Lena Chen

If you live in the Providence area, come check out my talk at Brown University’s Sex Week 2011. It’s a condensed version of the Rethinking Virginity conference I organized at Harvard last year, and after bringing it to students at Rutgers University and Stanford University, I’ve polished it and made it into a workshop I’m really proud of:

“Am I A Virgin If …”: Deconstructing The Myth of Sexual Purity

When: March 18th at 5pm
Where: Wilson Hall, Room 102

Virginity is highly valued across the world, but does anyone know what virginity even is? One recent Kinsey Institute survey of Americans reveals that there is no consensus on what constitutes “real sex”. From debunking myths to defying norms, this workshop with Harvard grad Lena Chen, notorious for her Sex & the Ivy blog, will critically interrogate our assumptions about sexual purity and its meaning in our lives. A part of Sex Week 2011.

There’s not a lot of practical use I thought I’d get out of my senior thesis topic (the social construction of virginity and the modern sexual abstinence movement), so I’m pleasantly surprised by the opportunities I’ve had to use it as a source of inspiration for my work with lay audiences.

If you need incentives to come, I’ll be bringing prizes! T-shirts, sex toys, stickers, and more :)