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slumber party she had when she was in junior high. The buzzing would kind of quiet down, and I'd think finally I could get to sleep. Then I'd hear a “Whap!” and little moans and giggles. Since then I've imagined planting a tape recorder at one of those parties. Wouldn't it be fun to 29

    hear what games they really play and who gets whapped and why?

    In the letters that follow, very early experiences are brought to mind. While Claudia is clearly a very healthy and erotic young woman, I like the way she gives herself permission not to hurry into sexual experience before she is emotionally ready for it. “I'm only fourteen years old, so I haven't screwed yet,” she says, adding, “but I do enjoy some sex with my boyfriends.” Reading her letter, we get the feeling that when she is ready for a full sexual experience, she will do it confidently, easily, and well. She will probably be the one who decides exactly when, where, and with whom it will take place.
    The progress of Claudia's life toward full womanly eroticism seems clear; the four next letters help us chart some of the pit-falls that seem to have lain in the way for other women. The difficult terrain is very clearly mapped in Janice's letter. “I deeply love my husband,” she writes “(we have been married sixteen years), but I have always been profoundly thrilled by my fantasies, which go back to an episode in my adolescence
    … . To me, now that I dare think about it after reading your book, it seems only natural that women should be aroused by incidents involving urination, given the fact that our sexual parts are so close to our urinary parts.” While the incident that Janice refers to in her fantasy happened during her adolescence, her erotic interest in, and confusion of, urinary and sexual processes most likely began far earlier in her life. By the time “Aunt Bessie” came along, Janice had long since been unconsciously prepared to find the older woman's invitation enough to “drive me out of my mind.” Denise's letter, too, reminds us that about the time mother began our toilet-training, she also began telling us not to play with ourselves “down there.” It is often a time of tension between mother and daughter – perhaps the first of their lifelong battles. All interest is focused on this one part of the body during this period, the mysteries of sex and urination become in-tertwined – because both seem to be forbidden. Eroticism and 30

    excretion become emotionally combined – the vagina is experienced as the seat of a double kind of excitement.
    The woman Frank writes about is fascinated by anal play –
    she calls herself an “anal-erotic.” I include his letter not so much for what he tells us about himself, but because his lover is such a clear example of Freud's dictum that the anal stage of development precedes the genital. Frank's lover chooses to live out with him those fantasies that are the outgrowth and expression of early toilet-training experiences … as also seems true of Lana, whose fantasy follows Frank's letter. Robyn daydreams happily about the guiltless pleasure of her fiancé giving her an enema. In these letters, I am struck by the marvels of human nature, its recuperative power and above all, its overriding drive for health and self-acceptance. Janice, Denise, Frank's lover, Lana, and Robyn have all taken what might seem at first glance to be behavioral hang-ups, but I have found in them sources of erotic pleasure instead. I applaud them all.
    Claudia
    I have just finished reading your book. Thank you, for it really opened my eyes to the way many women think. Some parts shocked me, other parts disgusted me, but most of it excited me. And I truly believe there are women who feel excited even by the things that turn me off … and that's okay for them.
    I find it exciting that we women are all so different.
    I have never been ashamed of my fantasies, but I just didn't know that's what they were. I'm only fourteen