Mélanie Berliet

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.