Describe your latest project.
Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity is the story of a girlhood addicted to male attention. It chronicles my experiences, beginning at age 11 and ending in my late 20s, when I focused on boys at the expense of all else. It is the story of how I needed boys' attention and the sex that invariably ensued to mean that I was worth loving, and to make me matter.

If someone were to write your biography, what would be the title and subtitle?
Um, how about Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity? I think that fits nicely.

Introduce one other author you think people should read, and suggest a good book with which to start.
One of my favorite nonfiction authors is Gretel Ehrlich. All of her prose is poetry. She is immensely skilled at relaying the connections between people and place, how our environment, and how we see it, is always a mirror of ourselves. My most favorite essay of hers is "Cold Comfort: Looking for the Sun in Greenland's Endless Night," which can only be found in the March 1997 issue of Harper's magazine. I also love her book The Solace of Open Spaces.

How did the last good book you read end up in your hands and why did you read it?
I have been on a good book run for about three months now. This is great news, because few times are more depressing than the ones where I am not thrilled by whatever I'm reading and can't seem to find one that will fill my craving. They're all memoirs, and they're all excellent in that swallow-me-whole way I love: Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher, Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and Tweak by Nic Sheff (David's son), and Grief Girl, a young adult memoir by Erin Vincent.

What is your idea of absolute happiness?
Because I am mother to two small boys, happiness is a hotel room all to myself for 36 hours so I can sleep.

What is your favorite indulgence, either wicked or benign?
Sticking my nose into my children's necks and inhaling. Nothing is better.

Why do you write?
I think I might write because I don't believe in a god. Writing helps me make sense of a life filled with struggles and occasional happiness. It helps me give purpose to what would otherwise often feel senseless. Honestly, I don't know how other people don't write.

Share an interesting experience you've had with one of your readers.
Before the book even came out, lots of people were indignant about the fact that I had dared to refer to myself as promiscuous when I had only slept with 40-plus guys. People were really pissed about this! At least three relatively well-known bloggers wrote very mean, personal attacks, essentially accusing me of being a disgusting attention whore who had not earned a book. Well over 250 commenters came on to agree. Some said things like, "I sleep with 40 guys per year. Where's my book contract?" Many were sickened that I had written two books on the subject (one is a young adult novel). At first I felt pummeled. I expected some backlash and misunderstanding, but not the level of personal hatred I was seeing. After I dropped my defenses, though, I realized how ridiculous the whole thing was. I mean, they were pissed at my number. My slut stats. It actually shows how much my story gets misconstrued and molded into more familiar discourse, and it's a good entryway into more constructive discussion.

I can't say what will hurt or feel right for another person. I only know that of the 40-some-odd boys and men I had sex with, maybe two or three were fulfilling situations. The rest made me feel like crap. Only one could be defined as rape — meaning, I actively didn't want that one to happen — but most all the other sex felt just as violating and self-destructive. And yet I chose it. I kept choosing to have sex, not from a place of natural sexual desire, or just because I was attracted to a guy and wanted to get with him. I was having sex from a place of terrible desperation. Every single time I did it because I needed the sex, and his interest in me sexually, to mean I was worthwhile and lovable.

If you could have been someone else, who would that be and why?
It would have been cool to be a guy, to see things from the other side.

Recommend five or more books on a single subject of personal interest or expertise.
Five Great Books about Teenage Girls and Sex (in no way an exhaustive list)

The Only Girl in the Car by Kathy Dobie

Towelhead by Alicia Erian

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Promiscuities by Naomi Wolf

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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Kerry Cohen received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon and an MA in counseling psychology from Pacific University. A practicing psychotherapist and the author of the young adult novel Easy, she lives with her husband and two sons in Portland, Oregon.