Tenth Blogoversary

Ten years ago today, I posted my first story to this blog.

My blog began with long emails I wrote to my friend and drinking buddy Audacia Ray, processing my experiences with sex and dating after fifteen years of monogamous marriage. My marriage with my ex-wife Lucy had been characterized primarily by abstention; for half of our twenties and all of our thirties, neither of us had much of a sex life.

Suddenly, at age thirty nine, I found myself awaking like Rip Van Winkle to a transformed world. In my years as a devoted husband, I had moved to New York, the Internet had been invented and I written a book on sexual social history. I was prepared to launch my new sex life, though certainly surprised by the surreality of it all. For years, I had felt constrained and undesired. Now, I returned to the desires of my once-slutty youth, jump-starting my long-dormant bisexuality and group sex activities, emerging into my new discoveries of kink and BDSM.

When I began One Life, Take Two, I had no real conception of blogging—still a new phenomenon—conceiving of blogs as a sort of safe deposit box to preserve one’s writing online. Sure, it would be public, I knew, but no one could really find it.

I had assumed erroneously. My blog quickly became popular, drawing media attention and, to my greater surprise, offers of dates from people who enjoyed my writing. I’d had sex with people who though I was attractive, or smart, or funny, but to have offers from people who had never met or seen me, based solely on my writing, was astonishing. Soon, I was part of a network of fellow sex bloggers, many inspired by my own blog, creating community, education and, with great joy, the uncovering of the workings of my own heart. I fell in love.

In time, as the stories below relate, my blog was discovered by my ex wife, who immediately sued for full custody of our children, using this blog as the sole basis of her motion. I took down the blog and abandoned my online persona. Two envious bloggers, including an embittered former partner, used my absence to run a smear campaign against me. Finally, over a year after it began, the custody case ended with no changes to joint custody. I returned to blogging and documented the bizarre episode as Feverish, Sad Drama.

Still, my blogging remained intermittent. During the course of the custody case, my ex wife had outed me to my family, including our children and my parents. The smear campaign had further demonstrated the hazards of a public sex life; among other actions, the attackers had also outed me with absolute impunity. By the end of that period, in mid-two thousand nine, I was deeply involved in a relationship I had little interest in exposing to such scrutiny. I enjoyed the privacy and security afforded by a relatively private life.

Outing someone is a truly shitty thing to do. However, being out is exhilarating. My ex wife and the two smear campaigners clearly sought to do harm. In the end, they did me a favor: I was no longer constrained by the need to avoid public exposure. If I chose, I could appear in photographs, video, audio and on stage. 

This freedom led me to storytelling. After time on the stages of the Moth and elsewhere, three years ago I began to curate and host Bare! True Stories ofSex, Desire and Romance, based in New York and frequently appearing in other cities. My years of blogging proved a good training ground for encouraging others to tell their own stories and now, much of my time is spent traveling the East Coast, telling and listening. 

I've been fortunate for the wonderful correspondences, friendships and loves to enter my life since I first hit "publish" on this blog.

Every year on my blogoversary, I reprint the tale that began this journey: a remarkable weekend-long first date (if you don’t count the orgy at which we met). If you enjoy, read back to find other stories.

If you miss me here, find me at my accounts on Facebook, FetLife, OKCupid and Twitter. Follow Bare!, come out to shows to say hello.

For now, meet My Celia. Enjoy!

Photograph by Adrian Buckmaster. New York, July 5, 2014.

My Celia

It’s been over a year since the break up.

For most of that year, I have hosted sex parties in Manhattan. I suppose I will need to catch you up on how that transpired. I’ve made great friends and lovers at these parties, and yet I haven’t often had the feeling of falling head over heels for someone.

Until my Celia.

I met Celia at a party at my place last spring. She arrived late with a guy who comes sometimes. The regulars were already naked, well fucked and relaxed.

Celia sat on a bed and chatted with us. She was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, worn backwards so that the logo was illegible. As we talked, Jane removed Celia’s clothes, and had soon stripped her naked. Jane kissed her torso as Celia leaned back, opening her thighs; we heard her gasp as Jane’s mouth reached her clit.

Being gracious like she is, Jane soon turned and offered me Celia’s body. I set to licking Jane's drool from Celia's labia.

As we fucked, as we did almost immediately, I decided not to stop fucking her. This is not the best form at a sex party, particularly for the host; one really should offer new guests an opportunity to work the room.

I doubt that Celia cared much for etiquette. She had gorgeous hazel-green eyes, focused intently on mine. I kept her gaze, noticing details at the periphery. Celia had a lovely face: aquiline nose, pre-Raphaelite features, framed in long black hair.

I was soon very curious to know more about the woman I was fucking, and so thought maybe we could take a break to chat.

"I would really like to talk with you," I said, meaning "Maybe we can stop and talk."

"Sure . . . what do you want to talk about?" she replied, as if I meant we should have a conversation while fucking. I was willing.

"So, where did you grow up?," I asked. I learned that she grew up in New England, she is an art student, and she would be working on a farm all summer. Within those first few moments, I gleaned that we had art in common, the sex was great, and I wouldn't be able to see her again for months.

I finally let her have sex with some of the others. Later we kissed, as intently as we had gazed. As she left, she stood in the door, giving me long, hungry kisses, as her date waited for her.

As it happened, she had an art show up, and as it happened, I was in the neighborhood the very next day. I was glad to see her art was good.

The summer passed.

Two weeks ago, I got an email from her, saying she was back in town and wanted to return to the sex parties. Cool!

I suggested we get together, and proposed we go check out the new Museum of Modern Art on opening day, as I had special tickets. It turned out she did too.

Later, we learned that the opening day was free to the public. So much for special access.

We decided to meet at an exhibition by Barbara Nitke at Art@Large gallery, get lunch, and see the museum--which we knew would be hellishly crowded. Nitke’s photos have to do with sadomasochism (SM). While not into SM herself, Nitke has an empathic insight into the lives of those who are. There is a strong sense of intimacy and care in her photographs.

Celia was late for our date, which was fine with me. We saw Nitke's work together. Celia says she knew many of the images, having seen Nitke lecture at the Eulenspeigel Society, a New York based organization for those into SM.

(I catalogued those details—Celia already knew Nitke and the Eulenspeigel Society?)

We lunched, and talked about out first encounter. It was her first sex party, she said, and her moment with Jane was her first encounter with a woman. She liked it, but she was taking downers at the time, which she regretted.

I referred to this as a pretty unusual second date. She agreed: first sex, then a lunch date. We were doing it backwards. She says she is surprised that she feels so shy.

She talked about her gaggle of girlfriends, and how she makes nude films of them, but can't imagine sex with them--though she really wants to be bisexual, as it's hip (it is?) and of course, there are more options for sex if you are bi.

She opines that the MoMA is going to be crazy crowded, and maybe we shouldn't go. This leaves her with two hours to kill before her yoga class . . . what can we do? Well, I suggest, we can go to my place and kiss. She looks at me like she can't believe I suggested this. I can't believe it myself—I am really getting bold.

"Okay," she says, "but I really am feeling shy about this. Is it too early to drink? Do you have any bourbon?"

"A girl after my own heart." I actually said that out loud.

Soon, we are at my place, on my couch, sipping bourbon. Soon, we are kissing. Fully clothed. For a long, sweet time.

Soon we are nude, in my bed, kissing. Touching. For a long, sweet time. She is so into gazing, touching, kissing, and I am melting, melting, melting. As the time passes, and her yoga class approaches, I think it will be wise not to start fucking. But I do go down on her. And she cums. And she cums again as I kiss her and hold her very close.

I should mention that she does intense yoga five times a week. And she is a semi-pro athlete. She has a strong, lean body. When she held me firmly, she knocked the breath out of me. Mind you, I was pretty breathless.

I tell her to go, it's time. She declines to leave. We fuck. Like all the foreplay, it's slow, and intense. At one point, I'm on top of her, holding myself up with my arms at full length. She is about to cum. She sits up, putting her arms around my shoulders. She lifts her ass from the bed. She is clinging to me, hanging from my body in air, pushing herself down on me. She cums. I can scarcely believe she made my body work that way.

We are back to kissing, touching . . . she discovered my sensitive nipples, and slowly tortured them. Exquisitely.

I am laying on top of her, tracing a finger along her nose, her lips, her cheeks. I take a breath. "You are really beautiful," I say. "You don't have to be. I would be nice to you anyway. But it helps that you are."

She looks down at me. "Are you bi?" she asks. I say I am. "I do well with the bi guys," she says. Why is that, you think? "Must be my physique," she says, flexing a bicep that would give pause to Charles Atlas.

She said she was hungry. I went to the kitchen and produced Spanish rice, steamed shrimp, and fresh calamari sauteed in garlic. We eat nude.

As we eat, we talk about the Nitke photos. She mentions liking one in which a man is fully bound to a flotation board, adrift in a pool. I say that there was such a sense of risk in that position. She says she likes the feeling of being bound.

I recall how she came when I was holding her, on top of her, as she pulled me closer to crush her.

"I can bind you," I offer. She produces rope and ankle bracelets from her bag, saying they were intended for a possible film shoot later that night. I dig up handcuffs and other stuff. She is soon strapped to my bed on all fours.

I torture her nipples. I tell her I am going to verbally abuse her. "Yes," she murmurs. I ask her why, with all that we've been doing, she has not sucked my cock? "Are you bad at it or something?" I ask. She opens her mouth, wide. I feed her my cock, and fuck her face hard. She can take it very well, so I commend her. Then I slap her for making me wait for that.

We had already established that she is an ass virgin, and so I take her to task for this. How can I let her fuck my friends if she can't even do anal? So I move around and give her a hard spanking. I lick her hole, and blow air in her. She moans. She can't help but fart. I spank her for this, and do it again. "This will burn, but only for a second," I warn. I take a sip of bourbon, and blow it up her ass. I plug it with my thumb, and then a butt plug.

I fuck her pussy.

"Can you take candle wax?," I ask. Never tried it, she mumbles. I drip wax on her back and ass for a very long time. She squirms until I tell her to be still. (Later she asked: was I making too much noise? I can try to be less responsive. Oh no, I say. You did very well.)

In time, I release her and take her to the shower. I wash her body, and flake off the wax. We go back to bed and it's tender again. She falls asleep. I read.

We woke up entangled, touching . . . her fingers are never still when they can be caressing. We spend the morning in bed. There was a joy in this, so palpable, for me at least, that I had to take care lest blurting out, "I am so in love with you."

I had to remind myself, I really don’t know Celia so well. Not yet.

I make her breakfast—bacon, eggs, and her first helping of grits. We were both very sated. We talk about how she just broke up with her boyfriend, and she had broken with her other two lovers in the last month. I say I am hers, when she wants me. Her eyes fix on mine. “That’s right,” she smiles.

My friend Todd calls. He reminds me that we are going to fuck this woman from Texas that night. I had offered to host, and said I would line up some others to join us. I had invited Thomas, that was easy, but I was so busy with Celia all weekend, I didn’t do much more.

I asked Celia if she wanted to do a group thing that night. She pondered it but declined. She was already well sexed. So was I, really.

Around two or three, I kissed goodbye to my Celia. I had a gang bang in a few hours. I would spend that time in the thrall of my Celia, picking up flecks of candle wax, and writing to my friend Dacia about her.

Independence

I moved out on Independence Day.

Eight years ago today, I left the suburban home my wife and I had purchased three years earlier. She had not spoken to me since April, when I departed for a business trip she strenuously opposed. I had been offered an opportunity to write two related stories—one for a magazine to which I frequently contributed, the second for The New York Times—requiring a stay in Dubai.

I regarded these assignments as steps forward in my career. She regarded my consideration of them as idiocy. The invasion of Iraq was then underway, she argued; it was a dangerous time for Americans to travel anywhere in the world, much less to the Persian Gulf. I argued that I wouldn’t be remotely in harm’s way. She countered that I would be a “big dumb blond walking target” for “them,” all of whom “hate us.” If I went on the trip, she threatened, we were “finished.”

I had heard that threat before. By and large, I ceded to her preferences on day-to-day matters. I had learned that it was simpler to give way than to argue over the picayune. Yet now and then, I had strong opinions on matters, particularly those affecting my career. When I was accepted to graduate school, which she felt we could not afford, I was told that we were “finished.” When I took a job that paid more and demanded more time, she asserted we were “finished.” We had been “finished” so many times already, I felt I could write these articles and deal with the fallout later.

The trip was uneventful. The articles went over well and I was assigned more. My wife stopped speaking to me. She refused to acknowledge my presence. She constantly muttered to herself about the “asshole” she had married, never minding the listening ears of our three children. Her rage had surpassed concerns for putting forward any fronts. She fucking hated that “asshole” and made sure everyone knew it.

Her father came forward with a solution that he hoped would placate Lucy’s rage. He owned an apartment in the city that had gone unused since Lucy and I lived there with the children some years earlier. He urged me to move there, at least temporarily, until Lucy’s anger blew over. If Lucy has a problem with me, I said, perhaps she should move there. I saw no reason to leave my home. “She’ll never do that,” he said. “It’s up to you to create some peace in that house. Give her some time to get over this; she can’t be angry forever.”

When the school year ended, Lucy took the children on a trip. It was agreed that I would pack up some things and move to the apartment. I packed my car with the clothes I would need for work, a box of files and the iMac I used to write my articles, and drove off. I saw no reason to take more; Lucy’s rage would burn itself out, as it invariably did.

In the weeks leading up to my departure, as Lucy fumed, I confided in very few friends that I feared my marriage was ending. Dacia expressed sympathy, yet wondered if it might be for the best. Despite my efforts to keep my family intact, I was, she knew, exhausted by arguments and bitter silences. My long-time friend Marcus, himself recently divorced, encouraged me to look at the positive aspects of creating a new life. He still had conflicts with his ex-wife, he acknowledged, particularly over their children, but he was personally happier than he had been in years. “And then there’s the sex,” Marcus added. “Let me ask you a personal question: are you satisfied with your sex life with Lucy?”

“There’s no such animal.” It felt sad to acknowledge this out loud, as if confessing my shame at our utter lack of intimacy. “We’ve been through therapy and all, but she’s just not that interested in sex.”

“Are you?”

“From what I recall of it, yes.”

“Lucy’s giving you a gift,” Marcus said. “If she’s insisting on a separation, if she’s asking for divorce, she’s giving you freedom. Use it. Go get laid. See what freedom tastes like.”

I unpacked my car at the apartment I had once shared with my young family. I hung my shirts in a closet and set the rest of my clothes in half an empty drawer. My work files rested on a stack of boxes storing the remains of my father-in-law’s former office. I reset the clock radio next to the bed in which Lucy and I had conceived each of our three children. Dust covered its dark duvet.

I poured a bourbon and sat on the couch. Dusk settled. Two bourbons later, I picked up the iMac and put it on the dining table. I plugged the cord into an outlet, detached a nearby phone and ran the line to the computer. Before long, the modem’s familiar whines and belches echoed in the near empty room. I had mail. Ignoring that, I followed Marcus’s road map to chat rooms. ("It takes time to meet women," he had told me, "but hooking up with guys is easy.") It took a drink or two and several failed attempts, but I finally got into a chat entitled “M4MNYC.” Instant messages littered my screen with nonsensical terms:

sup

Pics?

Loc?

a/s/l?

Stats? Into?

I watched messages pile up in the main chat. I finally typed in one of my own.

My marriage ended today. I was exiled to an empty apartment. How does this begin?

An answer swiftly came. Wow, that’s hard. I’m sorry to hear about that.

Me too, I thought. Me too. What’s your name? I’m Jefferson.

Jim. Nice to meet you. Do you want company?

I twirled my glass and took a sip. Yes, please. Thirty minutes later, he was at my door. Jim was handsome, resembling Matthew Broderick. I offered him a drink.

“Can I have a kiss instead?”

I nodded and he came forward. Jim’s kiss was so warm, so inviting and so necessary. I had not felt desired in years. He tugged at my clothes. I tugged at his. “Where’s your bed?” he murmured into my mouth. I walked backwards, not daring to take my lips from his. We fell backward on the bed, sending up clouds of dust.

Sex, as it turned out, was much easier outside my marriage than it had been within. I knew that Lucy would eventually come around and I’d be invited back home. We would work it out and sustain a truce until the next time we were “finished.” There would remain this void in our marriage—one month, two, four—that we would refrain from discussing. She had given me this freedom, as Marcus pointed out, however temporarily. I had not been the one to put the brakes on our monogamy, but I intended to make the most of my freedom before being called back.

I was stunned when the divorce papers arrived.

The divorce was nasty and unnecessarily protracted. Not long after it was finalized, Lucy—stoned and drunk—proposed we get back together. By then, it was too late. Independence had taken hold. I had already begun to write about it here.

Years later, Lucy would discover my blog and sue for custody of our children. She shared my blog with her family, who read, in as much detail as they pleased, of my experience of Lucy’s mental illness, her problems with intimacy, and the impulsivity with which she ended our fifteen-year relationship. Lucy described the contents of my blog to our children, telling them that their father was bisexual and a bad man. A few months ago, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my birth family.

If I enjoyed a new sex life, partly led in public, Lucy ensured that my public would include those I had chosen not to tell. It was a fitting punishment for my happiness without her, for abandoning her when she pushed me out the door.

But her rash behavior, as ever, backfired. No one really seems to care that I have a pretty great sex life. No one seems to care that the husband who loved her went on to love others. Her loneliness and rage weren’t mitigated by her destruction of my privacy. If anything, her outings only cleared my path to greater freedom. After all, who does she have left to tell?

Eight years ago today, Lucy sent me out the edge of the Earth, hoping I’d fall over. Instead, I found freedoms beyond her reach.

Family Picture

For spring break a couple of months ago, my ex-wife decided to take our two youngest children on a road trip to New Orleans. By saying “decided,” I mean to underscore that she didn’t consult me, or even tell me of her plans. She hasn’t said a word to me since Christmas. I heard of the planned trip when the kids mentioned it.

The trip took them through my hometown. Lucy asked our youngest daughter to contact my parents to ask if they could stop by for a visit. Of course, my parents agreed, and offered to arrange for other family members to visit as well. It would be the first time Lucy had seen my family since we separated eight years ago. We assumed this was a nice gesture. Presumably, Lucy had no special interest in being with my family, but she wanted to allow the children to see their Southern folks.

Afterward, Mom called to say that Lucy had been surprisingly pleasant. I was glad the trip went well. I had been a bit suspicious of it.

Last weekend, I went home for my high school reunion. I was sitting with my family when someone brought up how big my children have become since their last trip South. I said I had heard good things about the visit from the kids. I was impressed that my middle son had wanted to take so long a trip to see New Orleans as it recovers from Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

My brother Frank looked at Mom. “Well, that’s not why they made the trip,” he said. He looked at me. “You want to know the real reason she came down here?”

“Do tell.”

“Brother, Lucy came down her to tell us about your blog.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope, he’s not,” Mom said. “She sat right there and told us you had a blog and were having all kinds of sex and writing about it.”

I shook my head. “Wow.”

“Yeah, she told us about the blog—what’s it called, ‘One Life, Take Two?’” Frank went on. “She said she found it and read about the things you do now. She took me over to Mom’s laptop and typed in the whatcha-ma-call-it and showed it to me.” He laughed. “You’ve got some hot pictures on there, man.”

“She typed in the URL for you? On Mom's laptop? Jesus. Well, what did you say, Mom?”

“Well, I told her I always knew you were a good writer. Your Dad said it sounds like you’re having fun.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much. Then I asked of they wanted to spend the night. They were planning to drive a few more hours, but I said that didn’t make any sense when we’ve got room.”

I stood up and put my hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Well, sorry you had to find out that way. Obviously, I didn’t see a reason to tell you. So know you know the dirt on why Lucy felt empowered to spend a year and two-hundred-thousand dollars chasing me through court.”

“There wasn’t any reason to tell us!” Mom said. “We don’t care what you do like that. You’re not married and you’ve been grown up for a long time.”

“Thanks.” I thought a moment. “Wait, you’re not still reading it, are you?”

“I read a little bit to see what she was talking about,” Mom said. “But honey, I don’t need to read about your sex life.”

“I mostly liked the pictures,” Frank laughed.

I can only imagine Lucy’s disappointment in my family’s reaction. Planning her drive to New Orleans, she must have rehearsed many scripts in her mind. When she outed me to her own family, Lucy found they rallied around her, severing ties to me and writing checks to her attorneys. When she outed me to our children—the youngest of whom was then eight years old—Lucy found they were frightened and confused as their mother wove dark tales about the father they adored.

My family shrugged off Lucy’s revelation and offered a place to stay for the night. Privately, they now told me, they felt pretty sorry for her. I suppose that’s how I feel about it, too.

It would be right to be angry. I began having sex at an early age, with males and females, and recognized my bisexuality at age nineteen. I went to college the following year and never returned home to live. I saw no reason to come out to my parents, particularly after I entered into monogamy and marriage with a woman. Now, as I near fifty years of age, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my family. She did so by making it possible for them to read about my sex and sexuality in whatever ways I’ve reported it here.

It must have been a long, bitter drive back to New York.

“I still love him," Lucy told my family, “but I don’t like what he’s become.” As my Mom said in relating this to me, “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.”

Clearly, my family knows a few things about love.

A week before I returned home to my high school reunion, I attended the high school graduation of my eldest son. With our younger children seated behind us, Lucy kept her gaze trained to the stage, avoiding eye contact with me.

After the ceremony, everyone filed out of the auditorium to the lobby and street beyond, proud parents and family searching to congratulate the new graduates. We found Jason. Lucy pushed ahead to kiss his cheek, standing on her toes to do so. Collie shook his brother’s hand, smirking at his own staged formality. Lillie affected disinterest, saying, “Um, hello? Everyone just graduated. Why does he get all the attention?”

I laughed at her as I pulled Jason into a bear hug. “I love you, baby boy.” I pulled back and grabbed his shoulders. “And now, goodness, you’ve got two months until going off to college.”

“I know, “ he said, beaming as he does, his lips struggling to restrain a smile. “Guess I should start packing.”

“Not just yet,” I smiled, hugging him again.

We made our way to the sidewalk, which teemed with clusters of people, each centered on a graduate in a blue gown. I followed as Jason navigated through the crowd in search of his friends. Lucy and the kids trailed me. I took photos of Jason and his friends I shook hands with their parents, congratulating them as they congratulated me.

We found an empty space. Lillie goofed with her brother. I took more photos. Lucy had forgotten her camera, and I had promised to share mine.

Lucy came forward with Collie. “Let’s take a family picture,” she instructed our children. She gathered them together, wrapped an arm around Collie and looked at me expectantly. “Everybody say ‘cheese,’” she smiled.

I raised the camera to snap Lucy’s family picture.

A woman tapped my shoulder. “Would you like me to take a picture so you can all be in it?”

I smiled and handed her the camera. “Thanks, that’s very nice.” I showed her how to use the camera and took my place in the lineup. I beamed at the camera, our children arrayed between their mother and father. I thanked the woman and took back my camera. I turned to Jason. “Do you have any plans? Maybe we can all get an early dinner or something.”

“Um, no, no plans.” He paused. “Oh, I just realized I haven’t eaten today.”

“Oh, so let’s fix that.” I looked around. “Did you see where your mother went? Where’s Collie and Lillie?”

Jason peered around the families surrounding us. “Huh, I don’t see them.”

“They probably went inside to use the bathroom or something. I’ll wait by the door while you talk to your friends.”

Jason ambled over to pose in another photograph. I made my way to the door. Twenty minutes later, Jason joined me as the crowd thinned. “You see Mom?” he asked.

I shrugged. “No sign. You neither, I assume.”

“No.” He looked around.

“Why don’t you call her, then?”

He raised his gown to retrieve the phone from him pocket, pushed a few buttons and raised it to his ear. “Voice mail,” he reported. “I’ll try Collie.” Voice mail again.

“Maybe we should stand on the corner. Maybe they’re at the other exit looking for us.” We moved. They weren’t there. A few minute passed. I suggested Jason try his mother again.

“Hello?” He nodded to tell me she answered. “What did you say? . . . oh, okay . . . so what should I do? . . . okay, see you in a minute.” He hung up and look at me. “She said Lillie wanted to go home.” He began to walk down the street.

“Oh, okay. I’ll walk with you to say goodbye to them.”

“No, actually, I’m not meeting them. They’re already at home.”

“They left?” Not a word to me or our graduating son. “Okay, well, hmm . . . did you want to get a bite, or . . .”

“I’m hungry,” he said as we passed a diner. “But she said I should come home, and I can just eat there. Where are you going?”

“I guess I’m going to the subway.”

“Me too.” We walked along, talking about the graduation and fell to talking about movies. We rode the subway together until he reached his stop. I kissed him as the train door opened. “I love you, son. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He waved as the train pulled away.

I went home and downloaded the photographs. I sent them to Lucy’s family, my family, the kids and various friends. I posted our family picture on Facebook.

Madeline sent me a note, congratulating me on the graduation. “Nice-looking family, Jefferson. Lucy sure looks miserable, though.”

“She didn’t say a word to me, start to finish, and left without a word to Jason or me,” I replied. “She must’ve been pained to share that photograph with me.”

I may not like what’s Lucy’s become, but I do feel sorry for her.

Story Collider

Story Collider is a story-telling series focused on science. On January nineteenth, the theme is “pathology,” and I’ll be there, telling the story of my brief career as a sociopath.

My story focuses primarily on the anticipated revisions to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the real-life impact of the categorization of sexuality by mental health professionals. In the current edition of the DSM, anyone involved in kink is potentially diagnosed with “paraphilia,” a catch-all term for any sexual attraction deemed outside normative behavior, be it necrophilia or a taste for latex. The new edition is expected to update diagnostic criteria so that kinky is not a diagnosis.

Until then, the current edition remains the guideline, as it was during my recent custody case. My interest in BDSM became the subject of a psychiatric evaluation that could have caused me to lose my children.

My story also includes the gossipy smear campaign undertaken by bloggers Dacia, Tess and Dee. When they learned that there would be a psychiatric evaluation, they filled blogs, anonymous attacks and cocktails hours with their diagnosis that I was, unquestionably, a “sociopath.” This feverish, sad drama consumed them even after the psychiatric evaluation and custody case were concluded.

Hear the full tale at Story Collider, where I’ll share the stage with great storytellers, including some of my chums from the Moth. The event is free but the house will be full, so arrive early to claim your spot; make Pacific Standard your happy hour destination.

Psychotherapy Live!

For several years, Lisa Levy has performed Psychotherapy Live!, in which guests are invited to take part in a therapy session before an audience. She also films sessions for broadcast.

I recently found myself on her couch. I talked about parenting, divorce, sexuality, BDSM and more. Because I’m not keen on having my face publicized, my identity is obscured. This put me in the interesting position of talking about being out while disguised.

Get mental with me by watching the broadcast, divided into three parts:

Part One



Part Two



Part Three

HNT

Kay and I watching the sunset in advance of the fireworks display on Independence Day. The photo is a little blurry, but then, so were we.

Our search for a small town in which to celebrate the Fourth took us to the lovely harbor town of Port Jefferson—the friendliness of the village’s name being an additional lure. There, we saw fireworks, watched a parade and fucked in the back of a Hummer. I love this country.

Independence Day is a special holiday for me, in that it the anniversary of the end of my marriage. Following a disagreement about a business trip I made, and after months of bitter feuding and vast silences, my ex wife exiled me to an apartment owned by her father. He encouraged me to go, saying his daughter would never calm down until she had time to get over her rage. I moved out on Independence Day. That was seven years and two custody cases ago. Perhaps, one day, my ex wife get past her rage. Perhaps, by that time, she’ll see that it no longer impresses me.

Kay and I talked about this anniversary as the sun set. “I know the divorce was hard,” she said, “But I’m lucky your ex wife wasted your marriage.”

“Me too, honey,” I smiled. "Independence ain't bad."

No One Cares About Your Blog

Last August, I participated in Kink for All, an unconference on sexuality founded by my friend Maymay. During last night’s broadcast of Kink on Tap—another brainchild of brainy Maymay—I learned that my presentation, which was recorded, is available online.

No One Cares About Your Blog

My tongue was somewhat in cheek when I entitled the presentation, which concerned the risks of putting one’s sex life online. I addressed my ex wife’s discovery of my blog and her subsequent (and unsuccessful) effort to use my sexuality to take my children from their father. I also talked about the flame wars and smear campaigns initiated by a team of three sex bloggers—Dacia and the brain trust she encouraged, Tess and Dee—as they outed me and otherwise sought to tarnish my reputation and affect the custody case then underway.

The title was in earnest, however, as the lessons drawn as these episodes overlapped. My ex wife cynically believed that the State of New York would concur that my writing endangered my children. In fact, the State of New York proved unconcerned with either my writing or my sex life. My ex learned that, like everyone else, the father of her children is allowed free speech and sexual freedom. The State of New York doesn’t care about my blog.

Further, in their slanderous gossip and malicious online attacks, Dacia, Tess and Dee seemed to believe their blogs were powerful engines to destroy reputations and damage people, including families. Their actions revealed wild delusions of import. Putting gossip into blogs doesn’t make it real or influential. Dacia later regretted this “feverish, sad drama” as a figment largely of her own creation. Their attacks were engineered by blog drama, not in reality, and in real life, no one cared about their blogs.

Kinky Is Not A Diagnosis

This month, the American Psychiatric Association released proposed changes to the forthcoming updated edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The standard by which mental disorders are diagnosed, the DSM has a controversial history concerning sexuality; for example, previous editions defined homosexuality as a mental disorder until gay activists successfully fought to have the designation removed.

The revised edition contains new language redefining “paraphilias,” a catch-all term for sexual arousal to objects or situations considered outside normative behavior. As detailed below, the revised language no longer considers an interest in BDSM as necessarily symptomatic of a mental disorder. If this revision is adopted in the new edition, it will have an enormous impact on the lives of people involved in alternative sexualities.

Take, for example, yours truly. When my ex wife discovered my blog and sued for custody of our children, her claims rested on the assertion that our children were in immediate danger due to my sexuality. My sexuality, as described in this blog, was the sole basis of her suit. Given the current language of the DSM, the court conceded to my ex wife’s request that I submit to a psychiatric evaluation. (For the record, it turns out I’m not crazy.) With the revised changes, my ex wife would no longer be able to harass me with claims such as these.

This is salutary news. It’s a good day to be kinky.

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom—which was incredibly helpful in my own custody case—has issued the following statement about its role in the revisions and their potential impact:

The APA Paraphilias Subworkgroup Agrees: Kinky is NOT a Diagnosis

In the new proposals for the DSM-V, alternative sexual behavior has been depathologized. The American Psychiatric Association's Paraphilias Subworkgroup's DSM revisions acknowledge that you can be a fetishist, transvestite, sexual sadist or sexual masochist without having a mental disorder.

NCSF has worked very hard with its DSM Revision Project to make sure these changes take place, and will continue to strongly advocate for clear language of what exactly constitutes a mental disorder. Susan Wright liaisoned with the work group and supplied data that NCSF has gathered about the real-world discrimination and persecution that takes place against BDSM-fetish practitioners because of the DSM-IV-TR. The DSM Revision Petition was also extremely useful in generating comment from community members and mental health professionals urging that the current diagnoses be changed.

Go here to see the proposed changes.

Read the "Rationale" section under each diagnosis to see their thinking on the paraphilias. The work group makes it clear that "non-normative" sexual behavior is practiced by healthy people:

"The first broad change follows from our consensus that paraphilias are not ipso facto psychiatric disorders. We are proposing that the DSM-V make a distinction between paraphilias and paraphilic disorders. A paraphilia by itself would not automatically justify or require psychiatric intervention. A paraphilic disorder is a paraphilia that causes distress or impairment to the individual or harm to others. One would ascertain a paraphilia (according to the nature of the urges, fantasies, or behaviors) but diagnose a paraphilic disorder (on the basis of distress and impairment). In this conception, having a paraphilia would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for having a paraphilic disorder."

"These revisions will affect everything-child custody, job discrimination battles, and even help change the way society views us," says Leigha Fleming, Chairperson and Director of Incident Response. "I think of all the people over the years who have had the DSM used as a tool of discrimination and punishment, and I'm proud of NCSF for continuing the fight to change it. This is the first step towards decriminalization of BDSM, which NCSF is pursuing with our Consent Counts project."

The Paraphilias Subworkgroup is now reconsidering what constitutes "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" when determining a mental disorder. The DSM must make it clear that people do suffer distress and impairment because of the societal stigma against alternative sex, but that doesn't mean they are suffering distress that is generated internally.

As part of the development process, the preliminary draft revisions to the current diagnostic criteria for psychiatric diagnoses are now available for public review and comment until April. Personal comments about discrimination and persecution are welcome additions to this commentary to continue to urge the work group to differentiate between sexual minorities and sex offenders.

Just as Norway recently joined Sweden and Denmark in removing consensual paraphilias entirely, NCSF continues to urge the complete removal of these paraphilias from the DSM. However like the incremental removal of homosexuality (to egodystonic homosexuality and then finally taken out in nineteen eighty-seven) this is an important step for the BDSM-leather-fetish community.

NCSF needs your support to continue important projects like the DSM Revision Project that directly impact peoples' lives. Please join NCSF to show solidarity! We do so much for very little money, and we need your help.

Please donate to NCSF now!

Feverish, Sad Drama

Everyone seemed to have an opinion about my custody case. In managing her smear campaign, Tess modified her gossip to be sure it resonated in receptive ears. Above all, she wanted to impress the women whom she felt could further the reach of her new “secret sex blog cabal.”

On the day after I learned that my ex had filed a motion against me, Tess huddled over lunch with Dee and Rachel, a sex writer with a popular blog. Tess had been pressing Dee to end our relationship. Now, she encouraged her to complain about me in detail, hoping to influence Rachel against me.

A few days later, I posted some details about my case. The Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had set up a legal defense fund to support my case and I needed to get out word about that. I took care not to reveal anything that could impact the case; just to be safe, I ran the text by my attorney. She encouraged me to point out the free speech ramifications in the filing, as this was fairly unique in a custody case. I did as she suggested.

Reading my post, Rachel was confused. How could a custody case have anything to do with the First Amendment? A former law student, she could not imagine any circumstance in which that could apply. Although I had asked my friends not to comment on the case as it was before the court, Rachel felt moved to blog “if you've ever studied anything about the First Amendment, you should know that it applies to the government dictating what you can and can't say, not your vindictive ex-wife. Nobody ever said he didn't have the legal right to post anything he damn well wanted.”

Rachel had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. I had never claimed that free speech issues were involved because my ex wife was upset by my writing. My attorney informed me that First Amendment rights were involved because my ex-wife’s attorneys sought to have the State of New York shut down or curtail my blog. My attorney’s research showed that this was a case of first impression, meaning that if the court ruled against me, we would be able to appeal, perhaps so far as the United States Supreme Court.

Thankfully, the court did not rule against me. But in the court of blog opinion, Rachel had established a critical fact: I was either misinformed or lying.

Tess added this to her gossip.

Tess lobbied Dacia to come out against me and to discourage contributions to my legal defense fund. Persuaded that “this is a big and important thing for the sex blogging community to talk about,” Dacia wrote a blog post in which she questioned my revelation that my ex’s motion was concerned with my sexuality as discussed in my blog. “The bisexuality and the blogging is just a piece of the puzzle,” she ungrammatically opined. “Anyone who reads his blog knows Jefferson’s affinity for bourbon—and though he has a flip way of writing about it, his drinking is a real problem that I personally have seen unfold in embarrassing and fucked up ways.”

Substance abuse was very much on Dacia’s mind. She was then breaking up with her boyfriend of several years due to his inability to kick his cocaine addiction. Of all the subjects covered by Tess’s gossip, my drinking resonated most for Dacia. If the motion was not about my bisexuality and blogging, my former drinking buddy could certainly imagine that it might have to do with alcohol.

Dacia had never read my ex’s motion against me. She didn’t discuss it with me before blogging about it. Small wonder, then, that her uninformed conjecture was simply wrong. The motion, which was the size of a phone book, made no mention of my drinking. Dacia had originally noted that her post was based on her six-year relationship with me; she would eventually revise that to say that she had not spent any time with me in the previous three years and therefore, she wasn’t speaking with any direct knowledge. “Much of what I know about Jefferson in the here and now is admittedly second hand information,” Dacia confessed. She was repeating gossip, much of it proffered by Tess. Neither Tess nor Dee had witnessed me drinking to excess, so Tess sent Dee in search of evidence to support Dacia's claim.

As comments flowed into Dacia’s blog, people alluded to their own lives with alcoholics and shared stories of abuse and neglect. One commenter, attracted by the drama, offered to start a blog outing me and other bloggers. Anyone contacting the commenter was given our names and told how they were discovered. This was brought to Dacia’s attention, but she declined to remove the comment. In fact, she did little to moderate what another commenter aptly characterized as her blog’s “witch trial.” Dacia let the flame war burn, impressed that her betrayal of those who had trusted her proved so beneficial to her ratings.

In the court of blog opinion, Dacia had established a critical fact: my ex-wife was suing for custody of our children because I was an alcoholic.

Tess added this to her gossip.

On the day Dacia posted her attack against me, Tess added a post to her own blog. Dacia’s post had given Tess the grounding to take a public stand against me. Tess made a point of discouraging contributions to my legal defense fund. In subsequent posts, Tess turned her attention to the women she courted for her “secret sex blog cabal.” In order to impress them, Tess felt it was important to maintain an air of indifference to me in her blog, even as her gossip about me provided her with the material with which to keep them entertained. Still, she encouraged Dee to post about me frequently. Tess and Dee knew my ex read Dee’s blog—Dee had provided me with my ex’s IP address—so it was the site most likely to do damage to my case. The strategy had the added advantage of making Tess appear far less obsessed than Dee, at least publicly.

Tess and Dee added their own negative comments to Dacia’s blog, both under their own names and under pseudonyms. Tess continued this practice on other blogs as well, repeating common refrains under a variety of identities. People were dissuaded from donating to my legal defense fund; indeed, its very legality was questioned. Bloggers were encouraged to remove links to my blog from their blogrolls. If enough followed suit, Tess felt, she would succeed in erasing me from the blogosphere.

It satisfied Tess to believe that so many people were thinking ill of me, but she was frustrated that my case garnered support from Lambda Legal, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom and the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. The latter had set up the legal defense fund Tess was working hard to downplay. If the organization was made aware of the online controversy Tess had helped to create, she felt, surely they would not be willing to continue supporting my case. As she fanned Dacia’s flame war, Tess became impatient to put the controversy to use in destroying me. It was time, she felt, to cut off my support.

A month after Dacia's initial attack, comments to her post continued to come in daily. By this time, the comments reached into the hundreds. The flame war had deteriorated to such an extent that commenters referred to my addictions to alcohol and sex as established facts and my real identity was routinely outed. Dacia dug in to assert, “I think that most readers of this post and others that have been scattered around the Internet have enough information to realize that this is not a clear-cut case of being persecuted for sexual orientation.” It was no longer conjectured that perhaps my ex wife’s motion against me was not based solely on my sexuality as described in my blog; Dacia now stated with confidence that the motion she had never read was not “clear cut.”

Dacia’s confidence emboldened Tess and Dee. The day after Dacia’s assertion, Dee wrote an appeal to the members of the Friends of Jefferson, beseeching each to abandon her support of me and my custody case. That same day, an email was sent to Valerie White, Director of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund. “His custody case is not based upon his bisexuality,” the writer categorically stated. “His wife has known about his bisexuality for a long time. The case is based upon his reckless conduct which is not in keeping with responsible or even barely adequate parenting.” The writer repeated allegations that I was an alcoholic and added new claims that I was a gigolo and other suppositions that had surfaced in the unmoderated comments on Dacia’s post. The writer offered a link to Dee’s blog in order to detail “the ugly truth about Jefferson's life,” and concluded by urging the organization to “please reconsider lending your good names and influence to this cause.”

Valerie White forwarded the note to my attorney. Valerie knew that my ex’s motion against me was, in fact, entirely concerned with my sexuality as described in this blog. She knew it made no mention of alcoholism, prostitution or other awful suppositions. Valerie and the Board of Directors of the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had reviewed the motion before agreeing to establish a legal defense fund, as was standard procedure for the organization. She recognized that the writer of the email was uninformed about the motion. My attorney dismissed the note as a poor attempt to adversely influence a case before the court.

When I read the note, I saw Tess’s gossip neatly surmised in one text, articulated in her distinctively melodramatic idiolect. It was clear to me that gossip had displaced reality in Tess’s mind. Anonymous blog comments and slanderous attacks were now the truth as she wanted it represented. It was the truth that that Tess could use to destroy me and deny me my family.  Nearly a year later, after the custody case had been settled and the blog drama laid to rest, the allegations and language used in the letter to Valerie were reiterated in an anonymous online attack outing me. Tess's obsession continued to seethe.

Flame wars come and go in the blogosphere. Dacia’s flame war against me burned brilliantly, but eventually, it died down as others flared up. Looking back, Dacia would later describe her destruction of our relationship as a “feverish and sad drama” largely of her own creation. Perhaps from the experience, Dacia learned that attacking people feels awful, particularly when attacking people who care about you.

Recently, another blog drama reminded me of Tess’s obsession. Some unidentified person had started a blog revealing the identities of sex workers, echoing the use of Dacia’s blog to out sex bloggers. As Tess had since come to care about sex worker rights, she addressed the controversy in her blog. First, she advised others to talk about the blogger offline but not in tweets or on blogs, as that only gave more attention to the blogger. Evidently, she felt the strategy of back-channel gossip had worked well in her campaign against me. “The best way, the only way, to make people like [ . . . ] go away is to starve them of any attention,” she intoned. Gossip is good, she suggested. Direct confrontation was to be avoided.

Tess decried the blogger’s effort as “mired in vindictiveness, in pettiness, in meanness and its intent is solely to cause harm. Let me repeat that because it's that important—its intent is solely to cause harm.” She concluded by shaming the blogger’s “goal of harming individuals by disseminating private information.”
Tess couldn’t have done a better job of describing her campaign against me. In fact, Tess’s behavior just a few months earlier presaged actions she now decried.

In the days after her break up with her lover Victor, Tess dealt with her despondency by anonymously attacking me online. Creating an account at a website designed to be used by women complaining about bad dates, Tess described “Jefferson Blogger” as follows:

“He's known for being charming when you meet him and he's seduced countless young, inexperienced women. He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. But he seeks out mentally unstable or naive women and he uses them for his benefit. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He is also known for getting his young girlfriends into sex work.”

To this profile she added a photograph of me that is readily available online.

When I revealed Tess’s anonymous attack in post entitled “Tess’s Obsession” she quickly made revisions:
“He keeps a blog onelifetaketwo.blogspot.com where he makes his life sound wonderful and glamorous. He's an alcoholic and has been accused of sexual assault. He recently fabricated a long post about who he thinks posted this profile. However, he's wrong. I've decided to snip out the things that are hearsay, but include only the bits that I've witnessed myself to be fair.”

Not surprisingly, Tess claimed I was wrong in identifying her as my attacker. As she knew I was not wrong, she dissembled into damage control. She backpedaled, admitting that her claims against me were hearsay, merely gossip she had concocted and spent a year honing through constant circulation.

Tellingly, the hearsay that Tess omitted in the revision concerned the countless “mentally unstable or naive women” I had allegedly seduced into sex work. When Tess began her smear campaign against me in the summer of two thousand and eight, she and Dee were quick to condemn me as a “whore.” They were called aside by Dacia, who discouraged them from using that word as an epithet against me or, indeed, anyone. Dacia began to educate the two women about sex worker rights, a cause of great concern to her. Many strong women make the choice to become sex workers, Dacia instructed, and archaic myths of white slavery insult their intelligence. Certainly, no one should out the identities of sex workers.

Tess and Dee were impressed by Dacia’s lessons and guidance in their assaults against me; so much so that they began to style themselves in her mold as activists for sex worker rights. Dee was charged as, in middle age, she began to acquire a political consciousness. Tess saw the advantage of impressing Dacia in achieving her own ambitions. Just as she wooed Rachel in hope of participating in readings, Tess knew that associating with Dacia could suggest an intellectual credibility she otherwise lacked.

Still, her lesser demons could not rest. A full year after Dacia’s lessons—a year spent forging a new activist identity, a year in which she neither saw nor spoke with me—Tess couldn’t resist decrying me as a Svengali who forced feeble-minded women into the horrors of sex work. What’s more, in posting a photograph of me, she was outing me, using precisely the same tactics of the blogger she would soon self-righteously decry.
Embarrassed by my exposure of her anonymous attacks, Tess revised her language. Minus the admitted hearsay, all that was left was her claim that I was an alcoholic and an allegation that I had been accused of assault. She claimed that she was, in fact, an eyewitness to these claims.

Tess had seen me drink; as recently as fourteen months prior to this attack, she had invited herself to drinks and dinner with mutual friends. From what Tess could recall of the night, before she staggered home, she had seen me imbibing alcohol. She clung to this claim as Dacia had made it central to her own online attack against me: Dacia alleged that as recently as two thousand and five, three years prior to her own post, she had seen me drink alcohol. Tess needed to align herself with Dacia’s authority, and so sent Dee in search of proof of my alcoholism. During our eight-month relationship, Dee had never seen me drunk. Dee’s entreaties to Avah provided further frustration, for in our two-year relationship, which included countless parties, my teetotalling kinky girlfriend could only recall seeing me drunk on one occasion. Evidence be damned, Tess clung to her claim. Apparently, by her reckoning, alcoholism was a moral failing that should bring me down in the eyes of others.

Even more serious was Tess’s claim to have witnessed an assault. On the one hand, this allegation avoided the problem of giving offense to those she sought to impress. Some may be concerned with protecting the rights of sex workers, but who would defend assaulters? Still, as the revision settled in her mind, the limitations of her allegation became clear. If Tess had witnessed an assault, what action did she take? Did she report it to authorities? Isn’t that what anyone would do? Or was her reaction limited to making anonymous allegations online?

Tess knew there had been no assault for her to witness, nothing on which to take action. Now that attention was on her anonymous attack, she found herself in a bind. She could dig deeper into her trench, hurling mud at me with the increased audience I had brought to her forum. There could be some satisfaction in that; attacking me enflamed her passions, and now the dickhead that obsessed her had provided a new opportunity to scratch that itch.

However, Tess was no longer in the heated throws of anger at Victor. She had made her attack in the summer, when the break-up was days old. Now it was autumn and Tess was basking in another kind of attention: there was soon to be a launch party for the sex blogger calendar she had helped to create. Her anonymous attack, taken in an impetuous fit of misandrist pique, had been revealed at a most inopportune time. Everyone was talking to Tess about me. Attention was once again drawn to her obsession. Despite her weak defense—“he’s wrong”—she recognized that my discussion of her actions would ring true to those she wanted to impress. She had, after all, gossiped the narrative of her anonymous attack for well over a year.

The letter written to the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund had asserted, as fact, gossip that the recipient, Valerie White, recognized as false. The letter made claims about a legal motion that Valerie had read and the letter writer had not. The writer of the letter was simply wrong.

Tess’s gossip consumed her thinking. If words fell from her lips and flew across her keyboard with enough repetition and frequency, they took root as fact in her mind. She could not let go. Everyone must see, as she did, what a dickhead I am. Establishing that meant all. It allowed her to push me aside in her urge to take what she coveted.

Now, in revealing her attack, I had exposed the fissures in the façade of her new persona. Continuing her attack was too risky. If she appeared consumed by attacking me, those she sought to impress may see her as no better than Dee. And, as Tess enjoyed repeating, Dee’s most useful function was in making her look good.

A few days after the attack had been revised, I was contacted by the administrator of the website on which it had appeared. The anonymous post had been removed. Now, no one would have further access to this evidence of Tess’s obsession.

The anonymous attack was removed just days before the sex blogger calendar launch party.

Back

Sometimes in life, you just have to get back on the horse. Eden knew this, though she was understandably cautious about climbing back in the saddle. She had been thrown hard.

Figuratively, it hadn’t been that hard a landing. She had met a guy. They had played video games and fooled around before she realized it wasn’t working for her. She cut out before the red circles of death came crashing.

But literally, she had taken a serious spill. While working as a summer camp counselor, Eden had been thrown into a tree when her horse stopped suddenly. Her leg was damaged and she was laid up, having learned, she told me, never again to bottom to a pine.

Her recuperation lasted into the fall and she found herself with little time for anything other than convalescence and building her portfolio. We corresponded to stay in touch but she rarely had free time in the city. It had been a while since we had last seen one another when we were able to make a date to catch up.

Looking forward to seeing Eden again, I reflected on the time we had spent together in the few years since our kinks first brought us together via mutual friends. Some of our relationship had played out in public. She kept a blog in which she wrote about our dates, my parties and her turn as a demo bottom for classes I taught. In one class at Floating World, I had pursued her recalcitrant orgasm before a large expectant audience. When finally it came thundering, her screams echoing through a vast dungeon, we were loudly applauded, as though those watching had needed to share in her release.

But much of our relationship was private. I wrote about it now and then, alluding to our kinks as well as our intimacies. When we met, I realized that we had been involved in BDSM for roughly the same amount of time, though she had started at a much younger age and been involved with much heavier play. I respected her experience and appreciated her guidance as she submitted to me. I knew I was lucky to learn dominance with someone who would forgive my mistakes while encouraging me to go further. For my part, I hoped to expand upon her sexual pleasure; in this, I had the advantage of being the more experienced partner.

Our friendship offered comfort even when we weren’t together. A couple of years ago, while I was researching properties in advance of a move, I stumbled across a large isolated house located upstate that could be had for half the price of apartments I was seeing in the city. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, to be able to afford both? My family could use the house as a wooded retreat. On weekends without my children, I could tie nude Eden to trees and hit her with whips. Oh, I mused, for such a country idyll.

When Eden heard that my ex-wife had discovered my blog and sued for custody, she offered her sympathies and asked if she could help in some way. I needed to close my blog, so while I focused on researching attorneys, she took on the tedious administrative task of taking down my blog, post by post. I didn’t hesitate in providing access to her. I knew I could trust Eden.

All of these experiences—kinky and vanilla, public and private, online and off—combined with our correspondence, conversation and the simple enjoyment of one another’s company to build between us a solid, loving friendship. Even after some time apart, neither of us questioned the trust we had established.

Eden buzzed from the street when she arrived for our reunion. Ringing her in, I suddenly recalled our old standing rule: she was to undress on arrival, as her clothes were not welcome in my home. We hadn’t revisited that requirement in planning to get together—catching up was our only agenda item—so I decided not to bring it up now. She could do as she pleased. We could talk whether or not she was dressed.

We smiled and hugged our hellos, chatting as she dropped her bag and peeled away outer layers of coat and hoodie. She fell still when she was down to a short-sleeve pullover and looked at me expectantly. Was she waiting for me to undress her or to offer her a seat? I opted for the latter. I kissed her and said how great it was to see her again. We settled in to talk.

I asked Eden about her accident and recovery. She asked me about my custody case and its aftermath. She told me about her new job and the workload at school. I filled her in on my various writing projects. The discussion led to conversation about blogging.

“I stopped blogging a while ago,” Eden said. “It didn’t really seem to matter anymore. I may do it again someday—I still write about life and school and stuff in my Livejournal, sometimes—but the fun kind of died when the drama started.”

“I have to say, my sabbatical from sex blogging last year was enforced by circumstances more than preference,” I nodded. “But even before the custody case, I was feeling worn out by it. It can be pretty wearying to deal with people conflating me with my online persona. It can be fun doing things and meeting folks as Jefferson, but when people get upset or act out online, it’s like . . . I dunno.” I searched for the right words before going on. “When people fail to distinguish between reality and its representation, it’s harder to be excited about making art. Being targeted in Dacia’s flame war that summer was a little like finding a mob storming the gates of Warner Brothers, angry that Bugs Bunny shot Daffy Duck. It was a cartoon universe, having little to do with the real world. And even in cartoons, a mob takes on a mentality of its own.”

“That was really sick,” Eden said. “Weren’t you and Dacia friends?”

“Dacia and a lot of people were once friends. But we were especially close, even while I was still married. When my marriage ended, she was one of the few people I felt I could talk to openly. That was before she took on the Dacia persona, though, and by now, that seems long ago.” I thought for a moment. “Her flame war about my custody situation got out of hand and people were being hurt and even outed as a result. Dacia allowed that to happen and, in fact, she seemed to encourage it for the sheer drama of it all. A lot of people backed away from her then. I still don’t know why she turned on me as she did.” I pursed my lips. “Why she turned on any of us, really.”

“She never talked to you about it?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “But that’s not atypical. She tends to burn bridges, particularly in her relationships with men. I remained friendly with four of her former boyfriends after she broke up with them. There's often confusion about just how she felt affronted by them. When this all went down, one wrote to welcome me to the club.”

“At least you’ve got company.” She blew out a puff. “That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.” I paused, thinking. “Dacia was one of the first people I called when I was served papers on the custody case. We didn’t hang out then as we once had—she had her life, I had mine—but I trusted her advice and knew I could count on her. As we hung up, she said, ‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you.’ Then, next thing I knew, she wrote what she wrote in her blog. It wasn’t accurate and it was potentially damaging, and I wrote to tell her so. She replied, essentially, that I could go fuck myself.”

“Damn.”

“We had never had a fight or a falling out, so I didn’t know what this was about. I suppose I must have disappointed her in some way, or maybe even angered her. Or maybe she was dealing with her own feelings about something else; she had just broken up with her boyfriend due to his addiction, and then, maybe by transference, she conjectured that my drinking might be the reason for the custody case. It had nothing to do with it, actually, and as she later noted in her blog, we hadn’t hung out in, I dunno, three years or so. She hadn’t read my ex’s motion, and she basically admitted she had no idea what she was talking about. But whatever it was that motivated Dacia to attack me, you know as much about that as I do. The only indication I have of her feelings about me is what she’s blogged. She hasn’t spoken to me since telling me she was sorry this was happening to me and I could go fuck myself.”

Eden scratched her head. “Doesn’t sound like much of a loss, really.”

“It’s always sad to lose a friend,” I said. “But you’re right. I was involved in a fight for my family. Dacia wrote something rash knowing it could interfere with my real life, and she didn’t give a fuck.” I looked up. “You know, with some people—not many people, but like with you and me, Eden—I feel that no matter what, you’ve got their back and they’ve got yours. You know? I felt that way about Dacia. Right up until she put a knife in my back.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Eden said. “Real friends wouldn’t.”

“I can’t imagine you would,” I smiled. I pushed aside her sandy blond hair and kissed her cheek. She smiled back, her green eyes on mine.

“That’s all such a weird story. I read what you wrote about those two old ladies . . . ,” Eden began.

“Tess and Dee? Well, they’re just six or seven years older than me, so I don’t consider them such ‘old ladies.’”

“Sorry, I just forgot their names,” Eden replied. “I hadn’t heard of them before you wrote about them.”

“Yeah well, they were pretty peripheral to my life, so there was never any reason to bring them up with you. Especially Tess. I barely knew her.”

“They may not be super old, but damn, they’re old enough to know better. That kind of shit went out with middle school.”

“Yeah, though you know, I only had nice friends in middle school.” I tapped a finger on my jeans. “Speaking of them, here, get this. I was talking the other day with this friend I first met in May, at a conference called Sex 2.0. Another friend of mine had organized it, and a lot of friends were going, so I went to be a part of it. I’m interested in the topic, of course: it was primarily about the intersections of feminism and technology.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Sure, right? Now, Dacia was going and by this time, Dee was following her around. Dee had never in her life been to such a conference, or even thought about feminism or women’s issues or gender or any of that prior to meeting Dacia, so she took to parroting anything Dacia said with the fervor of an acolyte. I mean, right down to the way Dacia says things are ‘awesome.’”

Eden grinned.

“So word gets out that I’m going and Dee starts to write me frantic emails. We had broken up, oh, eight or nine months before and I hadn’t heard from her since. Now, she wrote me several times a day. She told me I had a lot of nerve going to this conference because everyone there hated me, and I knew nothing about the plight of women, and so on and so on. I didn’t reply to her, so she kept writing with more and more reasons why I shouldn’t go, and threatening that she was going to tell people what a dickhead I am.”

“Dickhead! Now, that’s middle school.” Eden laughed. “Yeah, you know nothing about feminism.”

“How could I? I’m a man. But seriously, you know, I wrote letters to newspapers supporting the Equal Rights Amendment when I was in middle school. I got hate mail in reply. When I was sixteen, I held Pro-Choice signs at a Reagan campaign stop as jeering adults held pictures of bloody fetuses in my face. I’ve marched for gay rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights; volunteered for a year at a shelter for homeless women and children and for three years at a drop-in center for GLBT youth; written more than a few articles and a book about sexuality, and let’s not forget my blog. I don’t really need feminist credentials from Dee or anyone else to attend a conference.”

Eden nodded.

“Okay, I don’t mean to sound defensive, but Jesus, right?” I took a breath and exhaled. “Now, where was I? Oh, so this friend of mine. She went to Sex 2.0 and ran into Dacia. My friend was immediately ushered into a hotel room with Dee and one or two others, sat down and told—told!—that she should shun me at the conference. She sat there, listening. She had never met Dee, who was now giving her an earful of my supposed awfulness. At the time, my friend had heard of me, but never met me. So naturally, with all this negative energy being directed at me, what did she think?”

Eden shrugged. “That you’re awful?”

“That was certainly the intent. Instead, being a thinking person, she realized this was an awful lot of effort spent to make someone look awful. So she decided to do some research. She asked around about me, talking to people we know in common. She introduced herself to me. She read my blog and looked into the flame war. She found it all pretty fascinating.”

“So now she’s your friend?”

“Yeah, we met. She’s smart. She thought this all seemed over the top. She decided to get to know me a bit and whattya know? Turns out that I’m a real person. The thing of it is, most grown ups do not appreciate being told who they are allowed to be friends with. Sitting someone down to give such a directive is a presumption of influence that speaks to a skewed sense of power. Did Pope Dacia believe she had the authority to excommunicate me? Did celebrity-seeking Tess and embittered Dee believe that gossip should displace an individual’s reality? If so, what kind of community do the three of them imagine they are part of?”

Eden was quiet for a moment. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?”

I laughed. “Now and then. It’s all fodder for a memoir, I suppose. Sometimes it interests me just because it happened to me, but other times, I see a bigger picture in it. The ways people behave online becomes more interesting to me the longer I have an online persona. And I have a long-held aversion to the notion that communities should coalesce around ostracization and scapegoating.”

“Yeah. All of that makes me angry. When I hear about bullies, I want to gut them like fish.” Eden grinned at the unexpected violence of her imagery. “But then I’m from Jersey, and that’s what we do in Jersey.”

“The swamps are full enough of bodies,” I replied. “Look, I’m tired of hearing myself talk. Thanks for letting me vent. Now, tell me more about what you’ve been up to.”

Eden settled back and returned to talking about her portfolio. After all the pettiness of my conversation, it was a relief to hear her talk so positively about her enthusiasm for her work, like a bracing dose of reality thrown after the narrow confines of gossip and meanness I had described. I realized that I was actually pleased that Eden didn’t seem all that interested in the story I had told. She didn’t know the people involved and it had nothing to do with the things in life that mattered to her. She listened because she cared about me, and as I talked, I found myself moving more and more in the direction of what I found interesting in the story I told. It wasn’t that the actions of these others had much impact in my life—after the conclusion of the custody case they had failed to influence, I was rather content in my life, actually—but rather that they seemed so intent on having a negative impact on my life. These people seemed to find power in attacking me, whether or not these attacks had significance for me, and did so from the cowardly bunkers of gossip and keyboards. None had the bravery to deal with me directly as a real person. Eden had called them “bullies,” and that seemed a good word.

Eden had returned to talking about her recent boyfriend, saying, “So, that’s where that ended. I haven’t had sex in six months.”

“Six months? That’s a long time.” I tilted my head. “Eden, is that one reason you wanted to get together today?”

“Oh, no . . well, not really . . .” she stammered. She caught her breath. “I mean, that’s not the only reason I wanted to see you. I really did want to see how you’re doing.” She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t want to be one of those women who just uses you for sex.”

I smiled. “For reals? Honey, you don’t use me.” I leaned forward to kiss her. Her lips parted slightly. I held close, touching her lips with my tongue. I sat back and smiled. She looked relieved to have her desire out in the open. “You,” I said, standing. I parted my legs and lowered myself onto her lap, facing her. “You, Eden.” I took her head in both hands and lowered myself to kiss her again. “You, Eden,” I whispered. “You are nothing but good and kind to me. I trust you.” I turned her head slightly and lowered my lips to hers. Her mouth opened to mine. I grabbed her hair more firmly in my hands. We kissed slowly, languidly, two long-time lovers getting reacquainted with the taste of one after too long apart. Memories loosened in my mind. I recalled the longing that had once led me to imagine slow weekends, alone in the woods with Eden in my hands, in my bed, at the end of my flogs.

I gripped her hair tighter, pressing her face into mine. “I want you in my bed,” I said gruffly. “Now.” I released her and stood, holding out my hand. “Now, Eden.” She took my hand and stood. I took her kiss again, forgetting my own command and wanting to keep her where she stood, my hands roaming her clothes. The cotton was soft and Eden’s smell was filling my lungs. I pulled the shirt over her head, grabbed her shoulder to turn her and unfastened her bra. As it fell forward, I reached around to take her breasts in my hands. I squeezed hard. “I said bedroom. Now.” I turned her roughly, pulling her forward by her breasts, my body following, pressed close against her back.

I turned her to push her back on my bed and yanked off her jeans and panties. I kept my eyes on her body as my own clothes fell to the floor, taking in her familiarity. Our former understanding that she should always be undressed in my home had ensured that Eden was far more familiar to me nude than clothed. To see her again was like revisiting something as ingrained in memory as a childhood walk to school. I could find my way around her body with my eyes closed.

I lowered myself over her, barely allowing our skin to touch. When did I learn this about her? That barest touch sends the light hair on her flesh up in search of me. When did I learn to crave this scent? Infused in her hair, her skin, her sweat, her scent is from no bottle or tube, but pure and clear and carnal.

I kissed, I bit, I chewed my way down her body, settling my mouth onto her clit. Her back arched, prepared. I knew it would. She would come in my mouth in moments. No one, she has told me, can cause her to orgasm like this. But I can. I learned how.

I knew I should fuck her for a long time before I made her come, but I was greedy.

When she did come—loud, hard, thrashing—I had what I needed. Inside her, I knew I would come soon. I wouldn’t try holding out, I wouldn’t push for longer. Not this time. I needed to give back to her what she had given to me. As I came, I turned to see her eyes watching, her lips smiling. She shared with me the power we each have, the power we earned from all our time together, of the moments much like this one preceding this one, the moments that made this one possible and inevitable. Our shared power, our gift to one another, is the pleasure we give to one another, and the pleasure we derive in doing so.

I held her in the crook of my arm, both of us on our backs, talking low and gently, for a very long time. We dressed, agreeing to another date that would—barring riding accidents or custody battles—lead us back to our routine. We look out for one another, Eden and I. We have each other’s backs.

A few days later, a friend sent me an article in which Dacia was among sex workers and former sex workers who blog about their experiences. “Initially I didn't really care about what the people I wrote about thought about it and that applied to my personal life, too,” Dacia said. “I didn't consider their feelings at all. That was a very different time in my life . . . I did not feel limited though maybe I should have.” My friend attached a note, wondering if perhaps Dacia’s treatment of me—and her cavalier destruction of our relationship, like so many relationships in her life—now weighed heavily on her mind.

I shrugged it off at first. If Dacia has something to say to me, I thought, she’s always known where to find me. I don’t need to dope out her feelings from blog posts or online interviews. I left my desk to start preparing dinner.

Still, as I assembled ingredients and cookware, I thought: what if I reached out to her? Not in the interest of renewing our friendship—I can’t trust her as I once did—nor to gain anything, as she has nothing I want. But if she had regrets, and if these regrets dogged her conscience, I could let Dacia know that she can be forgiven. If I had somehow disappointed or angered her, perhaps she could forgive me.

After reading it over a few times, I sent this note to Dacia.

A friend sent me the article in which you expressed regret about having previously been inconsiderate of the feelings of others in your blog. The friend wondered if, reading between the lines, this indicated remorse about your treatment of me.

I’m not great at reading between lines. Maybe you feel remorse, or maybe that’s all a bridge you consider well burned. But if you do revisit your actions with regret and ever want to talk about it, I’m here. We used to be very close and loved one another. For those reasons if no other, I prefer forgiveness to rancor.

Hope all is well.

I haven’t heard back from her, but perhaps, one day, I will.