1. As Cher so passionately laments, "If I could turn back time…" Well if you could, what would you erase from your erotic record?

Perhaps Edith Piaf is a better model when looking back at the past.

• The drunken party where I lost my virginity (correction: flung it away), whereupon I awoke next to the lucky recipient and he asked seedily, "Was it good for you?" When I replied, "Frankly, no," he responded, "So I guess a blowjob is out of the question?"

• Me, a quasi-celebrity and Île-Ste-Hélène. The experience was so ridiculous and unsatisfying that I wish I could erase the memory of it from my mind, if not from reality.

• Coked-out first-time dildo sex with the lights on with my horrible ex-girlfriend.

• My first and only dominatrix, who, as it turns out, was a friend of a friend of almost everyone I know.

• Farting while cumming.

• Hmmm… not so much erase something but somebody.

• Nothing. Even though I have suffered some serious heartbreak, bad-news pap smears, and a furious fire that still burns in me from a psycho mind-fucker, I wouldn't change a thing. It's made me what I am now: a combination of humbleness, humour, curiosity, instinct and wicked self-esteem.

• That hardcore fetish sex that I let people film in some warehouse on the West Island.

• Doing my future brother-in-law, as this caused problems after he married my sister.

• Being mauled by Jerry the renowned lech in the doorway of the old Mad Hatter's on Metcalfe.

• About half - no, make that three quarters - of the people I've slept with.

• It was 1987. Handcuffs were fashionable. My girlfriend of the time had me on the wooden floor, one arm cuffed to the bed, the other hand free so I could eat peanut butter and toast ('twas breakfast time). My landlord wandered upstairs, knocked on my door and walked into my bedroom before said girlfriend could emerge from toastmaking duties in the kitchen and stop him. I wish I'd been eating oysters and chocolate rather than the PB - If you're gonna get caught, do it in style.

• I was very excited about a new guy since he was claiming to be a "Sex God." When the moment came and he unzipped his pants, I was completely baffled! Erect, his penis was in a form of a banana (tip downwards). I hadn't seen anything like it and I couldn't go on. I also felt really sick.

• Getting fucked up the ass with no lube.

• The time I gave a guy a half-hour blowjob and blew out my jaw muscles for a week, only to have him tell me he didn't want to come because it wasn't "romantic."

• Any time I was promised that casual sex wouldn't fuck up the friendship.

• Not wearing a condom. I think I got off lucky "only" getting genital warts, but getting genital warts still really sucks.

2. Have you ever caught a lover in flagrante delicto (while the crime is blazing) and if so, what was your resulting course of action or revenge?

• Oh boy, did I ever. Suspected him all along, to great denial and claims of my outrageous, oppressive jealousy, of course. So I knew he would lie even when confronted with certain proof. I cross-examined the woman who finally snitched after he pissed her off, built up a great case, slammed him in the face with it (led him on, let him lie, then yelled "Wrong!" after each answer like some tyrannical game show host) and never spoke to him again. Sure miss his dog, though. Saw some other poor sucker walking her the other day.

• Revenge? By denying her me, of course.

• I caught her making out with another guy at a Finley Quaye concert. What did I do? I left.

• Nope. All were satisfied and weren't hungry for second helping elsewhere.

• I was exhausted so I tried to sleep while the then girlfriend (an avowed lesbian who often talked about not being into men at all - I was young, but should've known by that alone) stayed up to hang out with my then best friend and roommate (a guy). I couldn't sleep, so an hour later I wandered into his room to chill with them. Mistake! Shock! Horror! Huh? Yep, they were fucking, yep I stormed out, yep she followed "to explain." We proceeded, of course, to fuck like mad. My revenge? I never spoke to her again. Very effective, that.

• No, but if I did, I would probably destroy his drum kit.

• No, but if I did it would be totally Bobbit!

Regular readers of the Mirror survey may have noticed the poetic impulse of some respondents, and this year we're giving them all an opportunity to really go the distance.

3. The feeling you get eating someone out, in a haiku.

Beautiful, people! I mean, I am blown away by the love.

• If you trim your hair/my tongue will cast a sloppy spell/no crevice left untouched

• I hear her cum and/I feel like a god during/the kiss I like best

• Slipping of the tongue/deep instinctual passion/drives all lust outward

• Fleshy fleshy flesh/hairy juicy fun pleasure/keep zingy going

• Deliciously lost/I delve deeper and wonder…/that my wet or hers?

• Hope I'm doing this right/should I stick my finger in?/yes! A smashing idea!

• My tongue like Red Five/snaking through the Deathstar's trench/a nerd in heaven

• I usually sing jingles in my head. What the fuck is a haiku? I beg your pardon if I'm not sooo in the fucking know of some latest oriental fad in the bloke world.

• Fuck, I really wish I knew what a haiku was. But the feeling I get is depending upon the person I'm attempting to please. The more pleasure I give the more I get.

• I can't get my… tongue… far… enough… inside! Fuck! (I skipped poetry in favour of fantasizing with my best friend about mentally fucking our ultra-hot English teacher who we dubbed "Ice Queen.")

4. The feeling you get giving someone a blowjob, in a haiku.

• Not bi-curious/but if she wore a strap-on/I'd go down like that

• I feel so horny/would love to have another/guy in me at once

• Delectable feel/tongue-rolling predilection/Your sighs drive me on

• Hold my head down hard/and I will castrate you in/less than a second

• Mmmm yummm ohhhhhhhhhh uh uh/hair caught in the back of my throat/slurp suck smile gulp kiss

• You say I'm the best/but that's because I can't wait/for this work to end

• Oh what fun this is/oopsy! I almost gagged there/time to lick the balls.

• Answered to spices/so very hot and quite sweet/stays warm while snow falls

• Oh my distant cock/with a little more yoga/I shall suck thee yet

• Detached, strong, powerful/flick of wrist while head bobbing/Fun until he shoots

• Here is my haiku about what it felt like giving my bike lock a blowjob:

Bike frozen, lock too/Hot lips bend down and do it/Blow hot, steady and hard.

• Lips stick and firm up/Silky tongue lubricates/Tastes like kryptonite.

• I am watched and the/Guy asks in a breathless tone/Can you do me too?

Three perennial favourites actually make the editing, spell check and general mania worth it for me each and every year:

5. Your worst sex accident, and did it require medical attention?

As they say in England, mind the gap!

• I slid off the bed while wearing a butt plug. Slam up the ass! But I'm a smart gal - it had a flared base. No medical attention required.

• I was visiting this woman I didn't know all that well. We'd talked sex a-plenty - enough to know we were into similar forms of play, including hot wax. She had a number of candles burning. We started going at it. She reached for a large candle that must have been burning for some time. Intending to drizzle a trail of wax down my belly, onto my thighs, and lightly onto my clit, she instead lost her balance and dumped a puddle of red-hot wax all over my hunka-hunka now burning cunt. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced, as was the ice pack that followed. No medical attention, no, and next to no wax play ever since.

• Passion lends itself, in my case, to being easily distracted. And sometimes mundane household chores fall by the wayside. Such was the case the delightful afternoon my sweetheart and I were thrashing about the kitchen, the countertop providing the perfect height and all that. If only I had remembered to put the cap back on the Liquid Plumber before it was inadvertently knocked over. No medical assistance required, his thighs stopped stinging by the next day. The rash on my lily-white bottom took a little longer to clear up.

• No sex accidents, just some serious UTIs, but I do know a story about this one woman and a cherry popsicle… [Oh dear. That would be me, and I think she knows this because she dated my ex-boyfriend - Sasha]

• Getting a yeast infection on my dick. No medical attention, I toughed it out. I was horseback riding again in no time.

• The bouncing was getting so wild, the bed broke, no medical attention required.

• My hands and feet were strapped up on a low ceiling above a table so as to encourage strategic angling. Well I fucking fell before cumming, which wasn't too cool. (No medical attention required, thanks.)

• Merely charley horses from much cramped sex in a 1986 Acadian.

• Tongue rings stuck together (one was a hoop). Not that serious, but funny.

• When I was very young it was unprotected sex, which resulted in three trips to the clinic and tons of creams and medications. Worse part was the doctor made me feel as if my life was over and I was only 15.

• Getting a "natural" product from Chinatown designed for erection maintenance. It felt as though I had stuck my face in a curry buffet. Fortunately, as a pot smoker, I keep an excellent selection of eye drops around, which seemed to mitigate the situation.

• Nothing worse than rug burn so far.

• Vibrator exploded inside me. No medics involved but wheeeeh!

6. Your best commercially produced sex toy, and why?

Hey Daddio, don't be a…

• Sex toys are what we make of them, right? The item that really gets me going: my Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction wig and then fuck myself in the mirror.

• It was my ex-girlfriend's dildo, but she only seemed to like using it on me. It was beautiful: red, sculpted, soft and see-through - not too mention thick as a baby's wrist. She also bought me a standard, black butt-plug that I daydream about every once in a while.

• Magic Wand from Hitachi!

• I had that vibrator with the little rodent on it but that got old. Nothing beats the shower massager, and I don't give a damn who says otherwise. You can change the pressure, temperature and width of the water stream. What sex toy does that?

• I have been very satisfied by my pocket rocket. Always reliable, even though it sometimes seems to be a battery waster.

• It's a three-way tie: the Magic Wand, a gorgeous glass dildo and the ever so yummy Atomic Disintegrator silicone dildo I bought in Halifax. The Wand because it's a guaranteed orgasm no matter the scenario or situation; the glass dildo because it's so smooth, long and heats up with friction; and the silver silicone Disintegrator because its three deep ridges and gorgeously big head give me the most intense, full-bodied cum ever ever.

• Condoms. I would have had much less sex in my life if they didn't exist.

• My favourite right now is the large, ultra realistic, bright-pink dildo I call Flamingo. Though her looks don't do much for me, you just can't beat what her giant head does to my G-spot.

• Remote-controlled panty vibrator. You can be masturbating anywhere, anytime.

• Possibly the Beaver, a dual-speed, rotating vibrator with a funny rodent mounted on its edge for clitoral stimulation. A friend christened hers Raul. It also induces laughter when I remember that a girlfriend had hers used as a chewtoy during a dog-sitting gig.

• Anything that vibrates. You'd be surprised what you can find when you are horny and need to get off. Well really it's a toss-up 'cause the bathtub water flow has worked for ages.

• Good Vibrations Make Your Own Dildo kit. A bit pricey, but so much fun and great quality silicone. Arts and crafts for adults!

• Magic Wand. Five years of pure bliss and no end in sight. Just spent half an hour with her, actually. I find when I have insomnia I just have to crank her up and then I sleep like a baby afterwards.

7. Your worst commercially produced sex toy, why, and what function does it serve now?

What lurks in our nations' recycling bins…

• This zebra-patterned, bumpy, hard plastic, wide-at-the-base-and-narrowing-near-the-top, 14-inch-long vibrator. It had a small strap, presumably to slide your hand through so as not to lose it, but I'm not sure how the hell you could use something so big and ugly. It looked more like a small umbrella than a vibe, and its motor was so feeble that the buzz barely reached the top. After hanging mischievously from a hook in the bedroom closet, I gave it to my ex. It was all wrong - functionally and visually. She deserves it.

• Fuck commercially produced sex toys. Oh wait, I now use my late-'90s dildo to scramble my eggs.

• Crappy vibrators, floppy, stinky dildos and painful anal beads galore. Gone, gone, gone, to never, ever return. I'm so grateful to live in the era of quality sex toys and stores!

• Never had anything other than vibrators, but I did once see a vibrator (one with the rodent) in the window of that used junk shop on St-Laurent around Mount Royal once and thought that was pretty funny.

• This monster strap-on cock. It had a vibrator for the wearer, but it never worked well. Just a slow hum. I finally got it working at full power and it was lovely for that one time but then the motor burnt out. Such a common experience. Why can they not make a dependable and strong vibrator? I still have the strap-on, but don't use it very much. It sits in a Tupperware container under the bed.

• Cheap-ass battery-powered vibrator. You could probably hear it down the street and it died after about five uses. Threw the damn thing out.

• No horrible sex toys, although I do recall a cocktail party where a pornstar-endorsed Barbie pink pube shaver was passed around and generally ridiculed for its ineffectiveness and the cheesy nature of the cut-outs it provided for "evocative" pubic hair patterns. I think that's why the thing still hangs around, always a conversation starter.

• That stupid vibe that is filled with beads and sort of rotates. It does nothing for anything and the batteries die fast. What's up with the light?

• Oversized purple dildo bought for me by an ex now it lives in a planter. I think it's very happy.

• Edible panties, makes a terrible mess.

• Chocolate body paint. That shit is so gross - would you rub Nestle syrup all over your body? No, because the ingredients are shit. Just because it's considered a novelty product doesn't make it okay to skimp on quality. It went into a Sun Youth food basket. [There's a Seinfield episode in there somewhere - Sasha]

• The Tongue. Made of substandard stinky-ass rubber and is louder than the battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings.

• Most, if not all, of my insertable sex toys are now made of silicone. I look at some of my older purchases and I can believe I stuck them inside of me.

We're all in this together, so let's try to get along:

8. If you have one of the more… socially maligned fetishes (example: infantilism, coprophelia, hardcore SM), how would you briefly explain its origin to the average person in a way that may make it more comprehensible to them?

• Every single person has different pasts and experiences, to give any urge an actual term is pure fucking intellectual masturbation. You read too many books. Any "fetish," as you put it, is nobody's business and no justification is needed as long as it doesn't affect somebody else negatively and/or is against their will. You want justification? "I did it for the devil."

• How do you explain SM to the layman? How do you describe the sublime pleasure of being voluntarily degraded? To me it's about breaking out of traditional sexual roles and letting go - losing control can be a very liberating sensation. To the layman, I might say: coast on your bike down a steep hill, slowly let go of the handlebars and close your eyes for three seconds. If you live through that moment of abandon, it was worth it.

• Unfortunately I'm a pretty clean bean, besides a little nipple twisting and group sex.

• I'm into many hardcore SM and bondage activities (cutting, whipping, bridles, hard fisting and lots more). I find the "average person" is often quite curious about many activities, and even if they're not into what I am, they're often looking for an opportunity to disclose their own fantasies and proclivities. I listen, then talk, and find they generally want to know more. More "average" people are perverts than we'll ever know. Three cheers for that.

• I'm into some SM because it is a way to safely explore my darker side with someone I trust, so that it doesn't have to come out the rest of the time. Perhaps I started doing it because I'm anorgasmic, and it's a way to feel a rush of pleasure without even involving genitals.

• It would be super hard to explain my fucked-up fetish. I always think of a sterile environment and someone holding me down while many people watch me get fucked. The worst part is the guys are all ugly and the person holding me is always a big, black woman. Can't explain why. This fantasy even fucks my emotions up!

• I am a very aggressive female top. If I could put everything in my apartment in my girlfriend I would. I don't need to explain myself to anyone. She loves it. Isn't that explanation enough?

• The movie analogy. I've actually said, "Do you remember that movie XYZ, from the '50s? To you it's science fiction. To me it's porn."

And finally, a little introspection to round things out:

9. If you are orgasmic, how and when do you recall your first orgasm?

What I love most about these answers is how innocence is such a wonderful shield to shame. We all seemed to be rubbing or humping things (or running the household water cold), and probably didn't even notice or think that others knew what we were up to.

• Jerking off in the upstairs bathroom when I was 12. I was celebrating the first signs of pubic hair.

• The little boy I had a crush on at my babysitter's used to bring dinky cars to the house and I'd rub them against the crotch of my little kid jeans. I wonder what ever happened to the A-Team van.

• Basement of boyfriend's dad's house, listening to the Cult and fucking as per usual. I was just 18 and his dick was - in retrospect and having seen many more now - an unbelievable creation. I rarely have vaginal orgasms now. Obviously the shape and size was perfect for my insides because we weren't doing anything sanctioned in the orgasm books as a good way of coming. Or maybe it was Ian Astbury calling for rain. Who can say?

• This is going to sound crazy, but my first recollection of orgasm was when I was really small, maybe seven or eight. I used to climb things (trees, poles) and when I would climb the pole that held up the clotheslines, I found that if I opened my legs and did some pole-ups, I would get a fuzzy feeling all over.

• Oh, I remember it like it was yesterday. My lady friend was going down on me, my eyes rolling back in my head, the simultaneous terror and thrill that I might lose all control of my bodily functions. I gave in to it, forgetting my name, where I was and everything except that feeling washing over me. She said I had a smile on my face like I was in heaven. I was. I thought I had reached the height of sexual pleasure. Who knew it would only get better?

• Somewhere between the age of three or five, I discovered fucking the nose of my stuffed animal.

• In the shower. Where else? I was probably about 12 and I stayed in there until the hot water ran out every day for about a week.

• When I was 11, I was feeling good by rubbing my clitoris until I rubbed it for long enough… WOOOOOW!

• The bathtub definitely! But it was one of those handheld shower head deals and I must have been 13. It was wonderful! Never stopped. Now I'm 31 and still love the showerhead.

• I was 10 and under the covers trying to nap. To relax I touched myself while thinking about Rick Springfield.

• It was before I was 11, as it was when we still lived on a Canadian Forces Base in Germany. I found my mother's vibrator (in no way a consequence of pawing through her bedroom drawers), and my clit went off as soon as it was touched. After that, I took to loooong baths with the handheld showerhead - still a favourite.

• It would either have been carefully positioning myself to writhe against the edge of a long couch; climbing rope in Grade 2 gym class (squeeze those legs! touch the top!); or pulling my way up the poles of tall swing sets in the park, again and again, knowing I was aiming for "that good feeling."

• Jacking off in the shower with shampoo at the ripe old age of 15. I'd never come before that.

• I was 13 and was fingered in the car by my boss. He was the owner of a fruit and vegetable stand at Marché Laval (anyone remember?). We were out for a drive to buy some strawberries when he stopped the car along one of those deserted country roads. I felt as if I was one of those over-ripe fruits I was selling that had suddenly exploded.

10. If your sex life began more than 15 years ago, tell us how it and you have changed since its inauguration.

• Nothing much has changed. Still can't have casual sex while sober. Sleep with fewer guys, more girls (probably because I'm sober more often now). Still have to greatly respect the person I'm getting it on with. Still wish I were castrated at times so that I can make out with girls all night and not have that thing get in the way.

• Alas, the 15th anniversary of my sex life is still upcoming. I've certainly become pickier as time has passed, but in no way regret the scads of anonymous sex I procured in my youth.

• I'm so much more confident about my body. At 16, it was lights out, blankets on. Now you can't keep clothes on me. No really, I became a stripper!

• My sex life only started 10 years ago. Sorry. The biggest change in that time came when I got married two years ago, and it's been the best sex I've ever had.

• Open-minded is not the word for where I've gone since the beginning. I'm a freak. I like to do some fucked-up stuff, and if I didn't have a house full of company I would describe it in detail.

• I seriously cannot believe how insecure I was when I was young. It really makes me think that sex education is totally underrated. I was always afraid to ask guys to wear condoms for fear of appearing too difficult or even slutty (only a slut would know about condoms, right? What logic!). I really hope that girls are getting better sexual esteem education now.

• At 15, with an age difference of four years, out in the back roads of a rural village. It hurt the first time, but after a while we started experimenting. I continued to have sex just for the orgasmic fulfilment, but have not really enjoyed it so much as I do now.

• Not a lot. I've loved sex and SM for as long as I've had a body and an imagination. I continue to get as lost in fucking as I did when I was 14 and boffing my first real boyfriend in a room literally 20 steps away from my parents (we couldn't stop… fields, forts, barns, bedrooms). Sure, I've been almost exclusively with women for the past 15 years, and many might note that as a difference, but I've felt very consistent as a sexual being: in search of "that good feeling" as often as life permits. I wish I could say I was as open and outgoing (ie. not as shy and stressed as I am) as I'd like to be. Perhaps more casual and group sex would then be easier to come by. That's the goal for the coming year(s). I'll report back in 2005.

• It now post-retro Bizzaro Elvis: a little more conversation, a lot more satisfaction. A bit more brain, a lot less brawn. "Brain: today's soft sexual organ. Have you had brain today?™" Paid for by the Brain Marketing Board.

• I have been having partnered sex for 15 years this year! Oh how time flies! I was very responsible (got fitted for a diaphragm months before doing the deed) yet a little adventurous (the joys of having sex in a car!) when I first began. That has not changed (still good about birth control and safer sex and I have now moved up to doing it in limos). I do have fewer hang-ups (thank goodness). I don't worry about what my partners are fantasizing about and I am not intimidated or offended by porn anymore.

• I used to be sluttier and a lot more into shit like threesomes. Now I'm pretty much content just to fuck and I'm not that interested in making it a community event. My boyfriend probably would have liked me better before. What can I say?

• I have real orgasms.