For most of my life, I was a user and an addict. I stand before you today, happy to report, I’ve been a recovering labeler for six years and counting. “Bisexual” was my label of choice. I found it in a medical dictionary when I was 10 alongside “hetero” and “homo.” I read the definitions […]
None of Us Gets Touched Enough
I don’t get touched enough! I silently proclaimed, as I felt for the first time the lightning that occurs when a massage therapist’s hands settle firmly on your back. And if I don’t get touched enough, I thought, bumping around with two wives, five kids, four cats, and an occasional gerbil, then nobody does! I […]
The Three Percent Difference
Back in the Stone Age—remember the 1970s?—my senior advisor in graduate School, Harold Bessell, took up the mantle of feminism when he assured parents that girls could do anything boys could do. “The only thing that separates boys and girls,” Bessell often said, “is an anatomical difference of three percent.” Forty years later, I’ve come […]
Penises Do Exactly As They Like
Men! Stop beating yourselves up when your penises don’t do what you want them to do. Remember when you were a kid and it would get hard right when you were about to give a speech in front of the class? Today, you’d love looking like that—a well-endowed rock star, advertising your goods to the […]
Running Sexual Energy Is an Essential Part of Your Job Description
A woman recently told me she was thinking about leaving her husband, because, she said, she’d caught him looking at pornography. “All the time?” I asked. “No, just once,” she answered, “but I’m sure he’s done it other times.” Whoa! I thought. She should see what’s crossed my computer screen. I wondered if I should […]