Nut Graf:

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.

Full Story:

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.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12277755)

lolwut? i'm not checking her blog to see if she actually wrote that tho. didn't xo find her parents' business contact as well? did her blog get forwarded to parents as well? i sure hope not, that'd be terrible

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12277769)

I wondered what might have caused such a "reminiscence."

This posting might have something to do with it, lulz

http://smaknews.com/SEX/lena-chen-harvard-sex-blog--a-bad-idea-/

A funny thing happened on the way to Lena Chen’s graduation from Harvard.

For three years, Chen scribbled at her sex blog, Sex and the Ivy; she seemed to revel in chattering about her recklessness, sexual excess, drugs and drunken hookups.

But no more. "This one time I wrote a sex blog," Chen recently twittered, "it was a bad idea."

Well, duh.

With all the hubbub Chen’s blog received through the blogosphere since 2006, one might wonder why Chen’s sobering about-face hasn’t received more attention. Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Joe Francis, after all, made a mint marketing Girls Gone Wild. It’s doubtful, though, that much capital could be reaped from documenting the Girls Who Now Regret Going Wild.

And so it is with Chen’s (belated) profession of regret. For three years, numerous internet and media enablers profited from chronicling the Harvard girl who opened her mouth each time she spread her…wings. And why not? Chen’s reckless ventures--and her Wile E. Coyote-like shock at its obvious, consequences--made for Good Copy.

* When a 35-year-old jilted bedpartner leaked intimate photos of Chen across the ‘net, the IvyGate blog (and others) squealed their delight.

* When Chen blogged details of her drink- and drug-fueled hookups with her sociology teacher, gossip blogs delighted in the lascivious details. (Actual professors, on the other hand, were less amused.) Chen's cheerleaders eventually feigned outrage...but only at the fact that Chen’s teacher’s name was inevitably discovered and exposed.

* When Chen posted photos of her face smeared with DNA, gossip blogs only clucked their tongues at Chen’s ‘oversharing.’

Nor were Chen’s enablers restricted to the blogosphere. Even Newsweek and the New York Times shared in the voyeurism, describing Chen as a “campus sexpert” or the best “represent[ative] of the hookup culture." Very few bloggers had the courage to point out the obvious: that Chen’s exhibitionism is symptomatic of deeper psychological troubles—and that its consequences would prove more harmful than Chen’s gleeful cheerleaders anticipated.

Yet Chen seems to “get it” now…sort of. There’s still the question of whether her morning-after professions of regret are sincere. Why would Chen--who sought sexual attention with the avidity of a fix-jonesing addict--suddenly change tunes? A little-noticed recent profile suggests that Chen’s about-face might be more mercenary than a principled expression of sincere self-realization:

“Lena…mentions that after graduation, wherever her salary comes from, it will be used to ultimately pay for half of her sister’s college tuition.”

Oh. But of course, such an ambition requires money. And Chen’s present “job” of sex-blogger carries a salary of dime-a-dozen: after all, why buy the blog of any sex-blogger when so many others provide the milk for free?

But, leaving aside the sincerity of Chen’s repentance, one fact is clear: it’s too little, too late. Case in point: Chen now avers a sudden interest in becoming a “management consultant.” But with what skills? Fluency in the F-word? Celebrating Steak and B---job Day? Fishing forgotten prophylactics out of one’s own nether-regions? Nota bene: even Chen’s own former teacher (and present bedpartner) describes Chen’s academic ability as “far from stellar.” Does Chen realize that, while she squandered the Harvard education availed to her, most of her competition for management jobs will have actually spent the last four years...well...studying management? The question answers itself.

So even now, Chen seems not to have realized the full consequences of her actions. In a telling post-mortem on her defunct sex blog, Chen said that she wished she could give her younger self “a hug.” Perhaps. But the real world is far less warm and fuzzy. At the end of the day, Lena Chen spent three years making her bed—and promiscuously blogging about her activities in it to anyone and everyone. Now, she must lie in the squalidness she so relished making.

More Smak Talk

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12277820)

http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044369&mc=12&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12278533)

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Patrick_Hamm_and_Lena_Chen

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12278202)

Cindy Loo 16 hours ago

I hate to be Captain Obvious, but all of your problems, were brought on by yourself. Harvard is where the best and the brightest students in the world go to school, and yet, your decisions over your time there have shown you lack the common sense that even a community college dropout would know. DON'T MAKE YOUR PERSONAL SEX LIFE PUBLIC!!!!!

You managed to get into Harvard, but didn't have the common sense to not write a blog about your sexual escapades at Harvard? What exactly was the kind of feedback you were looking for? You couldn't have imagined that it would be positive right? I guess not. College is the absolute worse time to make private details of your sex life public. In a bubble with individuals as cut throat and competitive as Harvard, that was probably the dumbest decision a person could ever make, if you didn't want to face people gossiping and making fun of you.

If you would have waited until after you were out of college to write a sex blog, it might have been a smarter decision and would show you actually have an ounce of common sense and good judgement. Life is full of decisions, and you are suffering the consequences of making a hugely idiotic one.

Why do ordinary people insist on having personal blogs for the world to see? Is it because of a chaotic childhood where they didn't get attention? Were they abandoned by a parent and never felt loved? Normal, rational people, don't feel the need to be document their lives for the world to see. More than likely, people who do have personal blogs never got any attention growing up from their peers or their parents and family and thus feel the need to make their private life public. It makes no sense.

Zoe 15 hours ago

I'd always wondered whether the comments took a heavy emotional toll on you, because you did seem so strong. They certainly did on me, and I didn't have it an eighth as bad as you. I think your defiance probably goaded the cruelty even more. I actually learned a lot from your mistakes, since I started my blog as yours was winding down. If it's any consolation, I think it's because of your experiences that I learned how to shield myself to some degree.

Is it possible to ever really disappear, though? Won't part of you never want to disappear because you want that high to come back? I have to admit, even though part of the high for me was certainly the boost in creative energy, part of it was also the satisfaction of pushing buttons, fucking shit up.

I hope you don't remain suspicious and cynical, but even if you do, I hope you are as happy as you can be. Given all that's happened, I think it's remarkable you've emerged as sane, chill, and fun-spirited as you are.

volcanoes 14 hours ago

Lena-

I'd wager that many (if not most) of your critics and hateful commenters are just intrigued by or even jealous of you, your honesty, your ability to succeed as a person while still being interesting, your Harvard education...a whole slew of things likely unrelated to the person you actually are. When I first came across Sex and the Ivy, I was a critic (silently; I never left comments) - yet I continued to read your blog and found that you had quite a few insightful things to say. I would never write about my personal life in such detail, and at first was - for lack of a better word - jealous that yours attracted so much attention, when in fact I think your experiences were more or less average (and I don't mean that in a bad way - I mean I think lots of people can relate!). As a fellow Ivy Leaguer, it was fun to read about another girl's sexcapades, and it's also been fun reading about your developing relationship with Patrick. I went a similar route (promiscuity to hardcore commitment), so I appreciated your honesty and openness; few of my friends had the same relationship experiences as me, and hearing that you had similar ones was comforting.

I guess what I want to tell you is: as hard as it may be, please don't take these comments to heart. Everyone has their critics, and while you were putting yourself out there, no one "deserves" anything. Unfortunately, the world is full of cruel people, and it's good you discovered it sooner rather than later. I hope you continue to write, and that you find a good balance between the public & private.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279217)

Brief summary:

Lena Chen was at Harvard.

She had a sex blog.

She got outed.

http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=569172&forum_id=2

Hilarity ensued.

She resumed blogging.

Her 35-year-old bf posted sex pics of her.

(NSFW: http://lenachennude2.blogspot.com/?zx=125db4336cfcdabe)

Hilarity ensued.

She nailed her sociology TF.

He got outed.

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Patrick_Hamm_and_Lena_Chen

Hilarity ensued

She crashed from her manic high.

She failed her classes.

She got kicked out of Harvard.

She drifted about aimlessly for a year.

She got readmitted.

She still blogs.

Hilarity will continue to ensue.

HTH

xoxo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279344)

sex and the city destroys lives

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279442)

I wonder who these nameless "book agents" are supposed to be.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279456)

that was XO's first impression, too

Harvard Asian slut to be the next Kaavya

http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=569172&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279748)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXj5XE3XKk8

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279781)

especially how Lena has a way of circling the slutwagons

Zoe Yang isn't happy, for one

http://sex.disqus.com/reminiscence/#comment-12922678

Interesting. I just hope you are not the person currently spewing crap about me on Autoadmit under the moniker "What pensive would say."

And don't excuse your previous nasty comments with hypergraphia. It's not a disorder that compels hurtful attacks on other people. "Flame artist?" Please.

And she really throws down the gauntlet here

http://sex.disqus.com/reminiscence/#comment-12901258

Actually, I didn't fuck up at all. Writing Zoehassex was one of the most valuable experiences of my life, and I don't regret it. I actually kind of miss it.

A year ago, when I started at McK, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life and thought it best to keep my options open. Now that I know I'm not going to stay in finance, it doesn't even matter. Also, McK does pretty extensive background checks, and they clearly found my shit and didn't give a damn. (Even after the blog disappeared, there was enough stuff lingering on the internet to condemn me, had they wanted to).

I actually stopped blogging months before I started at McK, I was just getting bored. In fact, the blog is undergoing a revival these days, not that I'd ever let you in on it.

I don't believe for a second I'd end up where you described. You know nothing about me or about the world, for that matter. In fact, it's funny that Autoadmit losers like yourself keep talking about how sluts like me and Lena are never going to get a job, when we are both gainfully employed with respectable companies. I think you need to check your facts - it was Autoadmit's cofounder, Anthony Ciolli, who had his job offer rescinded for doing something that was actually morally reprehensible: facilitating misogyny, racism, and malicious attacks on innocent people.

Sounds like she might be a bit butthurt over XO's finding her sex blog

http://zoehasskank.blogspot.com

:P

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279820)

Classy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12302204)

http://sex.disqus.com/reminiscence/#comment-12889252

Lena,

I'm not a fan of yours, and I've posted nasty comments on your blog before. Now I regret having doing so, not having been aware of the extent of your pain.

I haven't read enough of your posts to have an informed opinion about you, but any allusion to Sex and the City turns my stomach. I find casual sex to be degrading and the advocates of female promiscuity to be outright enemies of society who must be stopped at all costs. That said, I feel sorry for you. Although it was entirely predictable that you'd suffer the animosity you drew out of the world, that doesn't make it right, and I can't fault you for more than naivete. You didn't expect to inspire such hatred, and you didn't deserve it either.

What you've experienced is human nature. It's not pretty. There's a lot of ambient, bitter hatred for female promiscuity (or the perception thereof) and your blog made you a lightning rod for it. The ambient hatred will never go away, and while it may not be virtuous, it's a bad idea to provoke it by making a blog about your personal sex life. Thousands of people who've never met you began striking at you, not because they knew anything about you personally, but because you had become a surrogate target for the slut/whores they went to college with (people who actually had hurt them, unlike you, but who were out of reach to them). People lashed out at you, quite frankly, because they could.

Sex is just an area of life where you've got to hold your cards close to your chest. A woman who describes her boyfriend's penis (or a man who describes his girlfriend's vagina, with details of tightness and moisture) is going to inspire negative emotions in other people, and the consequences (especially on the Internet, where there are thousands of anonymous assholes with nothing to lose) are often severe. It would be a much better world if no one was bitter/angry about sex and relationships, everyone was getting enough and happy with what they got, and everyone could get along and just have fun... but, unfortunately, it's not like that.

Also, your description of the "high" you get from blogging about your sex life sounds like hypergraphia, a generally mild-- but sometimes embarrassingly public-- mental illness involving a compulsion toward loosely-filtered writing. I have a severe case of it myself. (I'm a well-known internet flame artist.) My advice would be not to write publicly about your personal life in any context if you have this problem; in my experience, it's very difficult to maintain enough control to make this a good idea.

-Pwnsive

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12279824)

LOL. that's the real pensive too, isn't it?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12281366)

I await pensive's remarks on this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#12281772)

Sometimes, I think that I willed myself into getting out of there, but of course, that isn’t the truth either. Unlike the unhappy semesters before, junior spring was different because I was, for the first time, optimistic. And I remember thinking that I really ought to finish my papers and I remember that I really didn’t quite care. Perhaps because I could no longer fake it. As long as I believed in the allure of Harvard, then I’d have a reason to work toward my degree, but I was so fully disgusted with everything that had happened, so disappointed by how petty and cruel my classmates could be, that I literally could not muster up the simple desire to keep on going on. I got kicked out of school over a 20-page paper I was perfectly capable of writing. It’s easier to chalk it up to laziness, but I don’t think it could’ve been that. I had to deal with huge amounts of fall-out, not just from the administration, but from my parents. It’s what made me decide to tell them the truth about my blog. Was I really just not interested in writing that paper? Or was my desire to leave Harvard so strong that I opted for self-sabotage? How much of that did I choose? I still don’t know.

http://thechicktionary. com/post/2543871185/then-now-once-again

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#16958181)

Sounds like mania.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1044350&forum_id=2#16958216)