The character in Phil's story, still named Virginia (he promised to search and replace but he could not resist state name puns), was a charming rogue, horny but upfront about her emotional inaccessibility. Phil's character wanted more, which gave him a new empathy with women. (My favorite part was his use of the word "small" in describing my butt.) His diagnosis of the break-up was Virginia's fear of closeness.

This little "Rashomon" exercise drove home the elusiveness of "truth" about such a vulnerable subject. We're all the attractive, justified heroes and heroines of our sexual anecdotes, so I didn't mind his painting my indifference as a neurosis. It didn't hurt to be thus "owned" by Phil; and being flattened into a character felt less like a theft than a gift, a glimpse at what others see. Walking in his moccasins eased my conscience about how I use my disguised, but unwitting subjects.

But the ethical quandaries around chronicling the past are simple compared to the psychic contortions of having sex as a sex writer. If your love life is your beat, the temptation is always there to freeze the present into instant past. Stuffing a new encounter into a narrative arc helps you own it -- and protects you from it. But it also smothers it.

I read Lisa Carver's weekly sex diaries on Nerve as both inspiration and cautionary tale. As much as I admire her honesty as a writer, I'm horrified by the way the spotlight drives and consumes her life. ("Sex and the City," on the other hand, leaves all this messy stuff out: Carrie's suitors never acknowledge their fodder status; her girlfriends never object to her portrayals of them, and Carrie never tries something just to generate her columns -- perhaps because they're all one rhetorical question long.)

Carver's 24/7 performance piece of a life scares me because I've also felt the column's push to push the sex envelope. So far the only new thing I've tried just to write about it is phone sex, but even those bodiless encounters had consequences I'm still sorting out.

When I spent the carpal tunnel-risking day on the phone, I was in a relationship, the first one in a few years with long-term potential. My boyfriend at the time, who writes and makes art about sex, had introduced me to a phone dominatrix. I pitched a story about her, and my editor replied, "Why not do phone sex yourself instead?" The boyfriend and I agreed we didn't want to do the assignment with each other so I asked him if he'd mind if I tried it with chat-line strangers. He said to go ahead. It looked like all three wrestlers were going to get their way.

But when the boyfriend and I talked about it afterwards, it became clear that he did mind. ("You came FOUR times?") The writer-me thought, "That's fascinating -- I'll have to write about his jealousy and the issue of whether phone sex is cheating!" Meanwhile the girlfriend-me said, "Leave him out of it."

I'm still not sure why, soon after that, I broke up with someone so compatible, which he and I discussed today when I called to ask if I could use this anecdote. I may well have been choosing the hunting and gathering of material over the monogamous long-term relationship I'm pretty sure I want.

A few weeks ago, at 3 a.m. in a dark, after-hours club, I came the closest yet to a seamless merge of sex and sex writing. I was nestled on a couch with a 21-year-old who looked like Antonio Banderas. (The little devil and the little angel on my shoulders kept exchanging these two pieces of information: "21!" "Looks like Antonio Banderas!")

He told me he was trying to figure out his status with a girl from his dorm ("21. Girlfriend. DORM, you old lech." "But, Antonio!"). I asked him, "Well, are you sleeping with her?" He smiled shyly and said, "No, I'm a virgin." I marveled at that, "But you're so attractive," to which he replied eagerly, "You really think so?" I reassured him vigorously. Then I said, "I write a sex column. Could I interview you about being a virgin?" He said, "Oh yeah, I'm really open, I'll tell anyone anything!"

He went on to explain how he really wanted to have sex but wasn't sure who the first time should be with. I suggested, nobly, that it should probably be with a girl he loved and trusted. He countered that maybe someone more experienced should show him the ropes.

I took a deep breath ("21!" "Antonio!" "Virgin!") and spoke slowly. "You know, of course, that the best column would be for me to show you the ropes and write about that." He answered, "That crossed my mind, too." The writer-adventurer tag team exchanged high fives in my head -- the boyfriend seeker had long since retired for the night.

But in the next moment I realized that I'd never go through with it, even though it would solve a moral dilemma to have the sex that we both agreed was column fodder. I'm not sure exactly how I knew the story had to end here, but part of it was that I could never discuss all the weird meta-levels of the situation with this boy. It would just be too lonesome to take full ownership before we even started.
salon.com | Jan. 11, 2000

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