Recently, a sex worker named Aella posted a link on Twitter to a “date me” survey she’d made. She wrote, “I’ve met, had sex with, and dated people from my previous date-me surveys. It doesn’t work all the time, but when it works it’s great, and causes me to fall for guys I never would have considered otherwise.” My interest was fuckin’ piqued, dude. It was piqued as hell.

See, for ages I’ve been wanting to date someone new, and ideally someone local – but it’s been tough. It seems like the dating apps are a hellscape for just about everyone, and I’ve found it especially challenging to meet people who are chill about my job – by which I mean, people who neither sexually harass me nor slut-shame me about it, and people who are actually open to dating a woman who talks about her sex life on the internet. I also just find that most people seem really boring on dating apps, even if they’re far from boring IRL, and that conversations on these apps tend to devolve into silence pretty quickly because nobody wants to put any damn effort into anything anymore. (Myself included, don’t get me wrong…)

So, the more that I thought about making a “date me” survey of my own, the more it seemed like a fantastic idea. I could ask the questions that matter to me most, and filter out the people who aren’t a good fit. I’d also be selecting for 1) people who already know about my work and are fine with it, and 2) people who are willing and able to put effort into their connections. When I assessed my dating frustrations of the last several years, all of the issues seemed to be more-or-less solvable by switching from the apps to a survey, at least in theory.

So, next, I had to decide what questions to ask. Some are multiple-choice and some are writing-based; some are marked as mandatory and some are not, though my preference is for folks to answer as many of the questions as possible, since each one gives me different information that is useful to me in my decision-making. I won’t reveal all of the questions here – there are 29 in total! – but I’ll talk you through most of them and why I felt they were important enough to include.

A reader asked: I have a FWB whose penis smells and tastes really funky, every time. How do I tell him without hurting his feelings?

I’ve been asked variations on this question countless times in my years as a professional sex-advice-giver, and it’s one that I’ve never really had a good answer for.

On the one hand: Obviously if you intend to continue fucking someone, you want the fucking to be a pleasant experience for both of you, and the other person probably wants that too – so it makes sense to talk about these types of concerns, so they can perhaps be solved or worked around. In addition, an unusual taste or smell can be a sign of a medical issue (e.g. bacterial vaginosis or a penile yeast infection) and/or inadvisable personal hygiene practices (e.g. douching and thereby fucking up your vaginal pH, or not knowing you’re supposed to wash under your foreskin), and you could actually be doing someone a favor if you let them know about the smell/taste issue so they can get it checked out.

In places where writers gather, online or off, ine­vitably one of the topics we will discuss is writer's block – that notorious stoppage in our normally abundant flow of words.

Raising this topic with other writers often sparks a lively debate, because some people believe writer's block exists, and some think it doesn't. Those in the latter camp will argue that you can always force yourself to write, as long as you're not precious about your working conditions and have done the deep thinking and research needed to write whatever you're writing. Sometimes these people are borderline-cruelly dismissive of others' struggles to create, arguing that only an unserious or undisciplined writer would let a lack of inspiration get in their way.

On the opposite side of the debate, you have the people who believe in writer's block. These people may have an esoteric or woo-woo view of crea­tivity, conceptualizing it as a temporarily dammed river of cosmic energy – or they may see their creativity in more pragmatic terms, believing that they're stuck because of anxiety or indecision or stress or burnout. People on this side of the debate say you shouldn't "force it" when you're blocked, just as you shouldn't slam on the gas pedal while the emergency brake is engaged.

Personally, I land somewhere in between these two perspectives. Having done my SongAWeek challenge for two years – not to mention cranking out content for publications so I can earn a living – I know it’s possible to write when you feel like you have nothing to say. But will the writing be good in that case? Not usually. Sometimes you'll surprise yourself, though.

I once asked a friend, during a nosy discussion of our respective sex lives, under what conditions he tends to most enjoy sex. I figured he might talk about particular sex acts, positions, or roles – but instead, he said: he strongly prefers sex where everyone involved is completely naked. He'd had awkward experiences before where this was not the case, and so now he felt most relaxed, most free, and most receptive to pleasure when he and his partner both disrobed com­pletely beforehand.

I must admit I was surprised by this, because nudity has never been a particularly important aspect of sex for me. A lot of times when I masturbate or have sex, I only remove the articles of clothing that are directly blocking my path to the relevant bits, and sometimes not even those – a wand vibrator works perfectly well through pants and underwear, after all. If a higher proportion of clothes come off, it tends to be because the person I'm fucking initiates the removal of clothing – or because I'm overheated and need to cool down.

I just don't really care about being naked, and sometimes it's actually sexier if I'm not. Maybe my positive associations with half-clothed sex come from the days when, as a teenager, I'd keep my outfit partly on during sex in case a family member were to open my bedroom door (which lacked a lock). It almost never happened, but each time it did, I was beyond grateful to be able to flip my skirt down and instantly conceal any evidence of tomfoolery (besides maybe my blushing face).

I think a common reason people may not want to get naked during sex is some flavor of body image issues, whether they be dysmorphia, dysphoria, or just the toxic soup of self-judgment we're all fed all the time by tabloid articles and social media. This mostly isn't a factor for me currently, because I know and trust that my spouse adores my body, but it has sometimes come up for me in the past, especially when sleeping with newer or short-lived partners who had not yet expressed liking how my body looks. I want to be able to relax and enjoy myself during sex, and sometimes it's easier to do that if I keep my dress on, so I don't have to wonder what this new person thinks about my stomach or boobs.

A while ago I saw a Reddit thread where a self-described virgin had posed the simple question, “What is sex like?”

They didn’t specify their genitalia, gender, sexual orientation, sensation preferences, sexual fantasies, or any other details. Reading this post silenced my brain immediately, like a Buddhist koan. What is sex like?