“Tell us about your first time.” It always happens when we’re playing Hot Seat or Truth or Dare. Everyone buckles up for a good story—bonus points if it happened somewhere crazy. I smile softly to myself, knowing they’re going to be surprised, or maybe even disappointed, by my response that I’m a virgin and waiting […]
Note: The author recognizes that there are many women who do not have vaginas or uteruses. This is a personal exploration of a transformation into adulthood, and the author wants to express her love for women of all shapes, sizes, races, gender expressions, and sexual identities as they battle what can be a very scary […]
On March 22, I opened my email over breakfast to The Post Most and clicked on the headliner: “Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion.” Written by two female health reporters, Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi, the article criticized women who share negative experiences with hormonal contraceptives online. Weber and Malhi called the […]
Whenever I’ve let it slip to a friend that I’m saving myself for marriage, they ask me what that looks like. They aren’t questioning my religious beliefs or suggesting a possible far-right indoctrination in my childhood that led to deep sexual repression. Instead, they wonder how I could possibly reconcile my “commitment to purity” and […]
While many self-help books and advice columns claim to have “expert knowledge” on dating, none seem to include vignettes from the lives of Harvard’s hopeless and hopeful romantics. Since personal stories resonate more than advice alone, we’ve collected stories from our friends with invaluable lessons (and given each of them pseudonyms). Sometimes it feels like […]
The first time I looked at my vagina, I was repulsed. Legs spread in a frog-like fashion, right hand equipped with a handheld mirror patterned with Disney Princess stickers and fingers poking at my labia in the most unsexual manner possible, I had never felt more concentrated in my 12 years of life. And, simultaneously, […]
Dear Reader, The staff of the Harvard Independent is proud to present the 2024 Sex Issue. This issue is a tradition which has been cherished and highly-anticipated annually for over 25 years. Each year’s Sex Issue explores the joys and the complexities of sex and sexuality, and aims to promote sex-positivity in many forms on […]
“What’s your concentration?” is a question all of us have heard one too many times. Even freshmen are faced with the infamous question, despite having months before they need to make their decision. The expectation is clear—we all need to have a defined path from the moment we step on campus. With course registration opening […]
Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister, Shahid Abbasi, turned towards me. “What’s your 9/11 theory?” I threw out my question to him from behind my cup of tea, perched in his living room post-dinner buffet at his home in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Al Jazeera journalist had left a short while ago. Her departure lent casualness and intimacy to […]
Prayer, fasting, almsgiving—the phrase Christians repeat over and over during the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. In the Christian tradition, across denominations, Lent is a time of “solemnity and self-reflection,” as described by the United Kingdom’s Christian Enquiry Agency. Christians use this time to repent for their wrongdoings and turn towards a more […]