Read this for context. 

I talked to Susannah Breslin today about what it’s like in college nowadays and what I think about what others think and how I handle all the shit that’s thrown at my blog and views on sexuality. Mid-interview, I verbalized for the first time something that I didn’t realize until recently. I don’t care anymore what people think.This hasn’t always been the case. I used to care what my friends thought, then I cared what my readers thought, then I cared what agents and producers and capitalist goons thought. And I’ve always cared what reporters and other bloggers thought. (But maybe that’s because I give more credit to those who write.)

Now? Hm. I pretty much only consult with Patrick and Kennedy about what I write, which is essentially consulting with myself (since I live at the former’s apartment and speak with the latter on a near hourly basis). I don’t get upset when commenters hate on me, or when other bloggers hate on me, or when I realize I am completely un-marketable and most likely going to be poor for a very long time.

I think that’s the point. Having no options, that is. I wrote a sex blog for nearly two years and during this time, not only did I write explicitly about sexual acts and depression and all my fuck-ups but also, I had a crazy ex who leaked my naked photos on the Internet. I mean, I’m not marketable in love and not marketable in the labor force and not marketable in civilized society, really. And when you begin to realize that you are the antithesis of everything acceptable or American, that your Ivy League resume is chock full of life experience but nothing more, that the only people who will love you are the rare ones who forgive first impressions, it’s then that you stop giving a shit and start living the way you want to live.

Because here is the thing: there is so much shit said about me on the Internet that I couldn’t wake up everyday worrying about it or I probably would’ve offed myself by now. I have no option but to stop caring and when I stopped caring, I realized something incredible: I don’t have to care. Whether someone thinks I’m a slut should make no difference to me. Why is that something I should cry about? Why should any of us care what anyone else thinks? It’s both hilarious and sad that in order to love myself fully and completely, to be totally comfortable with the decisions I make, it took everyone else hating me and deriding my choices.

Also? I may be a whore by societal standards, but I am not an attention whore. I go to Harvard for chrissakes. Do you think I don’t realize that the only reason anyone gives my blog the time of day is because I am a living, walking, subversive abomination that they expect to crash and burn? Do you think I’m so deluded as to believe that most people are cheering me on? I may be egotistic, but I’m not quite that naive. So I realize that the majority of “attention” I get is negative. Why in the world would I court that? Google Adsense profits of an incredible $1/day? I don’t think so. It’s not about money. It’s not about all publicity being good publicity. It’s about I can so I will.

Here’s a summation for the critics: this is just how I am and this is just how I’d be, whether or not you’re reading. I don’t care for your attention anymore than you care for my whoring. The difference between us is a matter of liberation. I can fuck whoever and live however I like and feel fine about it all at the end of the day. But even those who despise me find it hard to look away or to bite their tongue or to not personally intervene and yell “NO YOU ARE WRONG”. Think about that for a second, and tell me: which one of us is captive?

Directed by visiting artist Shelley Bolman and staged in Beale Street Memphis, this Ja zz age retelling of a tale of mistaken identity and romantic pursuit plays out before the rich backdrop of the Roaring Twenties. A time of blues and booze, of post-war partying and prohibition, this period in American life paralleled the raucous Twelfth Night holiday around which the Bard’s tale was set. With a live jazz quartet, 20s choreography and original blues composition, it’s going to be an experience you won’t want to miss!

Performances:
Sat 5/3: 8:00pm
Sun 5/4: 2:00pm, 8:00pm
Thurs 5/8: 8:00pm
Fri 5/9: 8:00pm
Sat 5/10: 2:00pm, 8:00pm
Sun 5/11: 2:00pm

Tickets (at the Harvard Box Office):
$8/student
$12/general

Produced by this incomparable duo:

(Full disclosure: my close friends/pseudo-roomies Tara and Tiffanie)

We are taking off in five minutes (an hour late) to New York for the weekend, a trip prompted by my desire to catch my friend Jenna while she’s in the city. Jenna is The Cornell Daily Sun’s sex columnist and writes funny-as-hell pieces that are seriously the best of the genre. The girl is SO ballsy. Check out her stuff.
Live-blogging to follow on The Chicktionary.com.

Chen knew, as she told me later, that “the culture reacts differently when women make the same decisions men do.” Her own decisions were public knowledge, because she revealed them on her blog. Chen’s perspective on society, and Fredell’s, was borne out in the aftermath, as people wrote in to Ivygate, calling Lena Chen a “slut,” a “whore,” a “total whore,” a “whore whore slut.” And then someone by the screen name of Sex v. Marriage wrote in to say that “most guys out there would rather end up with a girl like Janie.”

– “Students of Virginity“, The New York Times on Sunday, March 30th 2008

It’s strange to look back to November when the NYT interviewed me for the above article. I don’t want to say I’m a completely different person now because I’m not (and on the surface, my life is basically the same), but a lot has changed in the handful of months since then. Last fall, I thought I’d finally gotten everything figured out. It’d been a year since my blog started, I’d already dealt with the fallout of being the Ivy League poster girl for sexual expression, and there didn’t seem to be any chance that I could top my debacle of a sophomore year. Then I went through what was probably the most traumatic experience of my life and I feel like even that description is an understatement. In the aftermath, I stopped posting regularly in this blog and I started chronicling all the un-sexy bits of my life instead. Gone were the things that made me infamous — blowjobs, lost condoms, attached men, cocaine jokes (okay, so the cocaine jokes stayed). In their place, I posted pictures of my friends at brunch, accounts of day-to-day school life, and quotes that amused me. Same life, less controversial take.

People have asked me recently — both readers and friends — if Sex and the Ivy is making a comeback. The truth? I really don’t know. I’m posting occasional entries, taking little steps toward resurrecting this website, and even now, I am not sure I want to bring it back full force. I like writing about sex and relationships and being able to resonate with my readers, but though I’ve learned to deal with the bullshit and stigma that comes along with this openness, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with the amount of unwarranted intrusion upon my privacy. Sure, people call me a “whore” or “slut” or whatever the misogynistic term of the day is, but I can deal with that unfortunate consequence of patriarchal society. What I can’t deal with? Attacks on my family, judgments on my friends, people’s personal missions to out the guys with whom I’m involved, and crazy exes who disseminate my naked photos online. Criticism I can cope with, but attempts to systematically ruin my life or expose those I care about? Not so much. These are the consequences I don’t think I can ever be comfortable with or accept, the things I don’t think I should have to accept.

Here’s the number one thing I’ve learned from all of this: fame is fun for the first minute or so, but for the remaining 14, it just gets bothersome. It’s a constant struggle, especially after the photos appeared, to determine which opportunities are worth it and which ones compromise too much of my privacy. Nowadays, I turn down more interviews, answer personal inquiries more coyly, and share much less about my life. If you asked me now, I might not think it’s such a good idea to subject myself to an audience of 100 for a public discussion with the campus abstinence group. I don’t want to be a martyr, because frankly, it sucks to be told over and over that “most guys out there would rather end up with a girl like Janie,” that for some reason my writing about sex makes me less deserving of love. Even if I intellectually recognize that this is not the case, it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with blanket judgments about my value as a person.

I’ve been going out with someone recently, and though he’s made appearances on my blogs, no one but my friends know who he is. I want to keep it this way because I feel overexposed and not at all in control of what gets revealed about me. I want this little thing to be my own. And yet I get the feeling that sooner or later, if I don’t beat them to it, someone will out him. Because that’s how it always turns out. Because all it takes is one sighting of me with a guy for people to start speculating. The brave thing would be to say that I’m not going to live in perpetual anticipation of being outed or duck and take cover when I’m with him on campus or avoid writing about experiences I want to write about. The reality is more difficult. The reality is that I need to be careful, that I can’t defiantly declare “this is who I’m fucking so get used to it,” that I have to recognize the added risks that come with public life.

I used to tell people when I first started blogging publicly that I was figuring things out as I went along. I’m still figuring them out, which is why Sex and the Ivy is stuck in a strange limbo at the moment. I’m sure there’s a balance in there somewhere. I just have to find it.

Another thing: I have a slight bone to pick with the New York Times for their description of me as a “small Asian woman in a miniskirt and stilettos“. For starters, I was wearing a Cynthia Rowley dress that day and those who know the designer would agree that she hardly makes anything that could be mistaken for a miniskirt. My heels were also far less precarious and more conservative than stilettos (I remember because it was raining and even I wouldn’t have attempted such ambitious footwear on Cambridge’s brick-lined roads). Also, was it really relevant to add “Asian” to the description when my ethnic background had no bearing on the story and my last name already made it evident? And “small”? Really? Is it necessary to couple that with “Asian”? Perhaps I’m being oversensitive, but the whole eight-word description makes me cringe. It reduces me to a New England dragon lady, which is totally inaccurate from the truth but totally suitable for the purposes of portraying me as Janie Fredell’s polar opposite. Maybe that works for the Times‘ purposes but one-dimensional characters don’t make up real life.

Contrary to what the recent Newsweek piece says, I don’t really consider myself an “authority on sex” nor am I a “self-appointed poster girl for what could be called a group of brainy girls gone wild”. My friends will attest that I’ve never proclaimed my expertise on the topic. In fact, I’m more of a case study on what NOT to do in relationships and in the bedroom. Longtime readers know that this website features plenty more debacles and mistakes and embarrassing episodes than it does advice or optimistic bullshit. It’s about what I do with my life not what anyone else should do with theirs. I don’t mind living and learning, but frankly, I would never advise anyone to follow in my example.

If you asked, I wouldn’t even know how to describe what being a sexpert would entail. Writing a lot about sex? Having a lot of sex? Maybe I’m only a sexpert in the sense that I have something to say about the subject period, since there’s a fairly limited population of folks who are willing to go on the record about going down.

I had a fairly lengthy interview with the writer of the Newsweek piece. She asked a lot of questions and I gave her a lot of opinionated responses, none of which made the article. Maybe that’s why I came off as an “authority on sex”. After all, I have strong feelings about the state of love and sex at Harvard, … but then again so do a lot of my friends. That doesn’t make them sexperts and it doesn’t make me one either.