My friend Christian is 22 years old. He moved to LA to be a music producer. He is dating 3 different men, Robert who is 55, an Accountant, who lives in Silverlake, Max, 61, an artist who lives in a loft in Downtown LA, and Pete, a 57 year old Pilot full of muscles and wild adventures, who lives in Santa Monica.

Christian has other lovers. Some regulars, some guys he just fucks. He is honest with everyone about his sexual exploits. His three boyfriends all know about each other.

“I never considered it a problem,” Christian says to me. We are eating tacos at a truck he likes to take me to in Koreatown. “I like to fuck. They like to get fucked. It always seemed like a good deal to me. And my dudes…I don’t know. I just never felt like I wanted that one guy for the rest of my life. Robert, Max and Pete, they are fucking awesome guys and I love them. Each of them. Totally. I don’t know why that’s so hard for some guys to understand. Why they always have to turn something beautiful into something ugly.”

Recently Christian got called a sex addict. Because he has three boyfriends. Because he has lovers on the side. Because he likes to fuck.

“I’m 22, man. Maybe in ten years I’ll want something different. Maybe in ten years I’ll be like, damn, I want one dude, I want to get married and have a kid and buy a house. I mean, honestly, I doubt it, but maybe. I’m open to it. But this is who I am right now. I’m honest about who I am.” He laughs. “The only time it ever got out of control, if you wanta call it that, is this one weekend when I saw all my dudes, and fucked them all, and fucked like four other guys. But man, I was stupid horny that weekend, and stressed out, and maybe I was using my nut to chill out. I try not to do that, not because I think it’s bad, but because I don’t want to spend all my time chasing a nut. I’ve got a lot of shit I want to do with my life. I don’t want to lose my focus. But fuck it, I had fun that weekend.” He laughs again, he has an easy laugh, excited. “I think I nutted like ten times that Saturday!”

Christian tells me he didn’t like being called a sex addict. It made him feel like something was wrong when before he hadn’t felt like something was wrong.

I have written a lot about my sexual adventures (I estimate the amount of guys I’ve fucked at 3600 and counting!). I’ve written a lot about being poly and my beliefs on sexual freedom. I don’t think anyone should have to live their lives according to someone else’s beliefs or personal choices.

This idea that there is one way to love and fuck, one way to exist in the world, is total bullshit.

When I was a kid my mother threw a party with the theme “come dressed as your favorite astrological sign to fuck”. My mother came representing all 12. I remember listening as she described each sign, and why they were the best fuck of her life. Everyone laughed, but one of her friends said,

“Beverly never was one to commit to a man. One day she will pay the price for that.”

My mother just smiled. Later, when I asked her what her friend meant, my mother said,

“She meant to shame me for being who I am. She meant to control me. She meant to embarrass me. But she can’t do any of those things unless I let her. When people try to do that to you it means they are jealous, or they aren’t happy with who they are, they are feeling trapped, and instead of making changes to their own lives, they lash out at those around them who are happy. Who are being true to themselves.”

“I try to be responsible.” Christian says. “ I’m on PrEP, I get tested regularly. I talk to my partners, even the no stringed ones. You know, I like a little conversation, I like to look ‘em in the eyes when I’m fucking them. I try to be a good guy. But then this dude tells me I’m a sex addict. That there’s something wrong and it got me thinking, what if he’s right? What if something is wrong with me?”

We are in his apartment in Hollywood. He is playing a new song he mixed that day. Above his desk is a print of a photo he took: a homeless woman searching through a garbage can, at her feet is a baby pitbul. The woman looks up right as Christian is taking the picture: her face haunted, beautiful. Sad and yet defiant.

“Her name is Mary,” he tells me. “Everyone calls her Crazy Mary, but that bitch isn’t crazy. She has mad stories. Some nights, when I can’t sleep, I like to sit out there smoking joints with her and listening to her talk. She was once married, had some kids, was like a total Valley House-Wife. She fucked up, man. Smoked meth, got all wrapped up in that dark life, and now she’s here, on the streets, eating shit out of garbage cans.” He goes quiet, looking up at that photo, his music playing, “It’s that easy. Like one minute life is golden and the next it’s all dark and out of focus. I keep that picture there so I don’t forget. How fast it can all go away. Like one bad choice and you’re lost. Forever.”

Christian’s mother is from Mexico. Jalisco. He doesn’t know who his father is.

“My mother was always this free spirit, you know? I’m a lot like her. She’s had lots of lovers. There was this one guy, he was a movie producer, he loaned her the money to buy the house I grew up in. My mom cleaned houses every day so she could pay that man back. She didn’t want to owe any man anything. She always said, “If I’m with a man it’s because I’m choosing to be there. Not because I have to be. It’s a choice.”

“Do you think you’re a sex addict?” I asked him.

“Do you think I’m a sex addict?” He laughed. “Cus that’s the problem right? Dude, it fucked me up hearing that shit. Like had me questioning everything. One minute I’m fine with who I am, the next I’m like, damn, what the fuck is wrong with me? All cus some dude couldn’t handle me being me. Like, I gave him all this weight. Like what he thought mattered more than what I thought. It isn’t what he said. It’s what I allowed my head to do with what he said. The fucked up part: he wasn’t saying it to help me or because he was concerned for me. He said it to hurt me. And I let him.”

I have fucked a lot of guys in my life. I am a big believer in polyamory and open relationships, as well as monogamy and whatever other style of relationship you find to fit who you are. I am a big believer in being true to who you are, and fuck anyone who tries to tell you that there is something wrong with who you are. If you are honest, if you come at your partners with integrity and respect, if you show them kindness and love, then I do not believe it is anyone’s business who and how you fuck.

My husband and I, when planning out our honeymoon, decided we wanted the sexiest honeymoon adventure ever. We decided to go to Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. We wanted to fuck our way through those three weeks. I wrote a story for Vice about how Alex and I spent our honeymoon at Lab, the infamous sex club in the basement of Berlin’s Berghain. We had an incredible threeway with a man we met, who later became an important friend to me. We went to sex clubs and met hot guys, but we also spent time together, exploring, going on all the adventures and being as open to whatever life brought us.

I remember a friend telling me, “Wow, that sounds so sad. You spent you’re honeymoon in a sex club? Didn’t you guys want to be alone? Didn’t you guys want to celebrate your marriage just the two of you?”

I was shocked by this, which is maybe naïve. But I was. In my head we had celebrated our marriage just the two of us, we spent it in a way that celebrated who we were, the way we wanted. We had fun. We met some amazing guys. We got laid a lot and had some pretty fucking intense adventures. I am still friends with most of the guys we met during that trip.

“Do you think you’re a sex addict?” Christian asks me. We are eating Tacos again.

If you’re in LA you should seriously check out the taco truck on Ardmore and 8th. Those tacos are fucking amazing!

“No.” I say it confidently, but I’m not sure. I’m never sure. It’s hard not to let what other people think affect me. I am sober 7 years and a few months off of drugs and alcohol. I am an addict. But like Christian, I try to be responsible, I try to be aware. And I try to be balanced, even on those crazy days when you end up fucking four different guys. I try to make sure my life is always moving in a direction I want it to. “I just like to fuck.”

Christian laughs. “Hell yeah. Me too. I like to fuck a fuckin’ lot!”

Please check out my novel, Accidental Warlocks, on Amazon.