Illustration by Greg GosselThe day Vita.mn started receiving submissions for this year's Summer Story Contest was the day I decided that I wouldn't be having sex again anytime soon. A breakup had recently razed my world and I thought, "That's it, I give up," and vowed to abstain from pleasures of the flesh until I was no longer reminded of the greatest love of Alicia Keys, of John Legend, of Michael Bolton-covering-Laura-Branigan proportions. "How am I supposed to live without him?" I whined, apathetically clicking open the first batch of stories, "When all that I'll be reading about is other people getting it on?"

And then I started reading, and talented Twin Cities writers did not disappoint. More than 100 entries came in this year, each at 600 words or less, each more creative and earnest than the last, and each centered on the most basic yet most complex of subjects: sex. This year's participants proved themselves a satirical bunch; one cautionary tale teaches us that a one-night stand with a librarian probably won't live up to our fantasies. Another lesson learned: Sometimes the best way to mourn the loss of a pet is to just jump headlong into an orgy, naked corpse in the corner be damned. An essay exploring the pliant definition of the word "sex" and a comparison of ass-sniffing canines to online dating give us pause to think, for sure. Mostly missing from the contest was, surprisingly, erotica. Maybe we've been exposed to so much gratuitous sexual imagery by now that describing erect nipples and blushed labia has become the literary equivalent of hauling out the family vacation slide show. "Come on, we've seen all these before!"

In reading all of these stories, we were reminded of something. Sex doesn't have to be about love or lust, or the beginning or ending of a relationship. Sex can be when no one's around or in a room full of strangers. Sex is a moment, occasionally an event, and it's worth documenting no matter how humiliating or exhilarating. In short, sex is worth having, and it's certainly worth writing about. If you're lucky, it will be so good that you forget why you stopped doing it in the first place.

  • Summer Story Contest coordinator: Alexis McKinnis writes Vita.mn's "Alexis on the Sexes" column.
  • Judges: Margaret Andrews, Jay Boller, Simon Peter Groebner, Tim Ikeman, Will Martin, Leslie Plesser and Jenna Ross.

Submissions were judged with the authors' names removed.

Summer Story Contest 2011