by Susie Bright

About the author: Susie Bright is an author and editor of the Best American Erotica series.

I’ve been doing some traveling this summer, and every place I visit I pick up the local paper and read every word, down to each classified ad. Of course, there are plenty of local scandals to shake my head at, but what’s been steaming up my glasses this season are the endless sex-scare headlines—one wide-eyed, hand-wringing tract after another:

"Herpes: There's nothing you can do about it!"
"What you must tell your kids about sex before it's too late!"
"You may have a sexually transmitted disease—even if you've never had sex!"
You can read this stuff everywhere from the Hartford Courant to the Honolulu Advertiser. Why don't they just...