Co-workers spill about sex

I was standing at the mirror, combing my hair and listening to a sex addict describe an "average" day in a radio interview. It was as stomach churning as you might expect, but then the interviewer said the addict's name. My hand froze in mid-air as I stared into my own shocked eyes.

Hey! I worked with that dude at my last newspaper! He was a sex addict? And he wrote a book about it?!

Not only did he write a book -- "America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life" -- but he's the third journalist I worked with at that paper to spill their sexual business so publicly.

The first was a real jaw-dropper: The book "Mozart in the Jungle: Sex Drugs, and Classical Music." The author worked at the paper less than a year and had been gone awhile when the book editor urgently called us over to her desk to see the galley proof that arrived, unannounced, in the mail. Yeah, we knew this chick was a little kooky, but we had no idea that her past included ... ahem, quoting Publishers Weekly:

"By age 16, the author of this alternately piquant and morose memoir was dealing marijuana, bedding her instructors at a performing arts high school and studying the oboe. Later, her blossoming career as a freelance musician in New York introduced her to a classical music demimonde of cocaine parties and group sex that had her wondering why she 'got hired for so many of my gigs in bed ...' "

Yeah. WOW. You never really know the people you work with, do you?

Then last year the paper's former movie critic penned "Accidentally on Purpose: A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made." The book title says it all. I danced with her "mistake" -- a beautiful infant boy at the time -- to "I Will Survive" at a wedding.

But if baring the raw truth that her child was the result of sex with some random bar dude wasn't enough, she continued True Confession Time with a Modern Love essay for the New York Times. Entitled "Sexy Ribbon on the Buyout Package," in it she spilled about an affair she had with a co-worker that began when they met over drinks to discuss buyouts.

E-mails, texts and phone calls blazed across the country between present and former co-workers, primarily because, even though she didn't name the reporter, the description left no doubt as to who he was. Under subject lines and comments such as "OMG!" "WTF?" "Oh no she didn't!" and "They did it in the back seat of his car! Nasty!!" were discussions about the timing (Had he already filed for divorce when it started? Wait, was she the reason he filed?) and her state of mind (What was she thinking? Was this revenge? Why?)

WHY?

I guess the easy answer would be "because they can." You could say that's what journalists do: inform readers by telling good stories. That these stories were their own might make them more compelling.

I suppose it's what Alicia and I do, on a much less dramatic note: we try to engage and entertain readers by writing about things we've experienced, and maybe inspire rumination and conversation along the way. Truth is that A) my name and picture are on this blog, B) I have to face blog-skimming co-workers every day, and C) at my core I'm a good Southern girl who doesn't want to shame her mama. I might push the boundaries a little -- broken condom fears, talking about my friend Trouble, and my friend Gabrielle's visit to an orgy, among others -- and I'm sure I'll push them even more. But will I tell all, like my former co-workers? Nah. I still believe in the allure of mystery.