N: 1/21/03

Work Diary, 1/21/03

My feelings about sex started to change during Thanksgiving dinner of
1995. We were having an orphan's party for friends who either couldn't
or refused to visit their families. Eight people were eating that day,
so the table was expanded and filled to capacity with plates,
silverware, bowls, glasses, napkins, and flower arrangements. Nothing
matched, but then, it was 1995, before we bought dishes in stores other
than Target. Once the food was added to the table and the guests had
squeezed into their chairs in our tiny dining room, we poured more wine
and started to eat.

And eat. And drink. Around my third glass of wine, I looked around the
table at my partner, my friends from college, and old high school
friends. Something was in the back of my mind, but I couldn't put my
finger on it. I was relaxed from all the food and the wine, and later
we planned to smoke some pot and?that was it! I realized that I'd had
sex with every person at the table. Male, female - it didn't matter. At
some point, I'd been naked in a bed, on the floor, in a car, or in a
stairwell with each person around me. Some of those moments had been
serious, others drunkenly hilarious, and suddenly I could remember each
time.

"Do you know," I chirped, trying to keep a straight face, "That I've
had sex with each and every one of you? What do you say to that?"

They said a lot. "That was in that basement apartment where we all got
rug burns?" "All I know is that it was the coldest waterbed I'd ever
been on?" "I hadn't even finished coming down off those mushrooms when
I find myself stripped?" "We snuck out of our sleeping bags and went
into the other room?"

Not much later, the conversation resumed its regular course, without
the awkward silences that such an announcement might have caused. But
after laughing along with everyone else, I started to think - about
sex, certainly, but mostly about what sex does to friendship. The
conclusion - that having sex with my friends had made us neither closer
nor more estranged - surprised me at first. Then it made sense.

I've always believed that sex is the easy part; it's the aftermath
that's scary. But that belief is specific to new relationships, new
lovers who may or may not like you (and whom you may or may not like).
Sexually bond with the man of your dreams, a man who was just using you
as a booty call, and the results can be disastrous. The opposite holds
true, as well: Ignore that lovely lady whose fire you lit, and God only
knows what'll end up on your doorstep.

With my friends, however, the drama never continued into lengthy phone
calls, impassioned voicemails, or wicked glares from across crowded
rooms. We knew each other too well. What was one romp compared to
watching each other throw up Pina Coladas or borrow money for crab
shampoo? When you have sex with a friend, you think, "Ah, finally. Now
we can get this out of the way." Afterwards, you think, "Okay, not bad.
Mostly what I expected. I wonder where I put that new pair of
socks."

Of course, as with all things, sex between friends has its downside.
Sex releases an immediate tension, but it can also destroy that lesser
known tension that keeps two people interested in one another. Sex
negates the mystique, from a person's smell to how they look in the
nude. Watch somebody in the throes of orgasm, somebody you'd hadn't
necessarily planned on watching, and you might never play bridge with
that person the same way again.

I fall somewhere between the feminine and masculine stereotypes of
sexuality: Sex is selfish, it is giving; sex is biological, it is love.
Sex is the Yin Yang yo-yo of human existence. And despite my sluttish
habits, I've learned quite a bit. Most recently, for instance (and
eight years after that Thanksgiving dinner) I have learned to ask
myself the question: What does friendship do to sex? Not "What does sex
do to a friendship," but vice versa.

Because that's where it all starts to go downhill, at least for me. I
can't seem to straddle that fine line between lover and friend, between
sexual partner and roommate. What does friendship do to sex? Plenty, in
my book, which may be the most depressing thing I've thought about in a
long, long time.