A kiss, or that kiss, isn't just a kiss. It was a possible referent and now a leading anecdote in an installment of the serial I live in. I knew Mike liked the articles but had no idea how he felt about venturing into my beat. He may have been attracted to the risk; he may have trusted me not to expose him. I know he thought something, because when we first went to bed a week later, he asked to make it "off the record."

It's a relief when a man draws that line or asks, usually half-kidding: "You're not going to write about me, are you?" Answering "No" stops the three-way wrestling match inside my head. The writer me exits the ring, leaving the sexual adventurer me to work it out with the me who wants a boyfriend. The loss of privacy about my sexual past, it turns out, is no big deal compared to the ethical and emotional dilemmas of my sexual present.

Surprisingly, most men seem unfazed by my history that's detailed online. But of course, there are a few exceptions. One fellow who'd read my archives before our first date seemed titillated by it all until the end of the evening, when he asked, "You make that stuff up, right?" I told him I only change names and disguise identities. "You mean," he stammered, "you liked phone sex?" That was the last time I saw him.

Another guy engineered an introduction only because he wanted to receive the attentions of a strapped-on woman. I didn't find out his motivation until later, from someone else, but happily my instincts had led me to decline his invitation for a drink.

"Phil," a writer I dated briefly, encouraged me when I was deciding whether or not to do the column. Authorship, he insisted, protected me from shame and embarrassment about sex disclosures. When you write about it, Phil said, "you own it." Soon after his pep talk, we parted ways, and he surprised me a few months later with his own bid for ownership. He sent me -- and asked my permission to publish -- his version of our fling.

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