At Harvard, At Least the Sex is Good

If you thought Harvard was the last place to get your rocks off, think again. In March, attendees at Harvard Sex Week can choose from seminars such as “Can Porn be Ethical?” and “God Says Sex is Good,” as well as presentations on safe kink and LGBTQ sex ed. SHEATH, the Harvard society responsible for sex week, certainly knows what’s hot, and judging by the great minds and activists who are presenting, the college isn’t stuffy when it comes to sex ed.

But our local Ivy isn’t just about college-aged students. This very week, Lady Gaga visited Harvard campus to promote her new Born This Way Foundation, which exists to foster in today’s youth “a more accepting society where differences are embraced and individuality is celebrated.” No stranger to social and sexual politics, Gaga’s presence surely counts as a win for Boston. But will Harvard ever be recognized, country-wide, for its sex-positive thinkers?

As an erotic writer, folks from other states sometimes look surprised when I say I live in Boston — they view the city as so cerebral that sex doesn’t feature at all. But clearly Boston is unafraid of intellectual debate, and the notion that sex and intellect don’t go together is, frankly, a load of old hat. So let’s give a hand for Harvard for spreading the sex-positive word.

In any case, Bostonians have been sexually empowering themselves for centuries. Back in 1647, for instance, Deborah Wilson protested against the victimization of Quakers by walking, naked, through the streets of Salem “as a sign of spiritual nakedness.” If that isn’t a cerebral use of sexual power, I don’t know what is.