As a son of the rural South enrolled in its public schools, I became an avid autodidact by necessity as much as by choice. For instance, my state-delivered my schooling on desire, the capricious whimsy of eros, and the art and science of fuckin’ — an abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum delivered with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for a ghonnorhea diagnosis — left much to be desired.

Fortunately, I found an off-label alternative, on the independent label Skyywalker Records, from the days before hip-hop got bored with Penthouse Forum sexcapades and turned its focus to comic-book violence. I speak, of course, of As Nasty as They Wanna Be, the 1988 double-LP porn-rap opus from the still-definitive purveyors of porn-rap, the Miami outfit 2 Live Crew.

Even decades after they became the subject of national controversy and spent the night in jail — not a big deal if you’ve never done it — simply for performing “dirty nursery rhymes” for people who paid to listen, most people still get many things wrong about 2 Live Crew.

First of all, the music is good. Mr. Mixx wasn’t Prince Paul, but Nasty owes its extreme catchiness and much of its goofball charm to Mixx’s shameless, freewheeling eclecticism, sampling everything from Kraftwerk to Van Halen to The Chakachas’s “Jungle Fever” (you heard it ten years later in Boogie Nights) to that Full Metal Jacket sample (a radical fusion of raucous misogyny and causal racism) with pit stops in blues, reggae, and frenetic musique concrete. 

The stuff they made in the ‘90s, when nobody cared anymore, was even better: aggro yet broad-minded dance music that rewards repeated listens, with the significant asterisk that you need a certain sort of comic sensibility to love the Crew’s lyrics.

The leader and mascot for the group, Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, (f/k/a Luke Skyywalker), was not a rapper and couldn’t rap when he tried. He was more of a carnival barker or head cheerleader, with the beaming grin that tipped 2 Live Crew’s hand — this was, first and last, a comedy act, performing simultaneous satire and function of all the myriad facets of extreme horniness.

Of the two MCs in the ‘88 lineup, Fresh Kid Ice was a good rapper, noteworthy as one of the first Asian-American rappers to break through, and Brother Marquis was a great one, only unrecognized in Top 100 lists because of our cultural Berlin Wall between “adult entertainment” and the regular kind, which is for children. Had he rapped about selling crack, rather than about licking it, he’d be a household name.

Many of the explicit sex raps on As Nasty As They Wannabe would now be widely considered  misogynistic, much as they were at the time. As a man, it’s easy for me to read them as satire, although I’m glad sex rap has been laregly taken over by women — that makes it more educational for me, and when I have questions about sex, the first place I go is to a trusted rapper.

What can I say? I didn’t have Come as You Are, Dan Savage, or Kim Cattrall to teach me this stuff in a language I understood. And despite their relatively limited artistry and blazing lack of responsibility as pedagogues, I gleaned some lifelong wisdom from 2 Live Crew about love, sex, relationships, and safety concerns associated with banging in low-budget motels.

They taught me my sexuality is the most human thing about me. If I could claim my libido, love it, and get to know it, it could be a source of great nourishment. A healthy sexuality could liberate me to embrace both selfish and appreciative joy and to eschew bullshit and silly games and, with eyes wide open, get butt-booty naked and do the wild thing.

For most of us, at least some of the time, the sex drive is undeniable. That’s because it’s the force of creation itself. Sex is god. It’s at the back of most great human achievements, as well as the first and last word in rip-roaring physical comedy. I believe sex would be less lethal if it were no longer taboo, although there are worthwhile arguments for the opposite position, none of them having anything to with Christianity. 

And yet, no matter how liberated, cosmopolitan, witty, or seditty we fancy ourselves, our profound, propusive Miami hurricanes of carnal desires will always be ever-shifting mysteries. To relax yourself enough to let someone else excite you, it’s necessary to rest with the questions, particularly if someone promises to make you cum and then, insteads, start acting dumb, engaging in manipulative games of cat and mouse, and manifesting a sudden, unexplained reluctance to a receive a dick in the mouth. 

Much as the solution to the problems of life, the universe, and everything is the number 42, sometimes the answers are less important than the questions. That’s why, when asks why he has sex so frequently, Fresh Kid Ice is correct to respond with a question of his own, “What’s wrong, babydoll, with a quick nut?” And when Brother Marquis finds himself alone with his dick on hard, he proactively grabs the black book for a freak to call. It’s no fun in a vacuum — you can’t breathe, and not in a hot way — and any freak without warning with an appetite for sex knows the pleasure in a meal is mostly with whom you share it.

Sexual rejection is bound to sting, especially if you lack the self-confidence to have casual sex on beaches, at house parties, or on the sink. But it is not a referendum on you as a person. Even if everyone always wanted to fuck everyone else, there simply wouldn’t be time. It’s important to know your own worth and strength so you can move along quickly and confidently, secure in the knowledge thst, so long as your dick is hard and your back is strong, you will find another bitch to get it on – a bitch who’s fetish is you.

In any sexual relationship, fully informed consent is beyond essential. It’s atom of good sexual experienes, which don’t exist iwthout it. Everyone involved must enter prepared and enthusiasitclaly willing to stop the teasing and start the pleasing, which is often neither simple nor easy, but is a matter of basic humanity and mutual respect.

To reveal our true, unmasked intentions makes us vulnerable, which is the least we can do for those who would make themselves vulnerable enough to lick our toes and assholes. Anything less is unacceptable, despicable, and antithetical to the human intimacy we need to thrive, which is why Fresh Kid Ice and Brother Maquis rap from an assumption of fearless sincerity and sexual abundance.

In the words of author Carolyn Elliott, “Shame is the magic killer.” If you treat yourself and others with full candor and without eye-rolling or other defensive or passive-aggressive condemnation, you’ll find that everyone is someone else’s fetish, even you. 

Casual sex should not be carried out callously, but sometimes the erotirc arts are most fun and delightfully silly when taken on in a spirt of seriousness. There may be no greater intimacy than receiving a gift of Dom Perignon from someone who subsequently sucks your dick until you cum, not because you asked for it, but because they truly see you. Only when you find a special someone, or someones, fortunate enough to like it like you do can anyone truly put lips on the dick and suck the asshole, too. 

Great sex is a cornerstone most great relationship. And sometimes, it can help you create one. When you release your hangups about casual sex, you may find you are physically and emotionally wired for attachment. When you’ve tried everything you’re curious about and washed your dick after fuckin’ the pink, a committed relationship may be something you want, rather than a default setting you reluctantly and bitterly settle for when you’re tired of being fucked and deserted yet nonetheless desperately perverted.

Fortunately, some of the most ecstatic and shocking sex occurs within the secure container of a serious, committed, fearlessly loving relationship. When you find yourself tired of clubs and sex on the run, you may find your lonely nights can be filled with fun when you skip the movies and go straight to the house, where you can stick all sorts of things in mouths, ears, and holes you didn’t even know you had — all with no threat of some envious mall cop ruining the party just as it’s about to get good.

Speaking for myself, while at times I’ve felt like a dog in heat, my sexual peak experiences more often occur in states of generous, ecstatic togetherness, when I could say, “You will be my bitch, not a dirty ho,” and mean it. No relationship can ever make you happy — although I was a lot happier when I thought it could — and yet, life’s routine indignites are easier to endure when I know that, however tedious our evening commutes, when we’re safe in each other’s fully accepting and supportive company, I’ll be fuckin’ you, and you’ll be suckin’ me.

Thank you, 2 Live Crew, You weren’t perfect, but you tried, which gave you immense influence over my developing sexuality. Whenever I put on As Nasty as They Wanna Be, the spirit of Brother Marquis will return to the realm of living to fill it up with something milky and white. And when the ice cubes emerge, along with the hot water, it will be known that is now the second half, no longer the second quarter, with all the kinky and dangerous delights that transition entails.

There’s so little in life we can count on. Today, kids may learn about sex from watching fake incest and real vomiting on Pornhub, but 2 Live Crew was good enough for me, and I turned out fine. Certainly, none of my lovers has suffered from my self-administered Miami-bass-based sex-ed curriculum — quite the contrary, by most accounts — so I don’t want to hear any criticism of me for getting my introduction to sex through furtively dubbed cassette tapes with “GLASS HOUSES” scrawled on one side and “THE NYLON CURTAIN” on the other. We both know you wouldn’t change a thing about me, at least in a sexual sense.

I hope to spend many subsequent lifetimes unlocking the steamy, dreamy, magical mysteries of sex, and I’ll owe my spirt of adventure to the braintrust behind “Dick Almighty,” which is still a hell of a lot more fun than anything on The Chronic.

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