The Fight over Abstinence at Harvard

At Harvard, it’s sounding a lot like the ’70s again. Thanks to the provocations of True Love Revolution, the university’s three-year-old pro-abstinence club, brainy women are defending their right to have sex with whomever they want, whenever and however they want. “To say that a consensual sexual act is degrading to you is the complete opposite of feminism,” insisted Silpa Kovvali when I spoke with her last week. “For women to take control of the sex act can be an incredibly empowering experience.” Kovvali, a computer-science major, was echoing an editorial she recently published in The Harvard Crimson.