I am not a whore.

   I am not a lady of the evening. I am not a floozy. I am not a harlot. I am not a hooker. I am not a pickup. I am not a skank. I am not a nymphomaniac. I am not a pavement princess.

   I am an average, ordinary woman.

   I just have needs, and because of these needs, I have several men in my life. That doesn’t make me a player, nor does that make me nasty. I have … friends.

   Friends with benefits.

   It is a natural human need to be wanted, to be held, and to be caressed. I need to want a man, I need to hold a man, and I need to caress a man. I like to be wanted by a man, I like to be held by a man, and I love to be caressed by a man.

   In fact, I like it so much, that one man just isn’t enough for me. I need a great deal of love, even if it isn’t love at all. And while many people may disagree, it isn’t all physical, this friends with benefits thing. We don’t always end up in the bedroom.

   Sometimes we end up in the kitchen, in the tub, in the shower, in the car, outside …

   Let me first make one thing perfectly clear: I am not addicted to sex. I lived more than half my life without sex, so I can live without it. I was not molested as a child, and I was not raped as a teenager. I was not sleeping around in middle school. I do not need therapy. I do not have a screw loose. I am not nor have I ever been on medication other than an occasional aspirin. I am, as far as I can tell, a normal, healthy human being who likes to have sex.

   There, I’ve said it. I like sex. It’s one of God’s greatest inventions. I like the way I feel when I’m having sex, and I love living forever in the time it takes to have sex. Why is it so wrong for a woman to enjoy what got us all here in the first place? My men obviously like to have sex with me, I feel sexy as hell (and I’m not any magazine’s definition of beauty), and for a little while at least, I feel immortal.

   As a normal, healthy human being, I was one of those people who used to think, Nah, that kind of thing would never happen to me. I’ll be lucky to get and keep one guy. I believed in all that one-man, one-woman monogamy hype. I believed that it was not proper for a lady to see two or more men at the same time and remain a lady.

   I don’t believe any of that anymore. I’m all about breaking traditions and stereotypes, and I know I’m not the only woman out here doing it.

   At least I hope I’m not the only woman out here doing it.

   I can’t be the only woman who enjoys the chase, the anticipation, the foreplay, the pawing and gnawing, the raw emotion, and the grunting, sweaty sighing. And if I am the only one, so be it.

   I know that I’m not supposed to enjoy sex because centuries of conditioning (I paid attention in my psych. class at Virginia Western) have taught women not to enjoy sex. Just lay back and take it, we’ve been told.

   I do not just lie back and take it because I do not live in the past.

   I do not live in a past that said women could not own land, testify in court, vote, smoke, drive, play sports, have their own orgasms, get jobs, run corporations, or campaign for president. To people who think that way I say, “Get over yourselves. The twenty-first century is the century of the woman. We still need equal rights in the boardroom and the bedroom. We still need equal rights in the workplace and the sleeping place.”

   I doubt that Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report will see it that way and run nice cover stories on my new sexual revolution, but … that’s how I feel.

   So who are these men in my life? I call them Earth, Wind, and Fire. Roger McDowell (“Earth”), Karl Henderson (“Wind”), and Juan Carlos Gomez (“Fire”) are friends first and lovers second, and a person can never have too many friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed, right? Even the Bible says that a friend loves at all times.

   I just get more, um, friendship than most women I know.

   Men who do this kind of juggling get nothing but praise and envy from other men and even from some women. They get called “Casanova” or “Don Juan” or “Prince Charming,” or, well, Hugh Hefner. They get to be called “studs” and “wolves,” not “pavement princes.” Not all men act this way, now, not even a majority, but I guarantee there are a lot of men who wish they could keep three women on a string, and not just for the physical excitement. They all crave the praise of their peers. They want to hear, “Look at him. Look what’s he’s got. That man has got it made in the shade.”

   I guess I crave praise, too, but not from other women. I get praise from the three men who I “hang and bang with,” according to my best friend, Izzie. As for other women—or other people, for that matter—let’s just say they don’t know what I’m doing (not even my mama!) because so far I have kept everything quietly under control. Oh, Izzie knows everything, but she keeps her big trap shut as a best friend should. Izzie seems to live all of her sexual fantasies through me, and I can’t let her lose those fantasies, can I?

   Anyway, if my men (did I mention I only have three?) want to see other women when they’re not with me, that’s okay. As long as they wear condoms every time with every one of their ho’s, I’m cool with it. They have needs, too, right?

   Just think: if all of us had friends with benefits, what a better world we could have. For one thing, we couldn’t have Republicans or Democrats anymore. They don’t want anyone to be friends. And two, the Society of Friends would increase its membership rolls. The Shakers and Quakers or whatever they’re called could finally have some fun on Sundays. And three, the TV show “Friends” would still be on the air. Wasn’t that show what “friends with benefits” was all about? Hmm? Who didn’t do whom on that show?

   I would have done Joey, Chandler, and Ross—in that order.

   I have my standards.

   I have three friends who, let’s say, entertain me, who make me feel like a natural woman for a couple hours a week. Roger is my earth-brother, my soul, my Mr. Meat ‘n’ Potatoes, who likes good conversation before, during, and after good and often kinky sex. Karl is my wind-brother, my roots, my Mr. Hot Wings ‘n’ Corn Bread, who has to do it loud, proud, and rowdy. And Juan Carlos is my fire-brother, my passion, my Mr. Salsa ‘n’ Pinto Beans, who likes to make fierce, passionate, hot love to me. Put them all together, and I have a man who doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs around me, has curly hair, dark eyes, six sets of hands, speaks two languages, loves to make love to me, always wears a condom, and weighs over five hundred pounds.

   Just kidding. They maybe average one-seventy, one-eighty each.

   And no, I do not entertain them all at once. That can never happen, nor is it even one of my fantasies. Okay, I do have the fantasy involving Roger and chocolate whipped topping (the fat-free kind) and one with Juan Carlos involving long-stem roses. Oh, and one with Karl and some chocolate-covered strawberries, but that’s neither here nor there.

   When I really think about my situation, I realize that I’m doing all three of my men a favor. I don’t require their love and devotion, I don’t require a commitment, I don’t require their money (just their time), and I don’t even require their faithfulness. Why ask a man for what he cannot, does not, or is unwilling to provide? Why ask a man to do what he is not wired or programmed genetically to do?

   Oh, I used to want all that commitment stuff, as if my stuff was so good that a man would only want me morning, noon, and night. Four bad relationships in a row after high school taught me otherwise. My stuff is good, and I know how to entertain. But the men I was committed to back then had fifteen-minute (or less) attention spans. Oh, they said the right things like “You’re my one and only Boo, Lana,” and “Lana, you’re my everything,” and “I only want to be with you, Lana,” but their body language always said otherwise. They had one foot out of the bed, one hand grasping a pair of boxers or drawers, and one set of eyes looking for the bathroom, the kitchen, and the exit, usually in that order.  

   Why three? Why not three? Four might be a little hard to juggle. There are only seven days in a week, leaving me six days to entertain and one day to rest. Three men work out just fine. Even God rested after six days, you know.

   And Sunday is when Izzie usually shows up. If the world could hear what Izzie and I talk about, we’d be the most scandalous kind of reality TV. But it’s not as if my three amigos are that consistent and I’m getting some every night. It works out to maybe twice a week (just under the national average) with at least one earth-shattering, window-breaking, make the bullfrogs-wanna-holler-at-the-moon orgasm. I get their friendship, their warmth, their focus, and then …

   They go.

   They’re gone.

   Goodbye. Adios. See ya. Aloha. Ciao.

   Not one of them stays the night, not one of them has a drawer of his very own, not one of them leaves a toothbrush in my bathroom, and not one of them has a special shelf in the refrigerator.

   They’re here, they’re not.

   I even use air freshener to cover the scent of their various colognes. I prefer to use Oust since it completely eliminates their odors.

   As a result, I’m never lonely. How can I be lonely when I have my space, I allow them to invade mine (twice if they’re nice), and they’re cool with the leaving part? And as far as I can tell, none of my men has grown tired of me.

   Friends.

   With benefits.

   Don’t knock it—or me—until you put your fantasies to good use and try it.