And the Emmy doesn't go to ...

In my sophomore year of high school, I came to dread an assignment that required students to memorize a monologue and deliver it in front of the class. Even as an adult, public speaking remains a real fear for me. I couldn't see how this would end. My grades were the highest in the class, but I was just as lost as everyone else. Guidance was scant. Even as a teenager, I relented and trusted my teacher and did as she instructed: I memorized a selection of compelling text and performed it. 

So, what text did I choose? Not reflections by the venerable Susan Lucci of soap opera stardom but rather her formidable soap character Erica Kane. Neither was Virgil, nor even Dante's beloved Beatrice. To be clear, the soap character Erica Kane was credited with a recent book written in complete character about having it all helpfully called Having It All. I inhaled soap operas before I was a teenager and the habit only accelerated through puberty. I could probably channel enough of La Lucci, as she's been affectionately termed, and pair her with my own quirkiness to earn at least a high B for a grade.

I sat on a stool in front of my vanilla classmates and forced myself into character to celebrate having it all, though I'm sure that, even as a teenager, I was still stubbornly two sizes larger and thirty years younger than the fictitious character that I was trying to channel. What the fuck did I know about having it all? At 15, I knew nothing about having it all, but I trusted that Erica Kane did, and so I leaned on homegirl. And it paid off. 

As an adult, the ingredients to having it all seem to have ended up in my home not far from where I would watch Erica Kane on All My Children every day after school. More than any other time in my still rather short life, I can now say that I've stumbled across a reliable recipe for having it all and, for most folks, it must include good sex. Once folks get over any discomfort with going there, sex talk often leads to sex do. I've been there, and I'm a better person for it. 

Any woman who has it all will tell you that competing tensions are inevitable. Work and family. Spend and save. Sex and monogamy? 

Of course, I have been with my longterm boyfriend for over a decade. Boyfriend, or partner, brings to mind monogamy. But not so fast! Gay men have led the shift away from a heteronormative model of romance. Love sprouts and no one locks it down or limits it. To avoid confusion, queer men are actively rewriting the rules on love and commitment. Many remain in the model they were raised in. Others increasingly reject it. So, my boyfriend and I are open. Our sex is part of the math to my pleasure and happiness, but it's not the entire equation right now. Chris and I are committed, and that commitment comes with few sexual restrictions on connections with other men. It took us years to get here and feels like everything. 

When I first launched my steamy pink blog in 2005, I was inundated in dating and sex. Sex was such an integral part of the fun and happiness that, wait for it, I experienced before and after each boyfriend came and went. The irony, right? And we know that I wasn't the only one frustrated with six with a 20-something boyfriend. (I recall being extra angry at the awkwardness guys brought to sex in our 20s because everyone assumed that at least the kids are shtupping; we were often so bad at it.) Sex in monogamous relationships can be fabulous. It can also be bad or not exist. Monogamy was limiting even as I yearned for a committed intimate connection with one guy above the others. And more than that, how could I really maintain my desired range of sexual competence and practice solely having sex in a monogamous relationship? Perhaps many people do; I'm just not that talented. 

The sex in an open relationship can feel close to having it all. And it resolves the inherent tension that many coupled folks navigate. Sure, when the occasion presents itself, my boyfriend and/or I hook up with guys. Sleeping with other guys is not how my bf and I spend most of our time and sexual energy. The fear that it might be tacitly loomed in the beginning; it's long since passed. Hanging out alone on vagaytion, however, is a great occasion to explore who's out there. What man doesn't dream of access to a slew of lovers while also having the comforts of a stable relationship? It's working for me. 

If we're really spilling the tea, more than the casual sex, I find that I really crave the attention, the flirting, sexting, being chased, perhaps risking the chance that a man might really see a part of me that others miss. These connections run the risk that we might be seen in our fullness. That's the real intimacy. These days, I'm learning how to have sex with the lights on, but I'm far from being comfortable with someone really seeing me beyond my shtick and defensive deflecting. Sure, I maintain casual connections with admirers all over the world, men, really kosher lovers, who are ready to pick back up the passion when the occasion arises. As a result, I receive a steamy text message from a man at least once a day. Across timezones. From my past. Some from more recent guys. All moments teeming with the energy that our personal chemistry yields. 

That high school kid could have really used a guide beyond the issues of Cosmos I passed around in the same English class. Erica Kane's outrageous advice evangelized me, and so I write to spread the gospel of having it all, at least in bed. Or the couch. Wherever you're having it all. Perhaps having it all isn't for you. I can see how ambitious having it all might seem. Maybe you don't take advice about life from fictitious soap stars. Maybe you don't take sex advice from a self-identified slut. Still, let me emphasize that you don't need to have it all to have fabulous sex. Good sex for its own sake counts for so much; its value should not be underestimated. 

 I invite you to keep reading these posts. Let me be the Virgil to your Dante through a survey of good, or at least thoughtful, sex. The pleasure would be mine and maybe even yours.