Mélanie Berliet

Who’s to say what I should or should not do about an appendage? Does my boyfriend think he has power of attorney over my body?

As the reality of what I’d gotten myself into set in, I began to have doubts. Maybe my parents were correct and I was, in fact, an absolute loon.

I run through the list of possible alternatives: I can feel your moods? foods? cubes? nudes? glutes? The latter might make sense, but only if we were in the reverse cowgirl position. We aren’t.

“Even if I were a blind guy and put my hands here”—he seizes my sides—“there are little lumps.”

Spontaneity is rare, and impossible to replicate.

At the age of 12, I begged my parents to send me to sleepaway camp. They complied, and I ended up at a place with a Native American-y name about three hours away from our home in Connecticut for a two-week stretch. Aside from being so miserable that I considered alleging sexual abuse by a counselor to convince my parents to collect me, a few things stood out.

To be clear, I am all for random, safe sex and all forms of sexual experimentation. But for whatever biological, psychological, environmental, or spiritual reasons, I believe that a lot of us experience a desire transformation at a certain stage.

For a long time, my foremost goal was to be a mom.

To overcome my reservations about walking the line between dating and prostitution, I told myself that any such concerns were the result of societal conditioning.

What some call baggage, others call vital experience.

“That looks like a porn star,” I say, as it occurs to me how strange it is that our medical diagrams don’t depict variations in human anatomy.

Truth be told, I kind of like porn. I’m not into anything overly kinky or sadomasochistic, but the gentler stuff can be interesting, if not always illuminating.

I’m no prude, and I figured I had nothing to lose.

“We both have pasts,” he said. “The difference is that you broadcast yours.”