Opinion blog

For a long time, I thought of my sexuality as Pandora’s Box. At my small and gossipy high school in rural New England, I refused to have sex for fear that breaking my hymen would release a beast—one that would not stop until it had spilled the seed of 1,000 lovers, or maybe more like 50 or so.

Last weekend, a Manhattan hotelier followed me into the bathroom of Bungalow 8, and in a thick Italian accent, offered me $1,000 cash to blow lines off my nipples.

When I was a junior in high school I dated a girl who told me she loved me, but wasn’t in love with me. This meant she wouldn’t have sex with me until she changed her love to “in love,” or so I thought.