Lena Chen

LENA CHEN is a Boston-based freelance writer and the author of the blog Sex and the Ivy. She reports on gender, sexuality, and lifestyle for a variety of online and print publications, including The American Prospect, The Boston Globe Magazine, Slate.com, TheFrisky.com, and luxury lifestyle e-zine Juli B. She heads the Health, Sex, & Relationships blog on gURL.com, Alloy Digital’s award-winning alternative web portal for adolescent girls. She also hosts and produces Sex Really with Lena Chen and regularly contributes to SexReally.com, a project of the National Campaign To Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy. A graduate of Harvard University, Lena holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality. She completed a senior thesis on the evolution of virginity norms and the rise of the modern American abstinence movement. The thesis served as the basis for the Rethinking Virginity Conference, which she organized in May 2010. In August 2006, she started writing Sex and the Ivy as a college sophomore. Her first-person accounts of sexual experiences, alienation, and the true state of undergraduate life at the world’s premier academic institution spurred campus discussion, prompted media attention, and garnered a loyal following. With a monthly readership of 30,000, Lena has been featured in national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, and Salon.