There are very few times when I discuss my romantic entanglements with my mother. Though she is an open-minded and let’s say (for the sake of propriety) “vivacious” lady, she is still a woman who believes that Fifty Shades of Gray was either about race politics or wallpaper. However, a few weeks ago, she called and I couldn’t hold back from sharing some of my neurotic concerns about a one-night stand that had seemed like it had a lot of relationship potential before fizzling out into nothing. (Rest assured, I didn’t mention that it was just a night of sex. I simply said it was a “date.”) In the middle of my rant about what I thought had gone wrong between us and that maybe he just hadn’t called because his mother died, she stopped me and said, “Oh for heaven’s sake, Lacy. You analyze everything to death. Including sex! Why can’t you just lie back and enjoy it?”
There it was, the best sex advice I’ve gotten in years, from the woman to whom I should have been listening all my life: my mother.

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Her words have haunted me over the past few weeks, seeping into every sentence I’ve tried to write. That’s why—with a heavy heart—I’ve decided I am no longer the lady for this job. Make no mistake, I have loved my year of sex—the good and the bad—but most of all, I have loved writing every moment down. Now, it’s time for me to move forward and try to sleep with one person for awhile—maybe someone who I won’t write about. (No promises on that front, though. I’m still an artiste, after all.)

Even though goodbyes can be hard, I didn’t want to leave without saying one. So here’s a list of all the things I’ve learned from my year as a sex columnist. (By the way, this list might also be a thinly veiled attempt at letting you know the best way to get into my pants. I mean, I’m not dead! I’ve still got a pulse and I’m still single even if I’m not writing about sex anymore.) Here it goes:

Call Me: I cannot stress this more strongly—ENOUGH WITH THE TEXTING. Remember—years ago—when you liked someone and you would call them just to see how his or her day went? Then you would talk for hours and your ear would get hot and your arm would go numb from holding up the phone? I may have been thirteen the last time that happened, but I still miss it. Think about how many stupid misunderstandings would be eradicated by a phone call. Yes, it will be awkward, and, no, we don’t know how to really talk on the phone anymore, but I’d still like if we could go back to a simpler time when we weren’t all a bunch of sociopaths that couldn’t hold conversations on the phone. I want to hear the sound of your voice. It’s sexy and intimate and ultimately it shows me that you like me…you really, really like me.

Don’t Sleep with Anyone Who Has a Partner: I know this seems obvious, but…it’s not. It’s easy to have clouded vision when you find a person who seems perfect for you and acts like his or her partner is a huge a problem. I went into an “other woman” situation thinking “Who cares? It’s not my relationship, so it’s not my responsibility.” Sure, maybe I wasn’t responsible to him or to his girlfriend, but I was still responsible to myself. So when it didn’t feel great when I never heard from him again, I have only myself to hold accountable for that one.

Liking My Picture On Instagram Is Not a Sufficient Form of Flirting: Even more so when I can see that you liked a bunch of fetish models’ pictures too. I’m beginning to believe that all social media is ruining our ability to date. There is a huge effort problem when a person thinks that hitting a button is the equivalent of clever, face-to-face banter. So stop doing that thing where you “deep like” a year-old photo of me in a bathing suit, and start trying to finish my sentences about Monty Python. Is that really too much to ask?

Casual Sex Does Not Mean a Person Is Interested In Dating You: I say this having experienced both sides. I have been the person who hopes to win someone over by showing them my super sexy moves and I’ve been the the person that doesn’t return a text message about the iPod you left at my apartment. (Sorry!) What I’ve learned this year is that casual sex is great as long as you’re not using it as a means to get the other person to like you. If that’s the case, you’re going about it all wrong. In those situations sex develops after a mutual appreciation and respect is founded.

You Can’t Have Casual Sex with Someone Over and Over and Not Develop Feelings: I know a lot of folks are going to disagree with me on this, but the more physical you get with someone (especially if it’s over a prolonged period of time), the more invested you become. If you care for someone’s body long enough, you start to care for the whole of him or her.

The Best Sex You Have Is Not Always the Best Sex For You: Sure, I loved having sex high on space cakes with the poet who owned a ferret, but he always interrupted me, and we would have made a terrible couple. Really, the best sex I’ve ever had was on a Wednesday morning sometime in 2007, and it probably only lasted about twenty minutes because we both had to go to work. But it was with someone that taught me everything I know about love, sex, heartache and sacrifice. Usually, the least exciting stuff is the most important.

You Can’t Be Friends with Your Exes: Let’s be honest here, everyone we know that’s friends with the person who broke their heart is kidding themselves. Move on! Want to know why you’re still single? Because you still get weekly brunch with your ex and trade dating stories, pretending it’s ok and that you’re both totally fine with it. I’m not saying that you can’t send them a holiday card, or a rice cooker for their wedding, but please, I beg you, don’t organize the bachelor party.

Sometimes You Gotta Pick Bros Over…Well, Bros: I have sabotaged a lot of what could have been great friendships by making them sexual, all because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. When I was younger, the moment I had a connection with someone, my first inclination would be to sleep with them. I used to think that good conversation was just the precursor to even better sex. Now, after having lots of good—but also terrible and totally unnecessary—sex, I think I’ve come to terms with letting good conversation be just that—good conversation. I used to walk around wondering if every straight man I met was a potential lover or (even more ridiculously) my potential life partner. Every time I had a clever tête-à-tête with a dude, I would think, “Are you my soul-mate?” As a feminist, it’s the ultimate irony to recognize that I’ve been turning every man I meet into a sex object.

Don’t Try to Have a Threesome with Your Best Friend: Group sex works best when you are equally attracted to everyone involved. And let’s face it, your best friend is probably your best friend because there is no sexual chemistry. You gotta have one person in your life who you can keep the door open with when you pee.

Finally, Can We Be More Honest? Please?: I have ruined many a great encounter with a guy by trying to act tough and be cavalier. You know, all, “whatever, I’m a sex columnist…you are a notch on my bed stand and a note in my Excel spreadsheet.” It was hard for me to understand, but those guys had feelings too. And though we’re all out there trying to protect our little hearts, being vulnerable is its own achievement. Tell them you like them. Go on. I dare you.

That’s all folks. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve had a lot of fun. Thank you.

I’ve been out of New York for the past three weeks. First, because of the holidays, I made the requisite trip home to Jacksonville. Needless to say, I was ready to leave when my week with my family was up. I was really looking forward to going to LA for New Year’s Eve, which also turned out to be where shit would get a little crazy.

When I finally got back to Brooklyn, I immediately made plans to catch up with friends at a bar. As it turned out, all my ladies had their own holiday gossip to share. One friend told me about going back home and having a tryst with her neighbor. He was her “boy next door,” the guy she had grown up with all her life.

She said, “The thing is, we really connected and spent so much time together, that I felt sad coming back to New York. So, I sort of prepared myself for the usual cycle of lovesickness, you know, feeling sad, then hopeful, then anxious, and ultimately trying to get myself to move on from this dude. But then all of a sudden, I thought, why do I have to do this? I had an amazing time with this man. Can’t I just leave it at that, and be happy?”

While she was telling me this, all I could think was “Yes, Yes, Yes.” I was experiencing the same thing.

[jump]

While I was in LA, I got lucky. Not only did I get my brains fucked out, but also I got lucky because it’s hard to get a date on the West Coast, or so I’ve been told by by Californian friends. My date was a stand up comic whom I had met a couple of months before back in New York. Part of his act was to kiss an audience member and so of course I volunteered. (You don’t become a sex columnist by being a wallflower.) I don’t want to make too much of this kiss, but it was a slow-motion movie moment. I went into the kiss expecting it would feel sort of mundane and gimmicky, but it didn’t. I felt like I stopped breathing for a moment. When it was over, the two of us exchanged a quizzical look that said, “Did you feel that too?” Then I turned around and realized that 50 people were watching us. I left as soon as the show was over. I was feeling overwhelmed, and also I didn’t really want to ruin the experience by trying to make anything bigger out of it.

However, two months later I turned up in LA (which he calls home) and we went on a date. At first I didn’t want to go. I was tired and worried that we wouldn’t have a good time, especially since all I knew about him was that he was a good kisser. Nevertheless, I still put on my sexy panties… just in case. Turns out we did have a good time. In fact, we had a fantastic time. He’s got the manic, magnetic glow of a true performer, and the type of intense sparkly eyes that make constant contact and leave a lady feeling like she’s the only person in the room. I have a hunch there are a lot of people like this in LA, but this was my first one and I was very taken. So taken in fact, that we went back to his house, where we found out that the kiss we shared two months ago was just a preview to our like-mindedness in the bedroom. Also, he had a mirror as a headboard, and though it was beyond tacky, it had other uses that proved to be more important than its aesthetic value. I came a million times (more like twice), and then he drove me home like a perfect gentleman.

The next day, my vacation was over. I got on a plane back to NY with the memory of a crazy LA sex-capade floating in and out of my Ambien-induced sleep.

The LA sex was definitely in my top 10 sexual experiences of all time, but it also got me thinking about how much I’ve changed sexually in the time that I’ve been a columnist at The L When I look back on who I was a year ago, this experience would have been very different. First, I know that the moment I looked into the sparkly eyes of his too handsome face, I would have been a goner. Just like this time, I would have had sex with him, and just like this time it would have been amazing, but not just like this time, I would have gotten on the plane and immediately started planning our lives together. I hate to admit this, but I must confess that last year’s Lacy would already be thinking about what our children would look like, and what their names would be. Scout and Pepper sound nice, right?

Now, though, I’m proud to say that I have calmed down A LOT. All the people I’ve slept with this year (the good and the bad) have taught me something about relationships, sex, and—as self-help-y as it sounds—the complexity of what it means to be a human being struggling to make it through. I may not have a partner yet, but I’ve definitely gained insight.

After this year, I truly believe the hard worn expression, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Believe me when I tell you that everyone is dealing with their own shit, and it has nothing to do with how “dateable” or “sexy” you are. I’m not saying I don’t get my feelings hurt, but I’ve learned to take all this dating tragedy stuff less personally. At the end of the day, it’s just very exhausting.

Most importantly I’ve discovered what I want. If what I want is to partner down, it’s not like having a fling in LA will make or break my search for the right guy, but I do know not that I can’t expect a relationship out of casual sex—and then feel betrayed when it doesn’t happen. I loved going on a date with this guy, talking to him and having sex with him; I hope to do it again whenever I’m back on the the West Coast. I’m happy that it happened, but I’m even happier that I’ve only looked at his Instagram once since our sexy encounter. That, my friends, is progress.

A 27-year-old friend of mine just lost her virginity.

She told me that before she lost it, when people found out she had still been a virgin at her age they were shocked and wanted to know why. Then when she explained her reasons and they realized her answers weren’t that provocative, their eyes glazed over and they lost interest pretty quickly. She was a late-in-life-virgin because she was a late bloomer to begin with, someone not ready or comfortable enough with herself to have sex until after college. Unfortunately by that time she felt so far left behind she couldn’t catch up. Until a few weeks ago, that is.

[jump]

Six months earlier, she’d met someone, and they clicked—the only problem was that he lives and works in Tokyo. They decided (without ever having done it mind you!) to be long distance with both of them taking turns visiting each other every three months. Finally when it was her turn to visit him (and right in time for the holidays) they had sex for the first time.

“It was a Christmas miracle!” She said to me after the fact, laughing over phone. Then her voice got more serious, “But, when, um… When does it start to feel good?” It was my turn to laugh. I told her I was still waiting.
Just kidding. Everyone knows I love sex. I love the whole thing: the flirting, the first kiss, the foreplay, the climax, the pillow-talk—really the whole kit and caboodle. If I didn’t love sex so much, I wouldn’t write about it every week. However, though I might not want to admit it, I understand exactly what my friend was asking.
She went on to say, “Remember when you told me about that guy you were seeing who couldn’t perform, and when he did, he couldn’t come, or he would come before you even got the condom on? And, you said to me, ‘All I want is to make him feel good?’ Like, you felt if you could just show him what a great night of sex was, then you could stop worrying about everything else in the relationship, right? Well, that’s the way I felt the whole time I was in Tokyo. I wanted him to feel like he wasn’t with a virgin who didn’t know anything. I wanted to make sure he was having the time of his life. But, now all I can think about is I don’t really know if I had a good time or not.”

She was right. Even though I feel like I’m a strong feminist who knows what I like and how to articulate that to the many partners I’ve had—there are times when I’ve forgotten that sex is a two way street, with both people needing to give and receive. The guy I dated, the one my friend was speaking of, caused me a lot of stress; he was so uncomfortable with his own body that I put all my efforts into trying and maintaining anything that would work for him. I spoke to a sex therapist, and I even bought expensive crotchless panties. But, I put my own needs on the back burner. The one time we did have full-on penetrative sex, I didn’t have an orgasm. That was one of the handful of times (in my whole life ) I didn’t come. I remembered getting off of him and rolling onto my back. At first I felt elated and relieved that we had finally accomplished having sex, but then I got this horrible sinking feeling when I realized I hadn’t enjoyed any of it.

The guy I lost my virginity to was the worst boyfriend ever. Let me clarify, he wasn’t a malicious person or anything, but only years later, after we broke up, did I figure out he must have been deeply troubled about sex. When we were together, he was the most uncommunicative person I’ve ever been with. I spent hours trying in vain to guess what he was thinking and what he liked. It wasn’t until the second person I had sex with that I realized sex could be something relatively easy. Also, the second guy was the first person to introduce me to anything kinky. It was still pretty mild stuff, but I was shocked and intrigued to learn that sex could be so totally different from person to person. I had been changing myself to fit into what I thought my first lover wanted, and then by the simple virtue of sleeping with another person I realized I didn’t have to morph into something I wasn’t. I could just look for the person that fit me best.

I guess I still have to remind myself of this, especially as it was only recently I wasn’t having orgasms with a man who was possibly impotent. Part of what I love most about sex is the giving, so its hard for me to see that I haven’t received anything on the other side. Its also hard for me to walk away from things that aren’t working, as I like to think “we can fix this—all we need to do is be open!” Maybe that’s the sex educator in me, or maybe its just the coward who doesn’t like to be alone. There’s a fine line between understanding that someone isn’t perfect and realizing the relationship is not worth pursuing.

Either way, I need to come to terms with something when its broken—or when it never worked in the first place. It doesn’t mean that one of us is irreparable; it’s just that as a pair we were never going to take over the world.

I have a neighbor who always talks in outdated metaphors and normally they annoy the hell out of me. However, when I told him about this particular dilemma he said, “Sex is like bridge: you have a good partner or you do it alone.” What more do I need to know?

It was 3am and I was sitting in the stall furthest from the door in a communal summer-camp bathroom. I was practicing a deep yogic breathing exercise and praying to God that this time I would be able to take a shit. I was twenty nine-years-old and it had been exactly twenty four-hours since I had last unloaded, and I had a deep knot of dread that I wouldn’t be able to poop for the rest of this “vacation.” I made a promise to myself then and there that if I ever got married, I would demand that the first thing on my registry be a colon cleanse.

[jump]

I was a bridesmaid in my best friend Margot’s wedding. For the ceremony and reception, Margot and her lovely fiancé, Andrew, had rented an entire summer camp in northern Michigan for three days.
It was a beautiful wedding. I was constipated for the whole thing.

I’m a very open person. Most of you know this as I’ve been pretty public about the gross parts of my own sex life. I’ve written about getting a tampon pulled out of me and I’ve already shared my anal-lingus story. I’ll even confess here and now that I have an ungodly amount of nipple hair. I have so much nipple hair, in fact, that sometimes I won’t groom them on purpose to keep me from hooking up with someone—the same way Bridget Jones wore granny panties in order to try and stop herself from taking her pants off. Of course, this never works, and there have been a couple of one night stands where I’ve rushed into the bathroom drunk and tried to rip out as many of those little suckers as I could, before going back into the bedroom and turning off the lights hoping the guy wouldn’t notice.

Despite how seemingly shameless I’ve been, I still have one embarrassingly neurotic habit that I’ve kept a secret for a long time: I can only poop in my own bathroom. This secret has kept me from staying over for breakfast at many a dude’s house. And when so many of my girlfriends complain that their man left the next morning in a hurry, I always think, “Well, he probably just had to go home and do a number two. Cut him some slack already!”

You see, I am literally anal retentive. But I don’t posses any of the qualities that a figuratively anal retentive person has. I’m not high strung or inflexible or worried about perfection. My old roommate was a figuratively anal person, and even kept an Excel spreadsheet of her grooming habits so she would know exactly when to freshen her roots and get her chin hairs threaded. I can barely figure out my TiVo.

Back in my stall in the woods, my exposed ass was getting eaten alive by the vicious Michigan mosquitos. I had moved positions from sitting to squatting on the toilet seat because I’d read somewhere this helped to dislodge things. It wasn’t working.  I closed my eyes and tried to do my visualization exercise.
Before going to the wedding, I’d asked my therapist for advice on how to handle this delicate situation. She got excruciatingly quiet for a few minutes, and then told me to envision a crowd of loved ones, standing all around me, clapping and cheering me on. She’d said, “Close your eyes, and think about an audience of people, everyone you care about giving you a standing ovation.”

That night in the stall, I closed my eyes like she’d told me and tried to bring up an image of a crowd of comforting people. But just like when someone tells you to visualize everyone naked in the audience and then all you can do is imagine the one girl you know who has a perfect body (the kind of body that looks exactly the same when she’s sitting down as when she’s standing up) all I could do was imagine Brad.
Brad was the bad boy groomsman who had ridden his motorcycle all the way from Alberta to Grand Rapids. He’d shown up to the wedding with a black eye and very tight pants—pants that were so tight they confirmed his legend as a ladies’ man. It had been pre-determined by the whole wedding party that we would get together. After all, I was the sassy sex columnist, and he was the dude with the big dick—we were a perfect match! Then when we finally met everything went perfectly, and we flirted up a storm with each other. I wanted him with every bone of my body. And yet the last thing on earth I would ever want would be for Brad to witness me squatting on a toilet seat at 3am, praying that everyone was asleep so I could fart in private. I didn’t even want him to know that I farted in the first place.

Twenty minutes of squatting on the toilet proved fruitless. I gave up and walked back to the cafeteria where I pulled out the kale that was going to be used for the salad the next day. “Good roughage,” I thought. I wished I had remembered my smooth move tea, but I hadn’t because I’m not figuratively anal retentive. In fact, I’m such a flake that all I had packed for this very outdoorsy wedding was a curling iron, a pair of high heels, a tooth brush, my bridesmaid’s dress and a pack of condoms. My heart sank thinking about those condoms, I could forget about having sex with Brad. I was in no condition to be doing the dirty—either dirty.

I like to do very bad things, and I like to do them with very bad boys.

Well, at least that’s one way to romanticize my latest bout of hedonistic behavior. By blaming it all on my inner “wild woman,” I know that I’m essentially letting myself off the hook, when in reality what I’ve done is really, really bad.

[jump]

I’ve been the “other woman”—twice in the past month. Sure, it was with the same guy, but still.

In the past, I’ve been the cheater who had the boyfriend, and I’ve also been the cheater who just aids the crime, i.e. the single girl looking to score. But as far as I know, I’ve never been cheated on. I did have one boyfriend who mysteriously disappeared into Dallas, and before he stopped returning my phone calls he talked endlessly about some chick who worked at Starbucks. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the two of them had been knocking boots behind my back.

I’ve never confessed to any ex that I cheated on him. Instead of feeling guilty about lying, I came to the conclusion that if I was fooling around with someone else then I shouldn’t be in my relationship. I knew the cheating meant it was over. And I didn’t think it was worth telling my ex about the other guy and hurting his feeling even more. Especially when, at the end of the day, I didn’t fall in love with this one-night stand. I was just acting out and trying—in the least healthy way—to get out of the bad romantic situation my ex and I had found ourselves in.

To this day, I still don’t feel guilty. I think cheating is only really bad when you do nothing about your flawed relationship, and you keep going and lying to your partner. I realized my indiscretion was a symptom of a bigger problem, and so I addressed that problem—we broke up.

I do remember, though, when I was taking the cab to my clandestine rendezvous, that my heart was beating hard against my chest and I chain-smoked the whole time. I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life.

Years later, I tried to have sex with this same guy again, but it was so awful we settled for spooning and sleep, deciding it was better to quit while we were ahead. Based on our one previous night together, I had been fantasizing about fucking this dude again for years. But it turned out that it was the circumstance of us being cheaters that made the sex exciting and electric, and when we didn’t have that taboo hanging over our heads, we found out there was no chemistry between us.

However, despite the fact that I seem pretty morally lenient on the topic of cheating, my indiscretions this month have left me with a lot of feelings. Namely, embarrassment, shame, anger, and even denial. I don’t really know how to sort it all out, and I’m not even the one with the partner.

The guy in question had been a friend of mine for years. I would see him every four or five months, normally in a large crowd of people and we would flirt endlessly with each other. Unfortunately, one of us always had a partner, and so it never went any further. That is until a few weeks ago when we were at a birthday party at a bar, and he leaned in and kissed me.

It was a kiss well worth the years of waiting.

Then he told me he had a girlfriend.

I said “Ok, let’s end it right here.” I paid my tab, got a cab, and spent the night alone.

Before that night, I had never really seen him outside of that specific friend group, but after we kissed, he was suddenly everywhere—on the street, in the supermarket, even at my movie theatre. Finally, I ran into him at a party, and as soon as we both saw each other, we knew we would be sleeping together that night. Eventually, he walked me home, told me a convoluted story about “taking space” from his girlfriend and then we had sex in my bedroom for about twenty minutes.

It was very fast and very goal-oriented. It was nothing like the kiss. As soon as we were done, he put his clothes back on and told me he had to leave. He had to go home to his girlfriend.

Naked, I walked him to the door and said, “You know, I would never let you treat me this way.” I was thinking of his girlfriend, and of the fact that he was going home to her smelling like another woman. But, then I shut the door behind him, and realized I had let him treat me that way. And that this is a situation I feel guilty for.

I didn’t feel guilty right away though. Initially, I thought, “This is not my problem. It sounds like something he’s got to figure out with his girlfriend.” But,we’ve we’ve had no contact with each other since, and I realized it was a bigger deal to me that I let myself believe in the first place.

Maybe “guilty” is the wrong word; what I mean is, I’ve always thought there were only two people in trouble in these situations—the people who are partnered. As an outsider, with no expectations, I could get off scott-free. I know now that the residual ickiness that comes over me when I think about walking him to the door means I’m accountable too. Maybe I’m not accountable to him, or to his girlfriend, but I am accountable to myself, and I wasn’t doing me any favors that night.

For years all I wanted was to sleep with this guy, and then as soon as we did, I respected both of us so much less. I keep thinking about what if I hadn’t been so persistent, and what if he hadn’t come upstairs? I wish he had been bigger and stronger than me, and said, “It’s gone too far already, and if I come up now I’m not being fair to you, to my girlfriend or to myself.”

But I know that’s asking a lot.

I’m more than curious about what’s happened between him and his lady. But I also don’t want to every see him again. I helped someone do a bad thing, and maybe this time it wasn’t worth it—even for the sake of the story.

You know what I love? I love a really awkward moviegoing experience. My first cringe-worthy occurrence was accidentally seeing The Piano Teacher with my father when I was sixteen. For those of you unfamiliar with it, I will say it is still the most graphic and disturbing movie I have ever seen—there is a scene with dirty Kleenexes and a porno booth—and that’s all I’m going to say. Well, one more thing, you should also be warned, there is genital mutilation. Just as the movie started, my dad turned to me and said, “You didn’t tell me this was gonna be in French.”

It was all downhill from there.

[jump]

When I was 23, I went to a 70s-era, 3D porno at the Sunshine with a bunch of my co-workers. We thought it was going to be a riot and even brought umbrellas to open during the money-shot, Rocky Horror-style. Then the movie started. Bizarrely, every single one of us collectively slouched down into our seats. We were all thinking, “Holy shit, I’m watching porn with Bob from HR. And he’s having way too good a time.”

You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson. But no. Not at all. And that’s why I thought it would be a good idea to go on a date to see Blue Is The Warmest Color.

The truth is, I’ve been holding out on you guys. I’ve actually been seeing someone for a couple of months now, and the movie was going to be our fifth or sixth date. I really like him. He’s a funny, smart, and charming film critic—who also seemed very kind. But each and every time we got to fooling around, he drew a blank in the bedroom. It wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t my fault either. I wish to God it had been someone’s fault, though, because then we could have fixed it and moved on. But alas, something just wasn’t clicking between us when we got between the sheets.

He told me he had watched a lot of porn as a teenager, but had weened himself off this habit as an adult. This could have been a vulnerable confession on his part, and maybe I should have been more sympathetic, but all I heard was “I don’t understand how to relate to real women, and so I have a hard time getting turned on by you.” I suggested that maybe we watch porn together, but he vehemently declined. He said he was too embarrassed.

Not one to be discouraged however, I decided that this “film buff” and I needed to see this new, super-erotic lesbian movie, complete with a 7-minute sex scene. If he didn’t have a boner after that, then God help him, because there was nothing left I could do.

I must have spent the past three weeks under a rock, because I promise you that going into this movie all I knew was that there was a very graphic 7-minute lesbian sex scene. I had heard nothing about the actresses’, Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, outrage over their working conditions. I didn’t know that they felt exploited and would not ever again work with the director, Abdellatif Kechiche. I’d heard nothing about the graphic novelist, Julie Maroh, (whose work the movie is based on) stating that what the film had needed was “real” lesbians on set. And finally, I had heard nothing about how the whole state of Iowa won’t even show the movie. I was just ready to sit next to my man in a dark theatre watching the only type of “blue” flick he wasn’t too embarrassed to see with me.

And here’s the thing, I loved the sex scenes in the movie. Having slept with women as well as men, I felt they were an honest depiction of sex—not even specifically lesbian sex, but of the kind of sex you have with the first person you fall in love with. The first sex is the kind that eats away at you long after you’re done eating out the other person. It’s the kind of sex where you’re glad you can still smell your partner on you when you go home.

Let’s just say I got the sex scenes and didn’t have a problem with them.

However, I did have a problem with a very minor character named Joachim. Joachim is a predatory gallery owner who tries to seduce everyone in his path. In one scene at a garden party, he waxes on and on about the mystical female orgasm, and how it’s the life force for the whole world. All the lesbians around him laugh and nod in approval. I think this was the biggest clue into the director’s predatory male gaze. And, in fact, the lead actress Adele, was quoted as saying in the New Yorker, “Kechiche is ‘obsessed,’ with women … observing them, solving their ‘mystery.’”

Gag me.

However, after the movie, I discovered my seduction plan had worked: my date was fired up, ready to go home and hit the hay. We started to fool around, but then he paused and told me he would “really like it if I could have a full body orgasm. You know like those girls did in the movie.”

Taken aback, I said, “I can have an orgasm… if that’s what you’re asking?”

He then went on to share with me that the one woman who truly knocked his socks off was a dancer from Vegas who had “full body orgasms.” I couldn’t help myself and asked, “Were you dating Elizabeth Berkely?”
Really, though, I wanted to find out more about what he thought a female orgasm was like. He said, “You know, like in the movie tonight, it’s mystical.” I let out possibly the biggest sigh of my life, possibly bigger than any orgasm moan I’ve ever made, and I fell back against my pillow.

For so many years we’ve had to convince the whole world that women could even have orgasms, and now men want to turn it into something so big it seems unachievable and even inhuman. I’ve had wonderful, crazy, rollicking orgasms, and I’ve had itty bitty, little quakes, and sometimes I haven’t even had any, but I almost always have a good time no matter what. However, asking me to perform some kind of orgasm myth for you is really going to take all the joy out of our hook up for me. The point I’m trying to make is, each and every person’s orgasm is like a little snowflake—unique and special; so please don’t compare my climax face to another woman’s. And, for God’s sake, don’t expect that when I come it’s gonna be like the second coming and I’ll unleash the life force that created the world.

I can barely work my coffee maker.

Follow Lacy Warner on twitter @laceoface

After seven years in New York, I finally had a romantic dalliance with a bartender. I know, I know…how could I have made it through almost all of my twenties without having mixed it up with the most ubiquitous of romantic animals in this urban jungle? The answer? I don’t know! Most of the time I’m in bars I guess I’m there with a date, or wind up meeting one of my fellow patrons. No matter the reason, I’ve never done a bartender—that is until last Sunday night. Except, ok. You caught me. We didn’t even have sex! So now you’re wondering, well, then, what did we do? Well, hang on to your hats…

[jump]

So this bartender—let’s call him Artie—has actually been flirting with me for three years. Everyday when I walked home from work and passed his bar, he would come and put out the sandwich board and we’d wave to each other. I know what you’re thinking—a wave? That’s nothing! But this was more than a flick of the wrist! This was a-hold-your-breath-raise-your-eyebrow-half-smile-wave. And that shit’s for real. Also, we all have those people who flirt with us in our favorite bar, or coffee shop, or Trader Joe’s—it’s good customer service and it’s nice to get a free drink every now and then. And so for the past three years Artie and I kept up a low-grade flirtation. It didn’t stop me from bringing other dates into his bar, which didn’t stop him from buying me a whiskey once when we ran into each other at a dive in Brooklyn Heights—when I was on a date! Regardless, we never went past free martinis into free blow jobs territory.

Recently however, I went into his bar with an old friend from England, and Artie upped the stakes on our eye-making game: he touched my arm and gave it a squeeze. Again, I know what you’re thinking—so what? But, when you’ve been doing harmless flirting with someone, and then they make physical contact—even if it’s a slight gesture—it changes the nature and re-draws the line in the sand.

So I decided that night that I was going to go back to the bar the next week with all my fabulous friends in tow, and I was going to make out with Artie. He had touched my arm after all!

My two best ladies and I showed up on a Sunday night when I knew it would be dead quiet. We were decked out in wine-colored lipstick, low-cut tops, fuzzy sweaters and Chanel #5. We looked dead sexy. Artie gave us a million fancy drinks, and I flirted up a storm with him—again. He asked to see pictures of my Halloween costume once I told him that I went as a Freudian Slip, because he said, “I’ve lived my whole life to see you in lingerie.” So imagine my surprise when on our third Manhattan my friend Mary asked Artie if he was single and he said, “No.”

There’s two choices a lady can make in this situation. The dignified thing would have been to say, “Thank you for the drinks,” left a nice tip and gotten the hell out of Dodge. But any amount of dignity I had, had been downed with my last maraschino cherry, and by that point I was livid. I know it sounds bad, but I kept thinking, “If you’re not available then why the hell did you keep up the sexy chat with me?”

So somewhere between being drunk and not liking to lose I decided I didn’t care if he had a girlfriend—we didn’t have to tell her. I gave him my number and told him that when he closed the bar he should come over to my house so we could get naked together.

Ten minutes later, once I was back at home, I realized I had become my own worst nightmare: a girl hanging out in yoga pants waiting for the local bartender to give her a booty call.

Then he texted me. He couldn’t come over. He was too tired. But if I wanted to send nudie pics? He’d be ok with that. I told him IRL or nothing. He wrote back, “regardless, I’ll cum thinking about you before I go to sleep. my cock is so hard right now.”

All I could think was: LAME.

I woke up the next morning half-wishing I took the sexting a little further, if for no other reason than that it’s great masturbation material. But also I felt gross. I couldn’t help thinking that sexting is the new kind of porn. I don’t think this guy ever intended to come over to my house, but I do think its reasonable to assume he thought he could get his rocks off without cheating on his girlfriend. And the way to do it? Sexting.

Let me put it this way: I would be mad as hell to find sexts to a stranger on my boyfriend’s phone, but I wouldn’t think twice if his browser history had some porn on it. But really, what’s the difference? Sure, sure, the thing about sexts is that it’s a dialogue between two people, so there is an intimacy established that could feel threatening in a monogamous relationship. But at the same time, what bothered me so much about being sexted is that there was no accountability on Artie’s end. He didn’t really care about my orgasm, or how I felt, or what I liked. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes! So really how intimate is a sext exchange? Do we really live in a world where—because of its virtual nature—even cheating has no consequences?

I know it’s perverse to feel this way, but I’m not saddened that this guy sort of cheated on his girlfriend, or that this type of flirting might be his MO as a bartender. What saddens me is how his sexting strategy was so removed in its nature. I guess what I’m saying is, I’d rather be the other woman in the flesh, than a cyber cheater who only exists in x’s and o’s.

Follow Lacy Warner on twitter @laceoface

My best friend just flew into town for a week-long layover on her way home from her own version of an Eat Pray Love-trip around the world. We’ve been calling her international adventure the, “Oh-shit-I’m-almost-thirty-travelogue-for-late-bloomers-in-the-midst-of-an-identity-crisis.” I mean that with no judgements! I’m about to pack it all in to search for some much needed clarity in Marfa, Texas. That trip isn’t for another couple of months though, and before I can get there and suround myself with turquoise, group meditations, and Marfa’s mysterious “ghost lights,” I had a serious romantic problem to talk about—one that only a recently zenned-Out world traveler could help me with.

[jump]

We were walking our other’s friend’s dog down Henry Street from her house in Brooklyn Heights to mine in Carroll Gardens. But before we even got to Henry Public for a mid-walk drink, I told her my dilemma and she had started doling out advice.

We sat down to martinis with the puggle snuggled between us and she said, “You know once I was sleeping with this great guy and we were laying on his bed. He had the most beautiful handmade quilt. I thought it was some kind of heirloom or something. I complimented him on it and he told me that his recent ex—the woman who broke his heart and drove him to his alcoholic bottom—had sewn it for him. I realized then that I would never give a man bedding as a present cause sooner or later they’ll just fuck another lady on top of it.”

All I could think was: “Whoa. You said it, sister.”

I asked her how long she thought I should be holding onto the objects of my exes. I mean, it’s not like I’m wearing my old engagement ring around my neck or anything. (For the record, I gave that back, because its the only decent thing to do.) No, my hoarding is more along the lines the time when I recently picked my laundry up and found an old pair of boxers at the bottom of the bag. I had totally forgotten about those boxers, and now I think fondly of the owner—there’s no hard feelings between us. So I just instinctively put them on. They’re my size and make for the perfect sleeping shorts. Is that so wrong?

I think maybe it is, because several nights later I woke up in the middle of the night, panicked. I was sweating and wearing an old lover’s underwear. Is this why I wasn’t getting laid?

Even worse, underneath my bed is a box of memorabilia from the “big” relationship. He’s English and when we dated we kept everything because we thought we might need it to show to the kind folks at immigration when we applied for his green-card. This box doesn’t just contain all the internationally stamped loved letters written from that three-year period, but even more mundane things like champagne corks from anniversaries, match books from our favorite restaurants, the proverbial camera booth photos, and most perverse—a prescription for plan B.

I asked him once if he kept any of this sort of stuff, and he told me a firm “no.” He had gotten rid of it all a few months after we broke up. Is it any wonder then that he’s now in a successful relationship? Are all these mementos holding me back?

The thing is I just can’t get rid of them. I don’t read those love letters—too painful and too much like reading my diary from age 13—but I like that they’re there under my bed, and that they’re evidence of a life well lived, of risks taken, love had and hearts broken.

Back at the bar, my old friend finished our pseudo-therapy session by saying, “You know in India, I bought my new man a belt. It’s a beautiful leather belt and I know he’ll have it forever. But I almost stopped myself from buying it. I thought about how someday another woman would be unbuckling this belt…the belt I bought for him. But then I thought, fuck it. So what?!”

The great thing about getting older is recognizing that everybody’s got baggage—emotional for sure, but also just actual baggage—full of the “stuff” we’ve all accumulated along the way.

Follow Lacy Warner on twitter @laceoface

The other night I was at a birthday party in Williamsburg. It was a great party. The DJ was amazing, playing all the right 90s dance jams. The alcohol flowed freely, and everyone was good looking with cool jobs. It was one of those perfect Brooklyn nights when you remember why you moved to this city in the first place. Before going into the party I went to a bodega to stock up on cheap beer and cigarettes. Standing in line was a cute hipster boy in the proverbial black horn-rimmed frames. He gave me the once over and a smile. I thought, “Yeah, New York. I got this.”

[jump]

Ten minutes after entering the party, horn-rimmed glasses dude showed up with two more friends in tow. He came over to me and said, “I had a feeling you’d be here.”

We got to talking and the conversation led to the inevitable question: “What do you do?” He had just started his own magazine, and I told him I wrote a weekly column for The L. He did not ask me what kind of column, and I gave him no further information. I had decided before going to the party that I wouldn’t lead with my sexy foot. This was an experiment to see if I could maneuver my way through social situations without relying on how “exciting” my sexy job is. I am more than a sex columnist god dammit! If I wanted, I could be a funny and cool paralegal. Right?

We went out to the roof for a cigarette and finally—after what seemed like hours of flirting, but was probably just like 45 minutes—we started making out.

It was terrible.

Normally, I would say there is no such thing as a good or bad kisser, rather that kissing, like sex, is about compatibility and communication. It’s all about finding the right person who digs your own unique style.

However, this guy was lapping at my face like he was a dog and I was a left-over pork chop that fell off the kitchen table. I tried to do my usual tactic of saying, “Let me kiss you,” and then showing him how I liked to be kissed through demonstration, but unfortunately he didn’t let me take the lead. In spite of my best efforts he kept up his 13-year-old boy technique of shoving his tongue in my mouth. He’d take it out, shove it in, take it out, shove it in, over and over again. Then he grabbed my ass and started to tongue-bathe my neck. He came up for air just long enough to say, “Let’s get out of here.”

I was not going anywhere with this guy.

Instead, I decided this was the time to let him know exactly what kind of column I write. My thinking was that if he found out I’m the author of a personal sex column he was gonna re-think wanting to take me home. This has been the case in the past.

I said, “So you never asked me what kind of stuff I write.”

“I didn’t. Sorry about that. Let me guess, 800 words on hair dryers?”

Yep, definitely not going home with this guy. Who did he think he was?

“No. I write about my sex life. Every week.”

He pulled back and studied my face.

“Bingo,” I thought.

“That’s awesome. Are you going to write about me then?”

My plan had back-fired.

This is the thing about writing a sex column—there are very few men who understand it. Most of the guys I encounter fall into two categories: those that are intimidated by the column and all the sex involved, and then those that are narcissistic enough to think they deserve a spot dedicated to their love-making skills. I had hoped this guy fell into category number 1, but I’d misjudged him and he was really the latter.

Let me take a step back and re-define my category making here, because it’s a little more nuanced, and there’s a sub-category. There are also the guys I’ve slept with who’ve never read the column. Once, I was at a bar and a guy I had written about walked in with a group of friends. We hadn’t seen each other in months, and we certainly hadn’t seen each other since his story came out. I hadn’t portrayed him in the best light, and I thought I should leave before he saw me. But, I was there to meet a friend and she hadn’t shown up yet. So instead I chose the most reclusive part of the bar to sit down and tried to act invisible. No dice. He spotted me right away and came over. I braced myself for an ugly confrontation. Then, he gave me a hug! I worried his embrace was some kind of trick.

“Lacy! I haven’t see you in ages! How are you? Can I buy you a drink?”

Turns out he hadn’t read the story. In fact, he hadn’t read anything I’ve ever written.

On the one hand, I was grateful. On the other, I thought, “If you wanna sleep with me again—or even in the first place—you gotta invest a little in not only what I do for a living, but also how I identify myself in the world. I would go to see your stupid art show or band, so you gotta read my writing.”

Herein lies the paradox about sex writing. And, believe me, I know it’s not fair. I want men to like me for who I am, and not because my life revolves around sex. But who I am is a person who’s life revolves around writing and thinking about sex.

Let me put it this way: the easiest way to get into my pants is to compliment me on writing. The guys who have said to me, “I thought that one line was so funny,” or “You’re a great storyteller, and it’s refreshing to hear a woman’s perspective with such a strong voice,” are the guys who I’ve bed the fastest.

To be honest though, no one has ever said those lines to me. I thought I would put it in here incase anyone reading was curious about what I really like.

Back at the party, I gently pushed the tongue-shover away from me.

I said, “I don’t think it would be fair to you to take me home, until you’ve read a few of the stories I written. I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression. Why don’t we do this, you go home read the column, maybe jerk off a bit, and if you’re still down, then I’m down.”

He pouted for a few minutes but said ok.

I never heard from him again. If he hated the column—or just never read—it I’ll never know. Either way, I think it was for the best.

Maybe being a sex columnist isn’t so bad for my dating life after all. Maybe the column is the best litmus test I’ve ever had for weeding out the bullets well dodged.

Follow Lacy Warner on twitter @laceoface

The other day I had a terrible audition. Though in no way would I still call myself an actress, sometimes a role will come along and I just can’t say no to standing in line with 200 other girls who thought they could also be the next Audrey Tatou. Auditioning like this is a terrible habit, like biting your nails or smoking. In fact, auditioning has become its own form of cutting—something I do when I feel terrible about myself to make myself feel even worse.

[jump]

This particular audition had me sitting at a table pretending I was in a coffee shop and that I had OCD.

“Except you don’t want anyone to know you have OCD,” the director lecherously whispered in my ear.

“And…action!”

I didn’t know what he wanted, so I half-heartedly pretended to move around imaginary silverware on the table. After three hours of waiting, the audition was over in two minutes.

Luckily, my best friend Jason was at my apartment waiting for me, and he listened to me cry about how my acting career was going down the tubes and why did I still do this to myself and who was I kidding and blah blah blah. I had tear soaked mascara dripping down my face when I finally turned to him and said, “And now I have to go out with some fucking loser from Staten Island.”

“Why do you have to go out with him? And why is he a loser?” Jason asked.

I hate people who need specifics.

“I have to go out with him because I need to get over the last guy. And because I need a boyfriend. And because I don’t know for sure that he’s a loser. But I’m pretty sure he’s not that great.”

It’s possible that I hate specifics because they’re usually bad news.

“Oh, I get it,” Jason said. “You’re going out with him so that you can start this vicious cycle all over again. Lacy, we both know how this works. You go out with him. You don’t like him that much. He loves you. Then you start to obsess and for the next two months everything in your life—all your thoughts, conversations, dreams even—are about him. Sounds like this date is a really great move forward.”

“Shut up.”

“Well,” Jason said. “I don’t think this is a great idea, but I do have something to take the edge off.”

Then he handed me a Valium.

This is the great thing about having friends who are as lost as me, and also in a lot of therapy. We can see our problems very clearly, but there are still some solutions that are more fun than self-reflection. Valium is one of those solutions.

I had never before taken a Valium, but my crazy aunt Rosha swallows them like Tic Tacs during our family reunions and she always seems fine. So, I thought, no big deal, right? Luckily, Staten Island dude and I were meeting close to my house.

Half an hour later, I was on my way to the bar with a lovely sort of loose feeling, thinking about how easy it was to walk in my very, very high heels.

I got there and noticed right away that my date had an extreme overbite.

It was so extreme, it caused him to lisp. Cool. Now, I have a big place in my heart for speech impediments, but this was really making the conversation difficult. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I couldn’t just keep asking “What?” after each sentence. Eventually I just started nodding politely and thinking about other things. This was easy because I was higher than a kite.

I guess I forgot to mention that Aunt Rosha is 6 feet tall and 250 pounds.

Eventually, this dude opened up to me. He started to talk about foreign film with the extreme fanaticism of a recovering addict or a born again-Christian, or even a Canadian hockey fan. I wasn’t judging, because I’ve gone through my own foreign film phase. There was a moment in time when I bored people to tears with my philosophical breakdowns of Denys Arcand films.

“Who?” you ask.

“Exactly,” I say.

But I have never heard anyone talk so passionately about movies, all the while barely moving his lips. This guy LOVED Fassbender, Sirk and Rohmer. It hit me that this dude watched like six movies a day and that this date was probably the first time he’d left his living room in a week.

Just as his cinema monologue was really taking off, my inner monologue started singing me a lullaby that made my lids feel heavier and heavier.

The Valium mixed with my gin and tonic had relaxed me to the point where I didn’t care about the audition, my career, the person in front of me or the rest of the crowded bar. He excused himself to go to the bathroom, and I shut my eyes, just to rest them. The next thing I knew I was sunbathing by a technicolor lake as an older man massaged my knee. It turned out that the knee massage was Mr. Overbite pushing me awake.

Luckily, he was a totally decent guy and he walked me back to my house to make sure I didn’t wake up in a trash can the next morning.

I was sound asleep by the cool hour of 8:30, and it was the best 12 hours I’ve had in a long time.

The next morning I woke up fully rested. But more importantly I woke up glad to be alone. Yes, for the first time in my life I was happy that no one had spent the night.

It wasn’t just the Valium that put me to me sleep. I’m exhausted by the whole dating, sex, dating-sex, breakup, breakup-sex, single all over again, cycle. Don’t get me wrong, I still love sex, and I still want a partner, but Christ this is a lot of work.

Every time I mention to someone I write a sex column, they always ask me if I have a lot of sex. The truth is that yes, I have had sex, but I don’t know what “a lot” means, and I also don’t subscribe to that way of thinking. And besides all the “exciting sex” I’ve had, I’ve also had dry spells. I’ve gone a whole year without sleeping with or dating anyone. It was the most productive year I’ve had since I lost my virginity.

I’m not proposing celibacy in anyway—that would be boring to say the least. But at this moment I’m a little worn out from running the rat race that is my own romantic life. I kinda think it would be nice to be single and “not looking.”

And, when you’re not looking isn’t that when IT falls into your lap? Fingers crossed, right?

Follow Lacy Warner on twitter @laceoface