Lena Chen
Quick Facts
Biography
Lena Chen is a feminist, freelance writer, former blogger, and graduate of Harvard College, where she co-organized the Feminist Coming Out Day campaign in 2010. Born in San Francisco, California and raised in Los Angeles, Lena studied sociology and minored in Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality. Best known for her work on the blog Sex and the Ivy, she also wrote the blog The Chicktionary and was the founding editor of CollegeOTR, a news and entertainment blog network.
Biography
In August 2006, she started penning the blog Sex and the Ivy. Her first-person accounts of sexual experiences, depression, and undergraduate life at one of America's premier academic institutions spurred campus discussion, prompted media attention, and garnered a following. Quickly becoming a controversial figure, she has been criticized by some as morally reprehensible and praised by others for encouraging frank sexual dialogue.
Following the publication of revenge porn by an ex-boyfriend in 2009, Chen and her partner were subject to online harassment. For the next five years, she continued blogging in spite of the attacks, until retiring in April 2013.