Saying thanks for sex lessons over the years

Since it's Thanksgiving, I'm thinking about all the lessons about sex that I've learned over the last 22 years and for which I'm thankful. What I have to say might surprise you. Firstly, I'm grateful to live in a country where homosexuality and abortion are legally protected — for now — and to have received decent, though not perfect, sex education.

Now, for the personal blessings. Unlike the Duggar family of reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting, I don't believe saving sex for marriage is the key to happiness. Instead, I'm convinced all my previous hookups, dates and relationships have shaped me into who I am today. They weren't all positive, but they did each teach me valuable lessons. So without further ado:

I'm grateful to the 31-year-old man I lost my virginity to the summer between high school and college. Having an older man shower me with attention made me feel glamorous. Of course, looking back, I find the age difference creepy, but in the moment, I wanted to feel sophisticated (even though I was actually just the opposite), and our fling provided that air of faux adulthood I took with me freshman year. Plus, it made me feel "caught up" with my more sexually advanced friends.

I'm glad I slept with a woman for the first time the night before taking the LSATs (law school admission test). While I doubt it helped my test score, I remember I was blushing and giddy with new-relationship energy when I took the exam.

I'm thankful for the guy who told me he just "wasn't into" going down on women — after I'd gone down on him — for showing me the kind of pompous lovers I don't want in my bed.

I'm thankful for a friend's invitation to my first sex party, and that I had the courage to attend solo. I was around 22, and too enamored of the idea to be nervous. Afterward, I spent the night with the hosts, who showed me a couple can share another person and still be madly in love.

I'm glad I attended an impromptu BDSM play party, where I was non-consensually handed a rope attached to the limb of a woman in the midst of a bondage scene — for what it taught me about how to say no. Instead of doing so immediately and unequivocally, I wanted to seem "cool," so I pretended I knew what was going on. At this party, I was scolded for wanting to be a mere voyeur. My takeaway: consent matters in any kind of sexual or kinky encounter. Any sex event in which you're made to feel uncomfortable or pressured into engaging in certain behavior is one you want to avoid.

I regret, but am still grateful for, having cheated on my former girlfriend, for showing me how guilty it made me feel during and afterward. I couldn't even say I'd done it because of love (not that that would have been a good excuse), but rather simply because the opportunity presented itself. I learned that cheating isn't just something "other" people do, but something most of us are probably susceptible to if the circumstances are right. Now, when I promise not to cheat, I mean it.

I'm glad I spent the night in the Atlanta airport cuddling and giving and getting handjobs with one of the sweetest men I've ever met (we'd both missed our planes). Yes, I felt the thrill of possibly getting caught, but I also learned you can have flirty, tender casual sex, the kind that, were we not headed off to different countries, might have led to something more. I think of it more as a romantic one-night stand that just happened to occur at the world's busiest airport.

Having just turned 39, I'm still discovering my sexual wants and needs, rather than assuming that because I'm "settled down" I know all there is to know about my body (or my partner's). I always have more to learn, and that is what I'm most thankful for.

✚ Rachel Kramer Bussel is the author of the essay collection Sex & Cupcakes and editor of over 50 erotica anthologies, most recently Hungry for More and The Big Book of Submission. She tweets @raquelita.