Lena Chen

is a reluctant sexpert, a feminist and queer advocate, and a walking case study on bad publicity. As a Harvard undergrad, she authored the blog Sex and the Ivy about her college sexcapades and misadventures. Her reputation has never quite recovered. Want to give her a book deal, send her hate mail, or misquote her in an article? Read her daily musings at The Ch!cktionary and check out her full bio.

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Nope, I haven’t forgotten about those New Year’s career goals I made. I had a personal essay out this past weekend in Sunday Life, The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekend magazine. I’m counting this toward my monthly goal of one personal essay byline the annual goal of breaking into eight new pubs. Come to think of it, this may also be my first international byline! Pretty exciting stuff … racking up the milestones ;) So you see that cover teaser “I Don’t: Saying No To Marriage”? Yup, that’s my essay. It’s a reworking of a piece I wrote on this blog nearly a year ago, and I gotta say, I’ve only become more sure about my position on marriage since then, even though my relationship has surpassed the three-year mark and people *cough* Chinese relatives *cough* are starting to make all kinds of assumptions despite my best attempts to dissuade them. In any case, let me state for the record that I’m not “against” marriage in that I’m judging you for having one. I’m not naive about the coercive way the government incentivizes marriage, so that oftentimes, it’s not much of a choice at all, not even for fairly privileged Westerners. Hello, I’m in love with a dude who could get deported, and I know people who have gotten hitched for health insurance. There are some pretty good, practical reasons to tie the knot. I just wish these benefits didn’t only come with marriage, that folks who rock the single life or have multiple partners don’t get the shaft, that we don’t automatically assume those who don’t get married are “just not serious about each other” or less fulfilled as human beings. And you know, I can completely empathize with the desire to share one’s love in front of family and friends and to shove cake into your lover’s face and to dress up like a Pretty Pretty Princess*. But how many of us think about why the state is involved in our personal affairs and why we need a rubber stamp to make it “real”? We want it so bad that there’s an entire social movement devoted to obtaining the institution despite its rather questionable history. I actually used to be a huge advocate for marriage equality, and witnessing that debate over the past few years has just turned me off from marriage even further. While I believe that queer folks are entitled to the same protection and rights as anyone else, I think it’s a shame that same-sex marriage has become THE issue and that there’s an absurd amount of money being funneled into the goal of obtaining heterosexual privilege. (I’m not going to go into a huge rant about what else that money could be used for, but suffice it to say that it’s not going toward advocacy efforts to improve the lives of poor queer people of color.) Why not dismantle the institution altogether instead of leaving single people or poly folks in a lurch? Are non-marrieds any less deserving of these privileges? Anyhow, I’m not going to get carried away here and repeat my thesis (which, by the way, I finally extracted from the depths of my hard drive). I’ll leave some links for further reading: Valentine’s Grinch (Part I & Part II)Marriage Is Like A Country Club (CollegeCandy)How Feminism Misses The Point When It Comes To MarriageWhy I’m Against Gay Marriage (And Marriage In General)Jessica Valenti, Weddings, & Social ExpectationsReader Question: “Do you think you will eventually marry Patrick?” My article is available online here, but you can also click below to see a high-resolution version of it: Psst … my friend Rachel Hills has a piece in the same edition of Sunday Life, on living as an ex-pat in London! * Totally not being facetious here. My friends all know that upon my 30th birthday, I’ll be throwing myself a gigantic party involving all of the above elements in lieu of ever having a wedding. (And yes, there will be a registry.)

Nope, I haven’t forgotten about those New Year’s career goals I made. I had a personal essay out this past weekend in Sunday Life, The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekend magazine. I’m counting this toward my monthly goal of one personal essay byline the annual goal of breaking into eight new pubs. Come to think of it, this may also be my first international byline! Pretty exciting stuff … racking up the milestones ;)

So you see that cover teaser “I Don’t: Saying No To Marriage”? Yup, that’s my essay. It’s a reworking of a piece I wrote on this blog nearly a year ago, and I gotta say, I’ve only become more sure about my position on marriage since then, even though my relationship has surpassed the three-year mark and people *cough* Chinese relatives *cough* are starting to make all kinds of assumptions despite my best attempts to dissuade them. In any case, let me state for the record that I’m not “against” marriage in that I’m judging you for having one. I’m not naive about the coercive way the government incentivizes marriage, so that oftentimes, it’s not much of a choice at all, not even for fairly privileged Westerners. Hello, I’m in love with a dude who could get deported, and I know people who have gotten hitched for health insurance. There are some pretty good, practical reasons to tie the knot. I just wish these benefits didn’t only come with marriage, that folks who rock the single life or have multiple partners don’t get the shaft, that we don’t automatically assume those who don’t get married are “just not serious about each other” or less fulfilled as human beings.

And you know, I can completely empathize with the desire to share one’s love in front of family and friends and to shove cake into your lover’s face and to dress up like a Pretty Pretty Princess*. But how many of us think about why the state is involved in our personal affairs and why we need a rubber stamp to make it “real”? We want it so bad that there’s an entire social movement devoted to obtaining the institution despite its rather questionable history. I actually used to be a huge advocate for marriage equality, and witnessing that debate over the past few years has just turned me off from marriage even further. While I believe that queer folks are entitled to the same protection and rights as anyone else, I think it’s a shame that same-sex marriage has become THE issue and that there’s an absurd amount of money being funneled into the goal of obtaining heterosexual privilege. (I’m not going to go into a huge rant about what else that money could be used for, but suffice it to say that it’s not going toward advocacy efforts to improve the lives of poor queer people of color.) Why not dismantle the institution altogether instead of leaving single people or poly folks in a lurch? Are non-marrieds any less deserving of these privileges?

Anyhow, I’m not going to get carried away here and repeat my thesis (which, by the way, I finally extracted from the depths of my hard drive). I’ll leave some links for further reading:

Valentine’s Grinch (Part I & Part II)
Marriage Is Like A Country Club (CollegeCandy)
How Feminism Misses The Point When It Comes To Marriage
Why I’m Against Gay Marriage (And Marriage In General)
Jessica Valenti, Weddings, & Social Expectations
Reader Question: “Do you think you will eventually marry Patrick?”

My article is available online here, but you can also click below to see a high-resolution version of it:

Psst … my friend Rachel Hills has a piece in the same edition of Sunday Life, on living as an ex-pat in London!

* Totally not being facetious here. My friends all know that upon my 30th birthday, I’ll be throwing myself a gigantic party involving all of the above elements in lieu of ever having a wedding. (And yes, there will be a registry.)