Award Winning Author of Erotica Rachel Kramer Bussel Columns

For my last SexIs column, I wanted to share some thoughts about how to turn me on that I've gleaned from reading through old columns and simply exploring sex in my personal and professional life. In truth, the real answer to that equation would be a blank column, because there is no one way, or even one thousand ways. There are infinite ways, as many as there are people in the world and days in a year, and I’m always amused and surprised when something that did nothing for me with one lover turns me on with the next—and I’m not necessarily talking about in bed, although that “rule” applies there too. When I like someone, it’s usually some quirky, very possibly dorky, trait or action of theirs that stays with me far beyond the strictly sexual. That will make me notice them, and keep noticing them, will make me pay attention with my brain, my biggest sex organ. Maybe they’re impressed that I know who playwright Sarah Ruhl is, maybe they cook me an amazing meal, maybe they take a book I’ve given them and toss it on the ground in a way that’s so ferocious I...

News broke recently that Dallas Mavericks basketball player Lamar Odom was seen at a strip club, prompting rumors that his marriage to reality TV star Khloé Kardashian is in trouble. I use them as an example not simply because I could call this column "Sex and the Kardashians," since I mention them so much, but because they're the latest celebrity couple to be put to the strip club media scrutiny test, though surely won't be the last. I obviously have no clue about the state of their marriage, but the idea that just because a man visits a strip club, he's not interested in his wife, is ludicrous. I've been on dates to strip clubs, and enjoyed the dual acts of voyeurism and exhibitionism — watching the dancers, and being watched when I got a lap dance. Plenty of couples go to strip clubs together, and I'd think we've moved on from the idea that strip club patrons are only men. Yes, I'm bisexual, so that makes me more inclined to be into the idea of visiting a strip club than a straight woman, but there are plenty of straight women who enjoy strip clubs as...

My takeaway is that even for someone who's a control freak with a submissive streak, I have to surrender, to wait and see, because all attempts to micromanage my sex life simply lead to disaster. That doesn't mean that I can't have a say, or think hard about what my dream situation would be, or learn from my mistakes. All of those things are on my 2012 agenda. It's more that I know that if I were to declare I'm not dating for all of 2012, I'd immediately find myself caught in a dilemma that I don't want to deal with. Last February, I was sure that taking the bulk of the year off from sex and dating were a way out, an escape route from all the drama that had led up to that point, and maybe they would've been, but then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of experiencing a wonderful, if brief, relationship. I was on to something then, something I knew deep down: I was too overscheduled, too busy, too overwhelmed. The past few months, as I’ve slowed my life way down, focused on work , planning events and travel and learned about things like monitoring blog traf...

Whether it's people squicked out by pornography (like the author who didn't want a review of his book to run in Penthouse) or the umpteen kinds of slut-shaming that happen in big and small ways, we haven't quite moved past thinking we know what's best for others when it comes to sex. Recently, a debate sprang up after Dr. Stanley Siegel wrote a piece called “In Defense of Casual Sex” with a follow-up called “Why I Advocate for Casual Sex”. He brought up lots of good points about exactly how “casual” that kind of sex is and why there’s important lessons to be learned from it: “Upon turning sixty-five, I recognize that casual sex has often been as intimate for me as were the two long-term relationships I have had. Unencumbered by a complex commitment, the freedom found in casual sex allowed me to move beyond self-consciousness and achieve a level of honesty and authenticity for myself, and my partner, in a way previously unknown to me.” I’ve had my share of commitment-free sex that was just as powerful for me as sex within a relationship, but I don’t think...