VIEWPOINTS

March 3rd, 2010 | Occasional Contributors

Oxytocin: The Pseudoscience of the Hook-Up Hormone
- Lena Chen

As a now-monogamous former sex blogger, I'm living proof that hooking up doesn't make you crazy or unable to commit. But if mainstream media reports of the past few years are to be believed, I'm the exception, not the rule.

December 23rd, 2009 | Occasional Contributors

Surprise, Hooking Up Doesn't Kill!

- Lena Chen

In early 2008, an article in The New York Times claimed that "no one at Harvard represents the hookup culture better than Lena Chen." I'm Lena Chen. Right, how awkward is that? At the time, I was a college junior blogging quite publicly about my sex and love life -- but the last thing I thought was that my vagina represented anyone else's (let alone a whole "culture"). I tried to make that clear to the Times, obviously to no avail.

November 11th, 2009 | Occasional Contributors

No Pain, No Gain: The IUD Insertion Process
- Lena Chen

I wish I could say that getting the IUD was easy once I made my decision that the love affair with the Pill was over. In reality, it took me three visits (one of which was an appalling comedy of errors) before I finally baby-proofed my uterus. First, I had to get a pap smear, since STIs in IUD users can cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disorder and in rare cases, infertility.

November 4th, 2009 | Occasional Contributors

How I Dumped The Pill And Met The IUD
- Lena Chen

Two weeks ago, I ended my longest and most tumultuous relationship to date. Four years and hundreds of dollars after my first prescription, I decided that I had swallowed my final birth control pill. I tossed out my last packet, lay back in stir-ups, and got an IUD.