Two people can choose to have sex for no other reason than that it feels good. It doesn’t have to be the next step in a committed relationship. It doesn’t have to be about love. But if you tell me that it means nothing, I’ll lift an eyebrow in disbelief. The essays in this book are proof enough. No matter how many years have passed, the writers remember vivid details about how it felt, what they thought, why they did it, and what it meant.

Sex can be about power or intimacy or relationship or rebellion or babies but we are a long way from a time in human evolutionary history where sex is for reproduction alone. That’s why people have been writing books and telling jokes about sex for centuries.

It’s also why, in the next story, Erica’s first time is intricately connected to a much more complicated narrative about friendship and faith and finding our way.