CheekyChicago

Whenever I play the “superpower game,” I often say that the superpower I would most wish to have is the one that would allow me to live multiple lives – a sort of Sliding Doors experience – and then maybe have all the multiple lives meet up one day and talk about how it all played out.

In sex, I think this superpower could do wonders. After all, people often feel held back by a sense that they’re not choosing wisely – that if they marry one person, they won’t be able to marry another. Or that if they have sex with someone they love (who happens to have herpes) and then they contract herpes, they worry that having herpes might limit their options with partners later on. See my point?

But what if we knew that no matter what we chose, we would be all right? It would work out in the end. The thing is, it always does work out in the end, doesn’t it? We cannot predict which paths our choices will take us, but then we never can. Sometimes the people we think are the love of our lives turn out to be people who lie to us or hurt us. Other times the people we think are kind of “blah” at first turn out to be the most wonderful, solid partners we could have ever imagined.

Perhaps one way to tap into what this superpower has to offer is to meet life, love and sex with more courage and more optimism. We may not be able to live multiple lives but we can make the most of the one we are given and be confident that our choices won’t close off all the doors in the world to us. There will always be more openings, more possibilities and more opportunities for love and good sex down the road.

Of course, I still think it pays to choose wisely. But I also think that, when you stumble (and we all do), it will be okay. You may come across another “life,” another road, and it will be a good one.

Debby Herbenick, PhD, MPH is a research scientist at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute, a widely read sex columnist and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure & Satisfaction.