Sex in the Digital Age
As the internet has become an increasingly integral part of our daily lives, it's transformed virtually everything about how we live--from how we communicate with friends and family, how we get our jobs done, and, yes, how we flirt, find lovers, and explore our sexuality. In many ways, this evolution has been a positive one, bringing us amazing new ways to connect with the rest of the world, but it's also had some unforeseen consequences: just over a decade ago, when the country was reeling from the aftermath of the Lewinsky scandal, who could have imagined that one day a congressman would be forced to resign from his post after a scandal that involved no sex, no illicit meetings--in fact, nothing more than some online flirting and a few ill advised sexts?
Sex in the Digital Age examines how the internet has transformed our relationship to sexuality: what it's given us, what it's taken away, and how it's transformed our ideas and expectations about how our friends, lovers, and public figures can--and should--behave.
Presenters
Lena Chen is a Boston-based blogger and writer who has reported on gender and sexuality for The American Prospect, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Sydney Morning Herald, Glamour, Salon, and Slate, among others. She hosts and produces "Sex Really with Lena Chen" and contributes to Bedsider.org, projects of The National Campaign To Prevent Teen & Unplanned Pregnancy. She is also the Health, Sex, & Relationships expert on gURL.com, Alloy Digital’s award-winning alternative web portal for adolescent girls.
In August 2006, she started writing SexAndTheIvy.com as a sophomore at Harvard College. Her first-person accounts of sexual experiences, alienation, and the true state of undergraduate life at the world’s premier academic institution prompted controversy and debate. Lena has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Boston Globe, Village Voice, Marie Claire, Women’s Health, and The Daily Beast. She has spoken about feminism, relationships, and healthy sexuality at Cornell, Brown, Stanford, and Rutgers, among other colleges.
She is also co-founder of Feminist Coming Out Day and the online campaign, the Feminist Portrait Project, which have since become incorporated into the Feminist Majority Foundation’s national campus programming. Lena has been recognized by More Magazine, Bitch Magazine, and the Women’s Media Center for her work. Lena graduated from Harvard in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a minor in Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality. Her current blog, TheChicktionary,com, is a chronicle of all things feminist, queer, or otherwise radical.
Lux Alptraum is a writer, sex educator, and CEO of Fleshbot, the web’s foremost blog about sexuality and adult entertainment. Prior to working at Fleshbot, she worked as a sex educator at an adolescent pregnancy prevention program, an HIV pretest counselor, and founded ThatStrangeGirl, an alternative porn site, and Boinkology, a blog about sex and culture.
Maureen O'Connor is a gossip blogger.
Monday, March 12
