Don't do it in the dark! Lights on, clothes off-for Sarah Broom, that's the best practice for risk-taking, forgiveness, passion.(Inhibited?)

And so it came as a shock to me. I'd gotten ready for bed and stood stark naked in front of the man with whom I had undressed. We went tit for tat--he removed his shirt, then I removed mine, lest either of us feel the need to outdo the other. I loved what I saw. I made my way toward bed; he made his way toward the lamp. I heard him say, "On or off?" and before I could get sarcastic with him, say "Are you kidding?," I was staring into blackness. For a second I did not know where to direct my eyes, did not know where in the room he stood, and this reminded me why I have nearly always made love with the lights on. Not because I am afraid of the dark, no, but because to be intimate with someone I have chosen and to miss laying my eyes on their physical geography is like eating my mother's shrimp creole with a clothespin shutting my nose. Certain things, like crying, do not need light, I know. Sex, for me, is not one of them.

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My mother liked to tell us 12 children that those things done in private are preparation for how one might show oneself in public. I do not know that my mother meant for me to go as far as this, but I have long felt that the bedroom was the perfect training ground, a microcosm of the world, since so much is exposed there, given and sometimes taken away. The thinking is this: If I can get naked in front of you here, stand fully in this body, with its inadequacies and ...