This past Sunday was the 13-year anniversary of my first foray into adult chat. There was something special about that time and place, when the Web was just starting to bring the internet to the masses and new sexual fear-fodder to the media and we were just on the threshold of broadband.

When I joined that chat room it was an HTML page that refreshed every five seconds and showed the new posts in a batch, in different font colors. Then it upgraded to java and we could connect via IRC, which I did, for years. And then one day I just stopped. I didn’t need it anymore; the people I needed were securely in my life by other means. Others had faded away through natural attrition and the community shifted, adapting to the needs of the new group.

Because of that experience, between then and now I healed from childhood sexual distress (I don’t like the word “abuse” anymore, it has been … abused … too much). I left a marriage that wasn’t right for either of us; I had great love, and shattering heartbreak; I learned how to be enthusiastic and exuberant about sex; I wrote articles about sex-tech and then wrote a column about it for five years; I authored two books on the subject and had a regular spot on a radio show. I discovered the word “polyamory” and many puzzles from my past fell instantly into place.

Then I walked away.

Even now, a year after retiring the column, I get emails from people who want to share their stories of pain or triumph (often both) with me. I also get a lot of “Dear Abby” questions, to which I reply the best I can, with the caveat that I am not a relationship advice columnist and that most of the time people already know the answer but want validation or permission – or hope that the answer they know is right is actually wrong.

It’s been amazing. I’m focusing now on my “day job” work, my health, my loved ones, and my animals, but I think often about that chat room — the people, not the room itself — and the profound effects it had and continues to have on my life. And about all the people who reached out to me through their responses to the column, their sex-tech innovations and questions and opinions, their delight and wonder when they discovered new good things about themselves and their sexuality. It amazes me still that I got to be a part of your sexual journeys; you certainly have been a part of mine.

I am certain that such communities still exist today, perhaps in 3D platforms, perhaps in webcam rooms, perhaps even still on IRC. The tools have changed faster than people’s needs have changed, and I think Facebook and Twitter fill much the same need today that our chat room did for us: a touch of someone else’s life, a bit of humor, a bit of shared tragedy, a flirtatious comment, a sense of connection (and no, I’m not going to argue if it is ‘real’ or ‘valid’ or ‘disconnection masquerading as connection’ — that’s a matter of individual experience and impossible to generalize accurately).

Here’s a toast to everyone who knew Aphrodite (and I owe some of you apologies, too; all I can say is that I was learning, and trying, and doing the best I could do at the time, as were we all) and a fervent hope that the next 13 years will not be nearly as painful as the past 13. *wink*