become. Now that I know … well, this blog will never be what it once was, because I’m not who I once was. To be honest, I hope I never feel compelled to write here again. It’s an artifact from a time when I was unsure about many things, most of all my worthiness of being loved. Years from now, whether we work out or not, I don’t want to read about Patrick. I’m certain of that much. If we’re still together, then this version of him will seem like such a distant representation of who he later becomes. And if we’re not, then I don’t want anyone — least of all myself — reminding me that I was once in love. Living it will have been enough.

Two weeks before I first went out with Patrick, I met up with a guy named Paul Janka, a Harvard grad best known for writing a guide to getting laid in New York. It turned out that this “guide” was more like an e-book. And by “e-book”, I mean “PDF file”. As for Paul, his seduction strategy apparently consisted of booze, diligence, and a generous interpretation of the word “no”. Nonetheless, I thought he would make for an interesting column; Paul thought I would make for a good conquest. In the end, neither of us got what we wanted. I got much closer to being assaulted than I ever did to selling the story, and I left his apartment wondering exactly what kind of hell my love life had become for me to subject myself to sadistic experiments like this one. Anyway, I volunteer this information not just because I volunteer information about every aspect of my life, but because it demonstrates precisely how dire my romantic mindset was at the time. I was resorting to gimmicks to keep my love life interesting. It’s like what happens when a television show on its way toward a slow death decides to start airing “special episodes”. Paul was a special episode.

I was pretty sure Patrick was going to be a special episode too. At the time, I’d pretty much given up on dating altogether, or at least taking dates seriously. Guys were just around to keep life interesting, and sex was just a reason to get dressed up on weekends. (And by junior year at Harvard, I realized that I didn’t even really need to get dressed up to get laid.) I was starting to date and fuck like a freshman again, or maybe just like a man, and I kind of loved it in this really cynical way. That’s why I had no qualms about ditching Valentine’s Day for a trip to New York with a newly single gal pal. That’s why I figured I might as well go on a date with a known douchebag while I was in town if it meant a potential byline. Expecting nothing from no one was, after all, far better than not seeing a sex scandal coming because you fucked the wrong asshole (see: January 2008 of my life).

The same weekend I met Paul, I had brunch with my friend Julia, who is the Gawker poster girl for the Overshared Life. Talking to her confirmed all my suspicions about why my love life had gone awry. Julia, like me, found that her blog was a death warrant for any blossoming romance. Even if a guy were the first to be interested, even if they had fantastic chemistry, even if the initial dates were perfect, his interest waned immediately when he learned of her online reputation. In Boston, I was dealing with near-identical no-mances. For women like us, it seemed like the possibility of love was laughable at best.

My non-blogger friends, on the other hand, hated my pessimistic attitude. They told me that rejection was a blessing in disguise since I wouldn’t be settling for someone too insecure to date a sexually confident woman. They assured me that I deserved someone who would be willing to handle the complications that came with dating me and that I would certainly be meeting him in the very near future. (Like maybe as soon as grad school! Yay?) But seriously, I wasn’t expecting life partnership here. I just wanted one normal romance that didn’t begin with a drunken introduction and end abruptly after a Google search. At this point, it’d been two years since I started my blog and my longest relationship since then was a two-month affair that led to eight months of stalking and naked photos splattered across the Internet. So what was a Carrie 2.0 to do but to resort to pessimism? Not only was I scaring off my Mr. Bigs, but the guys who I did go out with scared me. It appeared that girls like Julia and me had two options: 1) men like Paul Janka or 2) perpetual singledom. After my brief brush with date rape, I was ready to opt for the latter.

Then a couple weeks after my trip to New York, I found myself at dinner with a guy I mostly remembered for his inability to keep me awake during statistics. Patrick was eight years older, German, and a Ph.D candidate in my department. He also happened to be the most attractive person who’d ever been in charge of my grading me. Over the previous year and a half, my best friend Jason and I took three classes with Patrick, and though I’d like to say that it was because I found him impossibly charming, I was mostly just fulfilling sociology requirements. Nonetheless, I silently rejoiced every time I was assigned to his section, especially after I realized my piece of eyecandy was a rather efficient and helpful teaching instructor and not merely a hot guy with a funny accent. To Patrick, however, I was then just a sleepy student. Statistics, which I got a C+ in, was a particularly harrowing experience. I recall Jason pinching me a lot in that class … and really not much else.

By the time Patrick and I finally went out, it’d been over two months since I last saw him and even longer since he graded one of my mediocre papers. The prelude to the actual date was fairly undramatic. Following a thinly veiled public declaration of my affection, initial contact was made over email and the date was suggested over text message. Well, actually, I suggested hooking up over text message. But Patrick, for some crazy reason I’ve still yet to figure out, thought that dinner would be more acceptable. I was pretty much thinking, “Yeah, this really isn’t necessary. Can we just fuck?” I somehow suppressed the urge to reveal this thought and along with it, my slutty nature. It would certainly be revealed soon enough.

I immediately gloated to Jason who called me crazy more than once and insisted that I was completely misinterpreting the situation and  going to make things extremely awkward with a former TF who we actually might want to take classes with in the future. Basically, Jason had the mindset of someone who wanted to get into law school. I had the mindset of someone who wanted an interesting story to tell at post-grad cocktail parties. I was already getting started by telling every friend in close proximity about the TF fantasy-turned-reality and spent the day feeling rather smug about myself, despite a looming deadline for some mediocre paper I had not yet written. I probably would’ve taken out an announcement in The Crimson if possible. After all, it’s not everyday you get to fulfill a crush three semesters in the making.

Yet somehow, about an hour before the actual date, my excitement over going out with and potentially fucking my former TF turned into total trepidation over going out with and potentially fucking my former TF. What the hell was I getting myself into? I knew next-to-nothing about Patrick, even less about what to expect out of the evening, and I was pretty sure that Jason was right when it came to me totally misinterpreting the situation. By the time I got off the train to meet Patrick, I was ready to get right back on. In fact, I felt a mild wave of nausea, then panic, followed by paralyzing fear. Um, I had a date in five minutes and I was on the verge of an anxiety attack. After taking several deep breaths, I called Jason and told him, “I can’t do this. I’m about to hyperventilate.” Jason, ever so reasonable and probably fearful of jeopardizing his letter of recommendation by association with a whore whore slut, suggested calmly that I tell Patrick I was sick and then go home. Discouragement was exactly what I needed to snap out of it. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” I declared. “You’re totally useless. I’ll call you when the date is over.”

About 30 seconds after the exchange with my truly unadventurous best friend, I found myself face-to-face with Patrick who looked considerably taller than I remembered and was dressed in decidedly un-academic clothing. He looked hot, and not even in a scholarly kind of way. Given our previously limited interaction and his non-American background, I didn’t have any idea how to read him. Maybe he thought that I’d be an easy lay, but then again, he always seemed so proper in class. No, it was more likely that his intentions were genuine, which was almost endearing. Here was a semi-awkward foreign grad student too culturally unaware to realize that asking out a former student is a mildly scandalous affair. Poor thing. Also, I thought: he so does not know about my sex blog. It occurs to me in retrospect that I was being extremely condescending, but in all likelihood, I probably employed every defense mechanism available to stay calm and feel in control. Surprisingly, as soon as we got into a cab and started talking, my anxiety dissipated along with my theory that Patrick was awkward with women and clueless about American prudishness. We compared frat life at Yale (where he did undergrad) to the final club scene at Harvard and discussed the “athletic” rivalry between our schools. Patrick actually seemed normal, and my stomach seemed calm. It appeared as if I was not going to puke after all.

Dinner was at a South End establishment with live music and dim lighting, the key facilitators to close-up conversation, which is like the foreplay to foreplay. It was a relatively grown-up venue given my recent romps in fraternity houses and dorm rooms, and I realized early in the evening that I felt uncharacteristically nervous. Typically on dates, I acted self-assured and liked to challenge guys by teasing them or being playfully argumentative. With Patrick, however, I couldn’t muster up my usual feistiness. I was so used to viewing him as an instructor that it seemed inappropriate to treat him like a peer. For the first time in a long while, I actually felt flustered. Patrick, on the other hand, was completely at ease which only disarmed me further. When I failed to look him in the eye while clinking glasses, he said to me, “You know what that means, right? Seven years of bad sex.” I almost choked on my drink. My TF just the word “sex” in a reference to me. Thankfully, my nerves were nothing alcohol couldn’t fix. I rarely drank but on this night, I happily chugged glass after glass of wine. Liquid courage along with Patrick’s disarming attitude made for surprisingly entertaining conversation. I was regaining my confidence and ten-fold at that. Two hours and several courses into the date, I put my hand on his knee and leaned in closer. I wanted to kiss him and was too drunk to even be subtle about it.

All in all, the turnaround from initial email to his cock in my mouth took about 24 hours. We had sex that first night. And again the next night. And then he went away to New York for two days, picked up the pair of flats I left at  a West Village repair place during that miserable Valentine’s weekend, and returned them to me first thing when he got back, not even stopping by his apartment beforehand. I spent spring bouncing from my Harvard Square dorm to his place in Beacon Hill and summer bouncing from Kennedy’s Heidelberg flat to his home in Osnabrück. When September came, I paid a full month’s rent for a sublet I never moved into. I cancelled it and have been in Beacon Hill ever since.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t like we went out and it was happily ever after that, not unless your fairy tales include Internet sex scandals advanced by overzealous online stalkers or unprecedented emotional outbursts from yours truly. The path toward cohabitation has hardly been a smooth one, but slowly, I infiltrated Patrick’s life and apartment to the point where breaking up would have been both awkward and inconvenient. And now, here we are today: me, Patrick, Hamlet, and two suitcases of my stuff under the bed! It’s more than I ever could’ve hoped for. And to think, all I wanted on our first date was to get laid.

I write all this because a year ago, I really, truly didn’t believe in the possibility of love (at least not for myself) and it wasn’t just because I was single during Valentine’s Day. My blog was a legitimate barrier to meeting guys, and as the nude photo leak and subsequent breakdown suggested, it was perhaps a barrier to, um, life. Maybe if my friends were different people, they would’ve told me to shut it down instead of insisting that I was lovable, blog or no blog. Maybe if I were a different person, I would’ve listened. I’m glad I didn’t, not just because my friends were right, but because I would’ve always thought from then on that the only desirable version of myself was the sanitized version. The fact that I’m now happily playing house with the Adorno-spouting, bulldog-owning German of my dreams indicates that there is hope for pretty much ANYONE out there. If I can finagle a boyfriend with my reputation and dismissive attitude toward dating “rules”, then love is a possibility for everyone.

Basically, this was a really long and corny way of saying that I know how much it sucks to be alone on Valentine’s Day, even if the holiday is largely a fabrication of the jewelry industry. So ONE of the two grand prizes is reserved for a reader who’s single. Of course, this is totally an honor code thing but I trust that you guys will tell the truth. (And who is really screwed up enough to deny the existence of a significant other anyway?) Now let’s get to the good (i.e. free) stuff:

GRAND PRIZES (TWO WINNERS!)
Njoy Pure Wand with Good Clean Love Almost Naked Organic Lubricant

OR
OhMiBod Naughtibod with Yes Water-Based Organic Lubricant

FIRST RUNNER UP
Stuff Made From Stuff Computer Hard Drive Clock
AND
Good Clean Love Weekend Getaway Oil Sampler Pack

SECOND RUNNER UP
Stella Marie Soap bundle with Mango Glow, Grapefruit Moon, Lavender & Eucalyptus
AND
Good Clean Love Passion Candle

THIRD RUNNER UP
Twin Syndrome Custom High Rise Panty

HONORABLE MENTIONS
CPR Gear Tee
AND
Just In Case Red Compact

To enter the giveaway, send an email to elle[at]sexandtheivy[dot]com with the following information:

1. Your name, age, occupation, and relationship status
2. How you found out about the giveaway
3. Your preference in sex toy if you win (for anatomical reasons, the Naughtibod vibrator is only compatible with ladyparts but the Pure Wand dildo is unisex)
4. An answer to ONE of the two following questions:
a) What is your craziest first date experience?
b) You are talking to someone who has not gone on a date in months. Every time they meet someone, they get their face spat on, their heart stomped on, and their nether regions infested with an itchy sensation. Why should they continue to believe in love?

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 10TH AT 12AM EST

Entries will be judged on creativity and entertainment value (seriously!). Winners will be chosen and tiebreakers will be broken during a sleepover by a committee of my depressed, single friends who will only cheer up if you infuse them with HOPE a la Obama. (Oh, wait, he’s “change”, isn’t he? Whatever.) Oh, and I’m totally not kidding about this. You will actually stand the best chance of winning if you can make my jaded pals laugh. They were so damn hopeful on my behalf last year that the least I can do is return the favor now. Happy early Valentine’s Day, and stay tuned for the winners!

Ideally, we’d give up presents altogether for holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s which mandate unnecessary consumption to an appalling extent. But seeing as how that’s unlikely, I’ve written up a guide to sex- and earth-positive gifts, most of which are made by independent designers themselves or workers paid a living wage. Plus, tomorrow, I’ll be announcing the details for a giveaway of several featured products, including the Njoy Pure Wand and OhMiBod’s Naughtibod!

FOR THE LOVEMAKING, WAR-HATING PROTESTOR

WeVibe
The first-ever vibrator that can be used during intercourse, the We-Vibe was invented as an alternative to the poorly designed, cheap, and sometimes toxic sex toys on the market. Made from 100% medical grade silicone, the flexibility and innovative shape of the product allows for simultaneous clitoral and G-spot stimulation. After testing one, I can testify that the small device packs a powerful punch and is surprisingly comfortable even during penetration (though sadly, my We-Vibe is no longer functional thanks to an encounter with a European outlet!). Powered by a rechargeable battery, it is also made in strict adherence to health and environmental guidelines.

Yes Pure Intimacy
Yes, “the world’s only certified organic intimate lubricant”, is formulated from plant-based ingredients that nourish rather than irritate your most intimate areas. Made ethically so that it won’t stain your conscience or your bed sheets, Yes is also the only approved paraben-free product on the market for breast cancer patients who can’t use the traditional drugstore options. Check out their website to see how Yes stacks up against brands like Durex and K-Y Jelly. Their water-based formula ($34), one of the prizes in my giveaway, is safe to use with all condoms, while their oil-based lubricant ($34) doubles as massage oil.

JimmyJane
JimmyJane just released the new pink version of their waterproof FORM 6 massager ($185), pictured right, which won the prestigious IDEA Award from BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America. Fully submersible and bath-friendly, it’s one of the only vibrating massagers in the world that is both rechargeable and waterproof. In honor of Valentine’s Day, they’re giving away a pink FORM 6 on Facebook. To enter the contest, go to their Facebook page before February 11th, become a fan, and leave a comment about a favorite product (or dream product) from JimmyJane.

Good Clean Love
The “cleanest, truly natural, water-based personal lubricants on the market”, Good Clean Love is as pure as you can get. The water-based formula ($16) is infused with real herbs and flowers to create a deep scent and blended with aloe vera and seaweed for a smooth, long-lasting glide that responds to your natural lubrication. Safe to use with condoms and toys, it’s also 99.9% vegan with no animal products or animal testing. You can win a bunch of products from their line in my giveaway!

Just In Case
Made with a mirror and a hidden condom compartment, these discreet condom holders from Just In Case double as sleek compacts. The company, which is run by a mother-daughter team, donates a percentage of their profits to AIDS research and women’s health charities. Ten percent of every sale of their special JUST IN CASE® YouthAIDS RendezVous Red compact ($20) goes directly to YouthAids, an HIV/AIDS education andprevention initiative of the global health organization PSI. In the upcoming giveaway, you can win one too!

GothFox
Hoping to turn your bedroom into Amateur Night? Drop her a hint with an item from GothFox’s range of nipple pasties ($14-35) which include heart-shaped, feathered, and rhinestone designs. Each pair is hand made to order, tassels included! Even if you’re not dating a burlesque dancer, the company promises that these “will look fabulous either onstage or in the bedroom.”

Urban Fox
Victoria’s real secret? Appalling labor practices. Luckily, the makers of Urban Fox have come out with a line of sustainable undies ($35-40) which should leave your booty unconflicted. Made from soft bamboo and organic cotton fabric, these vintage-inspired, locally-produced creations mimic classic pinup styles. As UrbanFox says, “Being green and being sexy are not mutually exclusive.”

FOR THE PUNK ROCK PRINCESS

EveryLittleCounts
“Love Songs Vol. 1″ is LA-based fashion label Every Little Counts’ newest collection, a nostalgic tribute to classic love songs. Released just in time for Valentine’s Day, this limited edition line is a wearable mix tape featuring favorites like “Feel Like Making Love” (left) to “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” ($32 each). Sex and the Ivy readers can get 10% off with the promo code “IVY”.

OhMiBod
Founder Suki Dunham told me that she started OhMiBod two years ago with the goal of making the “first socially acceptable vibrator by making [her] products women friendly and approachable.” The smaller version of OhMiBod, the Naughtibod ($69) is travel-friendly and purse-sized but its orgasmic potential is just as impressive. Though best used with iPods and iPhones, it’s also compatible with other MP3 players, laptops, home stereos, CD players (old school!), and even electric guitars! With a dual end cap, you can enjoy the Naughtibod even when your iPod’s out of juice. I’ll be testing one and giving another away to one of two lucky grand prize winners!

The Virgins
One of my favorite bands, The Virgins, are storming the Great Scott stage in Boston with their amped-up tunes and electro-pop madness on Saturday, February 7th. Thanks to the reader who gave me the tip-off, I’ll be in attendance, and so should you. For an early Valentine’s gift, get tickets ($10) here.

FOR THE ANTI-SWEATSHOP FASHIONISTA

Sublet Clothing
Conceived by two designers who met through a sublet, Sublet Clothing offers locally-produced garments made from organic cotton and bamboo (a fast-growing, sustainable resource). Written up by fashion mags and green bloggers alike, Sublet demonstrates that sustainable can be glamorous. The Becca top ($89) pictured above is available online or at Camilla boutique in Brooklyn.

Mollie Dash
Independent jewelry makers like Mollie Dash offer an important alternative to consumers who don’t want to support a jewelry industry that obtains its precious metals and stones from industrial mining, which causes severe environmental damage and exploits developing world workers. Mollie, who works from her studio in Brooklyn, uses “discarded, thrifted, donated, and yard sale-derived materials” and limits her use of new stones to create her line of one-of-a-kind eco-friendly jewelry and keychains ($14-100+) like these made from skeleton keys. Written up in New York Magazine and NYLON, her work is sold online through her website, her Etsy shop, and Clothespin (an indie sample sale site that also stocks Sublet).

Latish Angeline
Originally started for an event benefitting an animal rescue organization, Latish Angeline Designs has come a long way from dog necklaces. Nowadays, designer Natalie lives in the oldest wildlife refuge in North America, where she makes feathered hairclips ($20-22), better known as “fascinators”, inspired by the variety of exotic birds around her home.

Twin Syndrome
The product of a one-night-stand between a corset and a leotard, Twin Syndrome’s high-rise undies ($20) can be worn under lowrise jeans to avoid inadvertent crack-attacks or under slinky dresses for a smooth look. With a rise that goes past the natural waistline, the look is way more pin-up than granny. Sex and the Ivy readers can get 25% of their purchase price refunded if they quote “SEXANDTHEIVY” in the “Note To Seller” box when they buy. Plus, I’m giving one pair away to a reader!

Wonderwear
After she quit her job at an environmental nonprofit, Monica started Wonderwear, selling creations like this adorable “Love at First Look” heart scarf ($32) hand-stitched from felted wool, fleece, and upcycled snaps. Every piece she produces is one of a kind and made from upcycled/recycled material.

FOR THE ASS-KICKING, NAME-TAKING FEMINIST

Moonlight Bindery
Inspired by the collection of papers she had amassed over the years, Katie started Moonlight Bindery and designed high-quality handbound books and photo albums out of repurposed material. Her New Yorker journals ($37) are created from actual covers of magazines and are filled with 100% recycled paper from the family-owned French Paper Mill. Sex and the Ivy readers can get free shipping by mentioning “SEXANDTHEIVY” in the “Note To Seller” box.

FOR MEN AGAINST “THE MAN”

London Particulars
Hand-fashioned from vintage watch movements, these cufflinks ($60) from London Particulars are made by a husband-wife team inspired by the steampunk aesthetic. Quirky and one-of-a-kind, they’re perfect for the sleeves of gentlemen rebels and fathers alike (my friend just purchased one for her dad!). Sex and the Ivy readers qualify for free shipping on all London Particulars jewelry.

CPR Gear
American Apparel meets New England sports in this new line of athletic apparel made with both fashion and fan in mind. Boston-based CPR Gear (which stands for the Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox) calls itself “the heartbeat of New England”. Lightly printed on label-less tees, these vintage style shirts ($32) look as good at the stadium as they do at dinner. (And for the ladies, shirts are cut in a more slimming and flattering shape!) I have three of these shirts for winning entries in my giveaway.

Stuff Made From Stuff
Using actual computer hard drives as the basis for his creations, designer Allan takes apart and converts them into these quirky clocks ($32+). By obtaining materials through donations or dumpster diving expeditions, Allan hopes to reuse other people’s discarded items to “postpone the life of retired modern gadgets”. All hand made by the designer himself, the clocks are a perfect addition to the desk of your favorite tech geek. Sex and the Ivy readers qualify for a 20% discount the entire month of February and can win a clock in my giveaway.

Njoy Toys
Recommended to me by a reader, the Pure Wand ($110), like all Njoy products, is designed to be gender-neutral and is made from recycled medical-grade steel by Chinese workers who are paid a living wage (in yuan). Co-founder Greg DeLong told me that the Pure Wand is “equally effective for both g-spot massage and prostate massage” and has “garnered quite a reputation for helping to induce female ejaculation”. Currently the top-selling dildo at Babeland, it’s the perfect gift for enlightened boyfriends who appreciate prostate-induced orgasms. The other grand prize winner will get be getting one of these in the mail! (I’ll also be testing a Pure Wand out myself.) Not a winner? Snag one of these babies or any Njoy product for 10% off by mentioning “SEXANDTHEIVY” on their website.

FOR THE DOMESTICATED-BY-CHOICE (BUT EDUCATED-IN-CASE) HOMEMAKER

Gleena
Gleena (Russian for “clay”) offers up beautiful, nature-inspired porcelain pieces like these dessert plates ($35). Handmade in Rhode Island, Gleena products have been featured in publications like Food & Wine, O, and Body + Soul. Unfortunately, orders won’t be filled until after February 17th as the woman in this one-woman operation is currently off on a romantic holiday.

Everyday Housewife Aprons
Don’t just kiss the chef; clothe her! Fashionable cooking attire isn’t easy to come by, but these sexy aprons from Everyday Housewife are both functional and feminine. Joan personally makes each and every one of these aprons from high quality, designer fabrics and offers them at an extremely affordable price ($25-30). Previously featured on Good Morning America and HGTV, they’ll be next appearing in my kitchen.

FOR THE ANIMAL-LOVING BEAUTY JUNKIE

Stella Marie Soaps
Unlike what’s offered at the grocery store, handmade soaps don’t contain detergents that irritate your skin and pollute it with chemicals. Stella Marie, named after owner Kim Gonzaga’s two grandmothers, offers products like this Choc-o-rotic (Chocolate Mint) Massage Bar ($4) which are both skin-friendly and delicious-smelling. According to Kim, her products are 98% natural, save for cosmetic grade fragrance and skin safe dye.

Alchemic Muse
These handcrafted olive-oil based soaps, like the Chelsea Garden Spa Soap ($6) pictured left, are as tantalizing to smell as they are to look at. Using ingredients like coconut oil and shea butter, owner Karen creates her completely vegetarian soaps in small batches. The Mini Candy Trio (limited edition for Valentine’s) is already nearly sold out.

If you asked me last January how I felt about the upcoming year, I probably would’ve kicked you in the face. I was naked on the Internet (literally and figuratively), lying to my mother, and dating out of spite. I spent the holidays calling police departments in three different cities and crying hysterically in airports. In what can only be accurately described as a “total breakdown”, I killed Sex and the Ivy, retreated from campus, and ran off to Switzerland with two of my best girlfriends to have recuperative sex and ponder my lack of future career options.

Then for six spectacular months, I lived in constant elation (because I was falling in love with Patrick) and constant fear (because I thought my best friend was going to off herself).

Now, I’m cohabitating in a Beacon Hill one-bedroom with less closet space than my previous dorm. I’ve shed the 20 pounds I gained in freshman year, but not my freshman year friends, who have long outlasted the fairweather acquaintances from my partying days. My flakiness as a student has me on academic probation until fall, but my mom is — against all odds — not freaking out, since I’ve finally come clean about the last two years of my life. And now that Wall St. has been virtually wiped out, my friends are actually jealous that I have an entire extra 12 months to figure out my life, since it’s not like going corporate is an option for anyone anymore — sex bloggers or not. But though I might seem incredibly unemployable according to my Google search results, I still managed to land a completely legitimate non-profit job that I happen to love. Who would’ve thought that graduating later would actually be a sanity-saving move? Who would’ve thought that I actually developed marketable skills from my blogging experience?

Like I wrote back in March, about a month after Patrick and I started dating, “I’ve moved on.” I grew up and grew out of the blog that defined so much of my time at Harvard. In some ways, I’ve grown out of Harvard. When I return, I think I’ll feel much less like a student and much more like a person who studies (and hopefully there will be lots of studying, since I do need to graduate). Despite the occasionally traumatizing consequences, I’ll never regret my decision to write this blog, because now I have undeniable proof that writing is worth it. I wanted my experiences, fuck-ups and all, to resonate with people. I wanted to not feel so alone despite being the only Harvard kid I knew to admit that I sometimes hated this place we were supposed to be so proud of. I wanted to be sure again, the way I was at 8, at 12, at 16, of what I wanted to do in life.

Freshman year, I was a small fish from a small pond, too naive to be anything but impressed by the money and prestige of my Ivy League peers. I drank straight from vodka bottles and forgot myself in a riot-proof dorm in the Yard. Every day since then has been about remembering. Thanks to the two years I devoted to this blog and the year I spent not writing it, not only do I finally recall the girl I used to be, but I think I now know who I want to become.

- “I’m not advocating that women go back to the Stone Age. I just think you might want to be realistic in how capable you are of changing the primordial impulses that drive all of human nature.”
- “We did an incredibly unscientific poll where we polled twenty of our male friends (ranging from ages twenty-six to forty-five), who are in serious long-term relationships. Not one of their relationships started with the woman asking them out first. One guy even said that if she had, ‘It would have spoiled all the fun.’”
- “Just because you like to lead doesn’t mean he wants to dance. Some traditions are born of nature and last through time for a reason.”

This is like The Rules for my generation. Too young to remember The Rules? Yeah, me too. I was 8 when it was published, but luckily, nothing has changed since then. Here are some of the authors’ “time-tested secrets for capturing the heart of Mr. Right”:

- Don’t Stare at Men or Talk Too Much
- Don’t Meet Him Halfway or Go Dutch on a Date
- Don’t Call Him & Rarely Return His Calls
- Don’t Accept a Saturday Night Date after Wednesday
- Don’t See Him More than Once or Twice a Week
- No More than Casual Kissing on the First Date
- Do The Rules, Even when Your Friends & Parents Think It’s Nuts
- Don’t Discuss The Rules with Your Therapist

In other words, be an unavailable, frigid bitch!

Note that The Rules was published in 1995 and He’s Just Not That Into You was published in 2004, which is indicative of how little has changed in the past decade. Not only were both books bestsellers but He’s Just Not That Into You is being released as a movie next month. This means that 1) the quack authors are further profiting from women’s insecurities, and 2) that they’ll be reaching even more people with this film.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll continue to say this as many times as necessary for people to get the message:

Anyone who claims they’re an expert on sex or dating probably isn’t someone worth getting advice from.

This sentiment comes from someone who has been pegged as an expert on sex and dating (even though I’ve made my many relationship follies quite public). For the past two years, I’ve fielded countless email requests for advice. I’ve never felt entirely comfortable receiving these notes, and for the most part, these requests go unanswered. Why am I not more eager to give my “expert opinion”? Well, first of all, I’m 21, and secondly, I’m not even opinionated enough to register with a political party (or maybe I’m too opinionated, whatever). But more importantly, I just don’t have the answers.

Frankly, I’m often in need of sex and relationship advice myself, and for that, I go to real experts. These real experts don’t call themselves “experts”; they call themselves counselors or therapists, because they hold legitimate occupations that require demonstrated skill. “Expert” isn’t an occupation. It’s a made-up marketing term for people with no real credentials.

If you can barely operate a microwave, you probably have no business writing a cookbook. Likewise, if you have no psychology background and wind up separating from your husband (like a certain co-author of The Rules), then you have no business telling other people how to date, not fuck, and marry. It’s preposterous that millions of people accept amateur relationship “advice” from sexism-spouting laymen, but will balk at the prospect of therapy. We have standards for open heart surgeons, rocket scientists, etc., so why don’t we have standards for those who teach us how to navigate our interpersonal relationships?

That’s the only piece of advice I’ll be offering anytime soon: Don’t fall for the quacks. Consult a professional whose viewpoints are based on empirical studies and not on gimmicks designed to move bookstore inventory.

But apparently, I used to have sex with lots of different people. And since my conquests are so numerous that I inevitably never get around to writing up all of them, I thought I should share some items from a year ago.

In late 2007, I was flirting/going out with six men simultaneously and getting laid by (almost) none of them. I think I only had sex four times last winter. #1 took place on my friend Zac’s 21st birthday after I brought some dude along and we mutually got obliterated at the Kong. Classy. #2 took place in a fraternity house of all places, but it was MIT so I think I can safely say that I’ve managed to avoid becoming a total college cliche. #3 took place post-nudie-pic scandal in Los Angeles with some dude I barely knew, while my girlfriend sat in his living room watching, um, cartoons (I think?) with his friend. AWKWARD. And I met/fucked #4 approximately five days before I went on my first date with Patrick. Little did I know then that it would be my last gasp of promiscuity for many many many months (and counting … yippee).

There might’ve been a fifth guy at some point, but I obviously don’t remember. If you’re him: it’s not that you’re insignificant; you just didn’t leave any traces in my Gmail/Facebook inbox. Sorry, dude.

This list, of course, does not count September or early fall which was a shitshow of recycled ex-hookups. Old lovers get much of the credit for keeping my sex life sustainable (pun alert!) over the years. After my sex-deprived summer in New York, I was determined to get laid as quickly as possible. Former flings are terribly effective solutions. And in general, I went out and went down almost every weekend so my abstinent streak ended pretty immediately.

Junior fall/winter was also the first time I rejoiced in singledom. I usually hated dating and hooking up because I was constantly attaching, detaching, reattaching myself to men. Last year, I was so cynical about the prospect of a long-term relationship that I spent the majority of my non-fucking time making condescending remarks about the guys I was fucking. (To be clear, these were not remarks said to their faces, but rather, to my friends or uh, blog readers.) This says a lot more about me than the guys, and to be fair to my friends, they were becoming increasingly alarmed at my utter pessimism, which I framed then as “realism”. (But even today, post-monogamy, I would still say that I am, for the most part, undateable. Or at least, my blog is understandably a huge red flag for potential suitors. So there you go, I am still a realist.)

Now I am months-deep in a relationship — free doggie included! — and routinely turn down date/sex offers from the boys who used to make my blog/life so interesting. In exchange, I get walks along the Charles, unsolicited career advice, solicited foot massages, and the assurance that I won’t contract herpes even if we forgo condoms. On the downside, this means I can’t throw him out of my dorm room every time we have a fight. Mostly because I live in his apartment and not a dorm room.

I feel like a younger, more Asian version of Jessica Cutler, the sex-blogging D.C. staffer turned housewife. It’s kind of like I spent the last year in a cocoon. I entered as a filthy, whorish caterpillar and now I’ve exited as a butterfly with remarkably domestic tendencies and a desire to mate for life.

In conclusion, this is why I don’t update my sex blog anymore.

“I mean, look at all these rich nerds with fetching Asian ladies on their arms. We don’t want to sound “offensive” but it’s just a thing, you know?”

—Gawker: Following Hallowed Nerd Tradition, Michael Phelps Dates Asian Chick

And in the comments:

“Asian is the last stop before Gay.” #

“My wife already knows when she’s tired of me and kicks me out that my next wife will come from Korea or Sri Lanka.” #

“Mr. Butterfly Champion gets his Madame Butterfly*.” #

“He so horny**!” #

“White nerds dating Asian girls is a trend. I don’t think it’s offensive to point it out.” #

SERIOUSLY?!

- My friends and I make plenty of offensive comments about each other’s race/sexual orientation/etc. but we do so in private. So though I’ve been referred to as a Madame Butterfly, these things are said in jest and directed toward me specifically by my friends specifically, not directed at an entire group of people by anonymous commenters who don’t know them.
- Some argue that there’s truth to some stereotypes like “Asians are the last stop to Gay”. However, I can think of lots of stereotypes out there (”Blacks are thugs,” “Gays are diseased,” “Fat people are lazy”, etc.) that shouldn’t ever be said out loud. Why? Oh, that’s right. Because they’re stereotypes, which by definition, means that they have no empirical basis.
- Interracial relationships are not “trends”. Trends go out of style. I’m pretty sure this isn’t just a hot commodity for the season.
- People have no filter on the Internet, especially not on websites like Gawker, because they mistake “being offensive” for “being controversial”. A racist remark isn’t snarky humor, it’s just racist.

Call this an overreaction, but I’m seriously disturbed by some of these comments. The Gawker article is offensive, sure, but considering the website’s habitual outrage at other people’s displays of ignorance, I’m going to chalk this up to a poor attempt at humor. The commenters, though? I guess they demonstrate that some people out there — educated or not — clearly need a crash course on racism and its seemingly harmless manifestations.

* For those unfamiliar with the opera, Madame Butterfly depicts the relationship between a condescending American and a self-sacrificing, exoticized Japanese woman, who gets abandoned (after marriage, mind you) for a new and improved American wife.

** A reference to the Vietnamese prostitute in Full Metal Jacket. Everyone’s heard “Me so horny. Me love you long time”; no one ever knows where it’s from. Now you do.

(reposted from Tumblr)