A CAMPFIRE READING: It was too hot to light the fire

Question of the day

If a writer gives a reading in a forest, will anyone hear it?

Answer

I told my friends beforehand: My campfire reading in the vast and wild northern New Hampshire is going to stand as the pinnacle of my career as a published author.

Pinnacle reached Friday night. Prediction accurate.

The township of Pittsburg NH, geographically the largest in the country, only has a population of around 800 residents. By the looks of things, there are more moose per square mile than people and more lakes than any other place in the United States. More exploits. More feistiness. Here’s one example: In the early 1800s Pittsburg formed its own militia, made its own money, appointed its own Supreme Court, passed its own constitution.

What book experience could touch a campfire reading up there on the Canadian border, where newspaper articles and events listing, fliers posted kindly by libraries and hotels from Lancaster north did little to pull in the crowd. Not even word-of-mouth worked. It was Facebook, a tool (however sketchy the Internet) that builds lifesaving virtual networks in long winters that did it.

Ask an author to choose: Oprah vs. reading to people in a circle in the woods accompanied by the cry of the loon and the winking of fireflies and the wilds encircling us like a dark and wondrous fairytale.

Question: What am I getting at? Answer: This place and its people are magical.

What do I know about being on Oprah? Nothing. But in terms of sheer fun and novelty, a reading by a campfire in Pittsburg NH, way up north on the Canadian border, is as good as the hot fudge sundae you get at Moose Alley Cones a half mile north on Route 3.

I can go no further until I talk about Lisa and Tim Savard, owners of the Cabins at Lopstick. They need to write their own memoir detailing their exploits as successful and hospitable lodge owners, fishing and hunting guides (Lisa was the first licensed female fishing and hunting guide in New Hampshire), commanders of fleets of snowmobiles in winters, branders of business, artful decorators, adept at survival in a deep freeze seven months of each year. I thank them both profusely.

Tim gave me a reading lamp hooked up to electricity, there in the woods. He gave me a leather chair from which to hold forth and a circle of chairs upon which our guests sat and listened. Lisa provided homemade sangria and a platter of gorgeous bruschetta. She posted the event and talked it up and people came: an ER nurse practitioner who stands in for doctors in that lone hospital in the North Country, a psychologist, an advertising and branding specialist with advanced digital tools and expertise, a newspaper owner, etc.

One woman snowshoes alone in the deep winter woods at night with a lamp clamped onto her forehead. They’ve been known to face down bear. They toil long hours coming up with yet the next ingenious enterprise to help make ends meet. I love the creativity and the zeal for life.

I share passages from my memoir. I read about love and sexual attraction and they think it’s grand. One woman says she gives little vibrators as party favors, ensuring her popularity and lots of invitations. Another talks about the lively smut shop she’d love to run in New Orleans. Another acts out a bout of womanly hysterics, the turn-of-the-century cure for which was a prescribed course on the doctor’s large vibrating machine. A couple’s little dog wriggles out of its collar, clearly annoyed by the antics of the humans, and escapes into the waiting woods. Party ends. We hightail it after baby frou-frou, bow affixed to an exuberant topknot. Hurry! She’s the perfect tidbit for the wry coyote or sage fox sneaking about on the periphery.

As a child I was the transfixed onlooker at many a lively campfire. That was out West in the deserts, the high Sierras, the arid mountains and campgrounds inland from my hometown of Santa Barbara, and on beaches late at night when I should have been home in bed.

Bonding around a campfire over a good story is something I still crave.

There’s nothing quite like the smell of pine, the sound of the loons floating up from the First Connecticut Lake, the rustle of varmints in the brush, the crackling fire, the blood red sangria, the people gathered around, mere miles from Canada, in a huddle under a stew of stars so thick it seems that you could reach out and scoop them up. Fireflies zig and zag to form a perfect sphere of twinkling lights — that we inhabit — from rich earth to North Star. Quiet little words spoken from my book drift into the mix. Who better to understand Free Fall than these daring and hardy folk?

Summary

If a writer gives a reading in the Pittsburg woods on a lovely summer evening in July, interesting people who’ve checked Facebook will come. Some will bring their pets, sangria, friends, a sense of adventure. All will go home thinking: Yep. Anything can happen here. A moose running through the garden. Two adolescent foxes frolicking on the side of the road. Great views from Mount Magallaway. An erotic reading. That’s why I came to Pittsburg. You just never know.

Free Flow

There’s a lot of debris clogging this harbor, metaphorically speaking. Something has to give.

I’ve been reading a new book called “Seven-Tenths: Love, Piracy, and Science at Sea,” by David Fisichella. He writes about the ocean’s many layers of currents, the volume of water in each current, temperature, speed, salinity, water density. There’s even a special nomenclature (Sverdrup) for describing water volume because there’s so much of it. That book had me thinking as I slogged through my 8 a.m. run on Sunday. It was 78 degrees, 62 percent humidity, and the Hudson River Parkway smelled like the inside of an exhaust pipe.

Nature is where I get my best lessons and I never have to look that hard.

Oceans are deep, vast and complex organisms. Sometimes I sit on my Rockport deck, as I did the other night, and look out over an Atlantic Ocean so flat and still I cannot believe a wave could be tweaked out of that expansive lethargy. Air’s movement across the surface abrades, piques, teases ripples that join other ripples. Waves crash at our feet. That’s all just surface activity responding to external forces.

Fisichella tells us that waves can travel in opposition to current direction. Rogue waves — unexpectedly large and powerful aberrant waves — derive from this phenomenon and they can be troublesome.

So, too, women’s internal workings and surface responses can be at odds. I speak of women of my generation. We grew up feeling responsible for our fellow man and woman. From that orientation, many of us find ourselves striving for unity, harmony and compassion among friends, family and colleagues.

It’s not easy being nice all the time. I, like others, have engaged in a long and frustrating struggle to reconcile opposing forces: my valued role as humanitarian vs. my responsibility to my singular voice.

Does this sound familiar? Like something in assertiveness training we never really caught on to the first time we heard it in the early ’70s? Only a year or so ago I heard Gloria Steinem and Suzanne Braun Levine admit to a large Barnes & Noble crowd that they still had trouble saying “no.”

Saying ‘no’ — code for direct communication — feels counter-community.

About a year ago I met one of my clients in a train station. I was just coming into Boston from New York City and, after weeks of doing business by telephone, we were going to have lunch and discuss face-to-face the events we were planning to promote his new documentary film.

I recognized him and approached. Immediately the 6-foot, 5-inch man began yelling. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You,” he shouted. “You are what’s wrong.” He stormed off to the Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk to order a few doughnuts and coffee. When the non-English-speaking server got his order wrong, he shook a long stick-like doughnut in her face and screamed obscenities. The doughnut broke off and flew across the counter. Everything she did enraged him more but when she handed him a pink frosted doughnut instead of a Boston Crème concoction, I thought he would smash it in her face.

I shoved money at her and dragged him by the arm to a seat in the station. “Where’s your wife?” I shouted, desperate for help. She was across the country and I was there, stuck with this madman, just a day before a long weekend full of events I’d already been paid to publicize and oversee was about to commence.

My job shifted from arts publicist to psychiatric nurse as he trained the invective stream back on me. Any minute the police officer I saw out of the corner of my eye was going to arrest him.

My one overriding reaction while the encounter was taking place? As absurd as it seems, all I could feel was this: The man is suffering.

At least I had the common sense to cancel lunch, though I sat with him 40 minutes as he settled down and explained his concerns about getting an audience, getting bloggers to cover the events, getting interviews in all the big newspapers. He was a man of little faith and enormous rage. The last leg of my train trip to Rockport from Boston was spent managing my PTSD-like shakes. It had been a truly horrid time and yet I never did the one thing that could have saved me. Instead of walking away, as I should have, I stood and tried to help him calm himself and avoid the embarrassment of a confrontation with police.

I could have said: I quit. I could have said: Goodbye. Call me when you’ve got a grip.

Diplomacy takes precedence and my form of diplomacy clearly isn’t as forthright as I want or need it to be. This problem, I suspect, is surmountable. It has to do with knowing what we want, what we want to say, and finding a way. I am of the school of problem-solvers for which there is always a way. But we have to factor in the reality: For women there’s a nuanced art to speaking honestly, being heard, helping and not offending. When we activate our voices, we are doing so in the context of community.

I call myself ‘politic,’ but that way of thinking has become a rationalization for a form of verbal cowardice or confusion.

Since my memoir Free Fall has been published and since I no longer report to a day job, I’ve had the privilege and time to take a deeper, closer look at myself. Believe me. This was nothing I would have volunteered for. It hasn’t been fun or easy. I’m not distracted, like I was, by a contentious boss or the ongoing threat of a loved-one’s suicide. I wake up and the first thing I think about is not work but the knot of anxiety in my gut. Why is it there? What is it?

Now, with nature in front of me once again as a model, I see what needs fixing.

The gradual clearing out I desire has to do with opening up the harbor, letting the waters flow in and out as conditions shift and change. I want currents to align with surface activities, to say what I mean.

The next time my client wields a doughnut as if it were a weapon, I would like the presence of mind to hand him a cup of coffee and say, “Dunk it.”

Fantasy Shared

If I had my way, I’d make “Free Fall” assigned reading for every man interested in or currently engaged in a relationship with a woman. In other words, I’d like you men to read a book about a woman in the throes of passion.

After, I’d demand (since I’m in control of this fantasy, I can demand) an essay. The essay question: What scares you most about what you’ve read?

I know, it sounds like torture. Perhaps an exercise like this is torture because no one, especially men, want to admit to fear. And anyone reading this can guess where I’m going: Men, some anyway, fear certain things about women. It may look like disdain or discomfort or anger or dread or impatience, but I’m saying fear plays a role in the man/woman dynamic. I’m saying something else, too. We fear what we don’t fully understand.

Here’s how I see my fantasy assignment working: I’d lock each male into his own little room. Men, you’d have all the comforts: a couch to stretch out on, a good reading lamp, lots of munchies, a couple of bottles of wine, and a sock. A sock? One thing you may not know is that “Free Fall” is hot.

Want some music? Sure. A bag of chips? Fine. A little break for a televised baseball game? All right. But you can’t leave till you’ve read “Free Fall” and written your essay. An honest essay.

Here’s what I think the essays would suggest, not in these words exactly, but the message would be clear:


Before I read “Free Fall,” I could feel myself growing anxious when my wife spoke because her language contains words that reveal emotional content.

I don’t want the bother of a woman’s emotions because it makes me nervous.

I’m uncomfortable knowing what my girlfriend feels. I don’t know what to do!

I fear that what she’s saying is going to require that I do something.

I fear that I won’t be able to meet expectations.

I fear I won’t be able to understand what is needed.

I’m afraid of complications. I want out of here.

Or: Damn it. Why can’t we just keep it simple?

Believe me, I’m not finger pointing. I’m trying to understand.

The difference between “Free Fall” and “Deep Throat,” between erotica written by me, a woman, and a pornographic movie is that in “Free Fall” I please Jim and Jim pleases me but … I allow access not just to my body but to what’s going on in my head. In “Deep Throat,” one of the few porn movies I’ve seen, it’s sex minus thought or feeling.

My last book-related event took place at the Rockport Public Library on Wednesday evening. It was a panel discussion I organized and the topic was writing memoir. One of the panelists I invited was Amy Ferris, a fellow Seal Press author, with her own new book out titled “Marrying George Clooney: Confessions from a Midlife Crisis.”

Amy is a soul mate, as I see it. She’s taken on menopause the way I’ve taken on passion, and she’s dug into the weeds on it. Attendance that evening was excellent and people were very interested in Amy and what she had to say. Men, too, asked lots of questions but I am sure they will not buy and read her book. It’s about women. It’s about menopause.

And here’s the thing: The book is a delight. It’s entertaining. It involves men, in particular her wonderful husband Ken. Men, if you read “Marrying George Clooney,” think how much better prepared you’d be when your own mother or wife experiences menopause. I’m here to tell you, menopause is a group experience. Why not get a jump on it?

So I’m rethinking my fantasy. It now goes like this: You men must go into that room, not just for the 8 hours or so it takes to read my book, but for a week. Inside the room is a bookcase filled with “women’s” literature. You must read our literature just as we have read your literature. Your literature, in fact, has been assigned to us over the many years of our education and beyond, by our teachers and professors and Publishers Weekly (last December, their top books of 2009 contained not a single book written by a woman) and the New York Times book reviews and on and on.

All right. All right. I’ll allow conjugal visits.

But before I do, I’d like to see a rough draft of your essay. It will be a much more equitable world when men read women the way women have always read men.

Fantasy concluded.

Pajama Party!

When you're in love, sunsets have more colors

My “Free Fall” readings and especially the discussions afterward remind me of pajama parties.

A combination of things contributes to this post-reading — shall we call it ambience? — including the type of book I’ve just published, the make-up of the audience, and the wonderful way readings in local libraries and independent bookstores are warm and intimate. It almost can’t be helped. For now, though, I’m leaving my actual pajamas at home.

Case in point: the reading at Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport last Thursday night.

After reading for 15 minutes, which is about as long as people really want to sit quietly on aluminum chairs and listen attentively, I stop and grope a bit for a few remarks that reference what I’ve just read. I do this to give people time to exit their passive listening state, send a little blood to their glutes, and allow their questions to percolate up to consciousness.

On Thursday we talked about the fact that we don’t talk about this stuff (i.e. sex). Then we launched in, beginning with anecdotes — older friends and relatives who are in their 70s and 80s and enjoying burgeoning love affairs. Said one woman, “She’s so giddy, like a schoolgirl.”

Yes indeed. Good sex can be a little like speed: you can’t stop talking, your smile pulses “Hello there!” and everyone comments on your luminosity, you lose 50 pounds and your desire to complain. You drink wine, burn candles and suddenly notice the spectrum of colors in sunsets. What you need to watch out for, however, is the tendency to run on empty for days and weeks. When you emerge from this hormonally induced state, you’ll probably be exhausted. The older you are, the harder this is for your body to handle. You won’t care.

We talk a little more about passion, available to anyone at any age, and more join in. A sensitive issue comes up: What about married people for whom sex is not necessarily as exciting? Not only is the sex not new, but the two main players know what irks and what riles — death to passion, really. Are we to leave this out of the discussion? The book is about passion but the discussion leads to maintenance issues or, worse, ‘working’ at the sexual relationship. Oh please, I caution myself, never make this part ‘work.’

I point to Jim — I call him Exhibit A these days — and he smiles on cue. “We’ve been at this for three years now. We make adjustments, as well, to honor the sexual part of the relationship we discovered late in life. We’ve talked about this. We like sex and want it to last. Thank goodness for candles and martinis and date night.”

And, I think to myself, thank goodness for Jim. For here is another thing: Paying homage to your loved ones so they can hear you is essential. As Jim once said to me, “Almost nothing is as seductive as being adored.” Tell each other what you really like about him or her and make sure some of the items on your list have to do with their sexuality and the ways they turn you on.

Jabberwocky Bookshop is special. Owner Sue Little has set aside a room set for readings. It’s large enough to accommodate 50 or more people, but the chairs seem to wrap around like a circle. I like the feel of the conversation that comes to the fore here in the green room, as it’s called. People freely associate. One thought leads to another. One question prompts the next. I don’t have anything to teach here; the role I take on is that of writer with info. Because I’ve written a book that touches on gender issues, sex, career and power, mental illness, passion, creativity and more, I can at least share what I’ve learned from writing, thinking and talking about these issues with other people.

So we talked. It felt intimate, friendly, curious, open. In the same ways being a journalist allows me into other people’s lives with the probing and personal questions I sometimes have to ask, writing and publishing a book give me access. Access like this is a gift. Here, in this dedicated room, people pull up their chairs and speak. We compare notes. We share intimate thoughts. Guess what? You’re never too old for a pajama party. Books are like pajamas, I guess. They open the way to deeper conversation.

Reading Erotica to a Crowd

Or, Sharing Your Sex Life With Strangers

Two free drinks, free copies of Penthouse, free cupcakes, too


I probably won’t have to do this again — thank god — but the other night I read a very erotic scene from my book “Free Fall” to a large and lively crowd in a dimly lit bar in SoHo. The scene, from pages 238 to 243, features me as the actor and Jim as the happy recipient. It’s Jim’s favorite sex scene in the book.

What happened was more of a performance than a reading. I hasten to say, I didn’t perform the scene but I performed the reading, liked a staged reading in theater or like I did back in college in my class called Oral Interpretation of Literature. I am shy and the class taught me to slow down, enunciate, broaden the vowels so I sounded less “Western.” To prepare for my erotic bar reading, I rehearsed several times in advance, made notes in the margin, underlined words I wanted to emphasize. Too bad, in a way, that I won’t be reading this again out loud because I worked hard on the preparation.

I expected this to be the reading from hell. I agonized over what to wear. I made a special trip to the colorist to be sure my roots were the same color as the rest of my hair. I taught myself to keep smiling regardless. I should have mentioned first thing that those in the audience were at least 20 or 30 but more likely 40 years younger than I am. I wrote this book, with glimpses into my erotic life, in a vacuum. I didn’t know what other people do in bed so I had no idea how different sex at 58 was from sex at 21. People tell me all the time that it was courageous of me to write about my sex life but, no, that part was fun. It’s courageous to be 61 and read about your sexual activities to kids to whom you could have read “Hop on Pop.”

Oops. Maybe “Hop on Pop” is the wrong reference to make here…

When I was writing that scene, it never occurred to me that I would one day be called upon to read it aloud in a bar in lower Manhattan called Happy Ending where, in the low light, I would encounter tables thickly strewn with stacks of porn magazines free for the taking.

I hadn’t looked at porn in years so what I saw surprised me. For instance, women no longer grow pubic hair and most of them now have sex with other women. Men are incidental to the sex act, it seems, except for that one super-enormous male body part that occasionally crops up, sans the rest of the male body. Oh wait. I get it. This is what men want to look at, not necessarily what they want to do.

Seeing all this, I immediately fortified myself with a gin & tonic with one of my free drink tickets (my payment) and found the last two seats in the place for Jim and I. I had no choice but to rest my sweaty drink on the cleavage of a woman featured on the cover of Penthouse “Variations.”

Something else balanced atop the stacks of magazines: tiny cupcakes, little Barbie confections, each distinctively frosted. They seemed completely at odds with beer, gin and tonic, the Penthouse “Forum” and the red wine but, in fact, no. The cupcakes, generously iced and very sweet, suggested lavish excess, over-the-top indulgence, a night of abandon. The event’s organizer, Rachel Kramer Bussel, made the rounds with spicy tortilla chips and petite cupcakes a couple of times. Enjoy, she urged. Have another. Don’t hold back.

It was a standing-room-only situation at the Chinatown bar. As a newly published author, I suppose this was one indicator that I had officially arrived. Hello Happy Ending. Many well-known writers have read here. It was my turn. And it was up to me how I would view (as in ‘spin’) this reading. This is a tough world for shy authors — brand and opportunity and innovative selling require continuous hard work and a deep reservoir of chutzpah.

I am shameless. I wear skinny jeans. I tell the crowd that my book is true and it has sex in it so I must belong here, on the night dubbed “True Confessions.” I try to ‘own’ what started with a call from my book’s publicist. I read sex scenes to the possibly virginal. I smile at Jim and say, “Thanks, Jim, for the material.” I read, the word “penis” passes several times through my lips. None of it is forced. This, I have to admit, is all my own making. I wrote the book. I do what’s needed. Actually, I have a little fun.

I have to be realistic about another thing. For this crowd, a happy ending means only one thing — enthusiastic erotica that in real ways preps one for that important ‘happy ending’ eventuality. My job, here at the In the Flesh reading series, was to titillate. I did my best.

Oddly, it wasn’t so bad.

I spoke into a microphone. I rested my book on a lectern. I squinted into blinding lights and took note of the video camera a reporter had aimed my way. I read, just as I’d practiced, hitting the words I’d wanted to emphasize, rounding my vowels for dramatic effect, and smiling because this was fun as long as I didn’t think too hard. Like giving birth, I wasn’t about to picture what I was actually doing. A baby’s head squeezing through a cervix dilated to 10 cm is just as absurd as a 61-year-old woman describing sexual techniques to twenty-something men.

When it was over, I stood to receive a few cheers. I recall hearing laughs. A few men came up afterward to compliment my writing. I appreciated this. It was the man, after all, to whom I paid homage in that scene. Perhaps I got something right.

The readers that followed were more performer than I was. An obscene folk duo, a storyteller who’d been on “This American Life,” a woman lamenting how oral sex with her well-endowed husband had reshaped her jaw and caused a need for braces. Had I known ahead of time, I might not have had half the bravado I’d managed to summon.

I am still the same writer. Fame and fortune elude me, as they do most of us. But I got through another writer challenge with a certain dignity. I call this a happy ending for me, too.

Choose Yourself

One of the first questions I’m asked at “Free Fall” readings: How is Eli doing?

People want to know that Eli, my former significant other, is OK. I’m grateful that I can answer in the affirmative.

After what Eli has been through, it’s easy to believe that his recovery and re-emergence after a year of hospitalizations is close to miraculous.

“Free Fall” describes how Eli was diagnosed with a mass that had spread throughout his digestive tract. On top of all that, the doctors withdrew the lithium he took for his bipolar condition because of kidney problems. No medications seemed to work and he spent a year seriously depressed, in and out of hospitals. I wrote about Eli’s hard year in my book.

Yes, Eli is doing well. He lives in a small, government-subsidized apartment with a very sweet dog. He’s made a few new friends and has some contact with his family. Both Eli and I have established new lives. It’s been slow going, with lots of small steps. When I take the time to pull back for a broad look, I see that each of us has greater independence and more peace. This couldn’t have happened if I continued to assume that Eli could not exist without me at his side, even if I did have good reasons for my assumptions.

Eli is now going about his business with far fewer of the mental health crises that challenged him before. Eventually some of the medications the doctors tried, along with electro-convulsive therapy, began to make a difference. Now Jim, Eli and I spend time together whenever we can. Eli comes to New York and we travel to New England.

While I stay in touch and find ways to stay in Eli’s life, Eli told me he would be fine if that were to change or if something were to happen to me. This information is a gift. He gave Jim and I his blessing when he learned we were together. Recently he told Jim he’s happier than he’s ever been. Eli’s generosity is the highest level of compassion.

I could never have guessed that the three of us would find ways to make all this work. It wasn’t easy and it took a couple of years. One lesson I take from my experience is that we must be responsible to ourselves first. This isn’t just lip service or New Age jabber. It’s just as the Buddhists teach: We must take care of ourselves before we can help others.

In another blog posting, I would be happy to cite examples of how this worked for Eli and me. For now, I suggest that we slow down and contemplate what we are doing with our lives. Spinning wheels? Working all the time? Sacrificing everything for ideas of what it means to help others? First, we must consider what’s most important to us. Writing? Sculpting? Peace? Health? Look for ways to get there. Ask others for help. Persist.

As Jim says, we must choose ourselves. If we let assumptions about others get in our way, we may waste precious time and possibly, hurt the people we are trying to help.

How Sex Found its Way into 'Free Fall'

Part I of an occasional series on writing about sex



I didn’t set out to write about sex. I wanted to write about a cathartic love affair in the context of a life swamped by mounting complexities. I had a story to tell and themes I wanted to explore and comment on. Because I’m a journalist and have a journalist’s desire to share important information, no sooner had I grasped the significance of the affair than I began to draft essays about it.

The “context” I mention — the details — included a combative relationship with a hair-trigger boss, a significant other who wound up in ICU — the first of seven hospitalizations in 2007, a creative and fulfilling career in an art museum, euphoric runs along the ocean near my home in Rockport, writing projects, reviewing books, frequent travel, good friends, aging, mental illness, music, joy. The fact that sex ended up in the book doesn’t surprise me since sex was a big part of the love affair. And sex was the model for letting go, for having a free fall and, ultimately, for making change. It seemed essential to the story.

One journalist who read the book and wrote an article afterward said, “It’s a unique book. I’ve never read anything like it.” As a book reviewer and the writer of the book proposal that included a “survey of literature,” I came to see why she made that statement. “Free Fall” is 100 percent me, in my free-falling voice, written in the most honest way I could find. I wanted to paint 2007 for readers as sensually and as impressionistically as I had experienced it. This took work and numerous rewrites.

I recently looked at a blog titled “Bespoke Erotica” that Harpers.org linked to in May. The writer, Joshua David Stein, barters with readers who would like their own personal erotica. They provide him with three words and he writes an erotic story for them.

From his April 25 story on Tumblr, he begins:
Rhys felt the warm Caribbean breeze against alabaster ass cheeks, exposed westerly as Abel knelt also westerly with Rhys’ knob betwixt his lips. Things were going well for the lovebirds. Rhys moaned contentedly; Abel hummed and drooled. To read more: http://bespokeerotica.tumblr.com/

In “Free Fall,” there’s no cum or alabaster ass cheeks or fantasy islands, though breasts and a penis are referenced a number of times. But I had to be careful because I didn’t want jargon and the mechanics of sex to get in the way of what was going on emotionally or psychologically. On the other hand, the act of sex was how I found my way to some of the deeper issues I’d begun to reconsider, such as my penchant for control, dependence vs. independence, the experience of joy. Not to mention, the mechanics of sex, presented with less grit and more authenticity, can be erotic but challenging for most writers to pull off.

With regard to Joshua David Stein, I would not barter for one of his personalized stories. Why did Harper’s link to his erotica? Do men like different erotica than women? Why are some people offended by writing about sex while not about watching sex in movies and on television? These are questions for other essays in this occasional series of writing about sex.

I couldn’t have guessed that sex would trigger major life changes. I didn’t pay attention when reading Freud in my sociology classes and I hated it when my mother espoused Freud. I was naïve. I thought I was going to have a fling. Think again. Sex causes big things to happen, like babies and marriage and the end of marriage … and everything I wrote about in “Free Fall.”