Dodson wasn't born a sex goddess. She is from Kansas, and in the 1940s she worked as a commercial artist, drawing fashion ads for Wichita department stores. In 1950 she moved to New York to attend art school, where she continued working as a commercial artist and painted on weekends. In 1959, she married an advertising executive but was not orgasmic with him. They divorced in 1965 but remained friends.

After her divorce, Dodson discovered orgasmic partner sex, bisexuality and nonmonogamous relationships with Grant Taylor, who is currently her webmaster. She soon began producing erotic art and had several exhibitions, which led her into New York's cultural underground and something she never expected to experience or enjoy -- group sex parties.

"I must have had sex with a thousand men and women," she recalls. "It was a wild time. But in hindsight, I was also exploring sexuality, preparing for my life's work as a sex educator."

Dodson made her first splash as a sex educator in 1973 at the National Organization for Women's first conference devoted to sex. Before an audience of more than 1,000 women Dodson, then 43, presented a slide show entitled "Creating an Esthetic for the Female Genitals." People were not sure what to expect. She clicked the first slide, a close-up of the well-groomed vulva of one of the 15 friends who'd posed naked, legs spread, genitals wide open for her. The audience gasped. "All our lives," Dodson proclaimed, "we've been led to believe that our cunts are nasty, ugly, smelly, and shameful. But I'm here to show the world how beautiful they are."

The audience was shocked. Some booed when Dodson used the word "cunt." But she pressed on, promoting her view that women's genitals are a joy to behold. As the slide show progressed, the heckling died down. At the end of Dodson's performance, the audience gave her a standing ovation.

That presentation certified Dodson as a sex educator to be reckoned with. She made more heads turn the next day with a workshop called "Electric Vibrators for Masturbation." Those appearances launched Dodson on a 25-year-long career producing weekend workshops around the world, bringing her message of assertive self-loving to thousands of women. Her motto is: How we make love to ourselves determines what we bring to partner sex.

Dodson also continued to have an extraordinary sex life. After the group sex parties of the '60s and '70s, she spent the '80s bisexual but mostly lesbian. In the '90s, she returned briefly to heterosexuality but eventually decided to go solo. "One reason I opted for masturbation was my discovery that most of my male contemporaries -- I was in my 60s at the time -- were not that much fun. They had relationship baggage and health problems. They were not into -- and usually not capable of -- extended sex. And they wanted to dominate the relationship, always wanted to have things their way."

Enter Eric. Wilkinson grew up in Virginia, the only child of a businessman father and homemaker mother. At 14, he became interested in sex. He read self-help books and masturbated over the few girlie magazines that came his way. "I was raised Protestant and thought masturbation was a sinful expression of lust. I struggled over that for a few years, but by 17 I was sick of feeling guilty. I decided: If I burn for beating off, so be it." He lost his virginity at 18.

In college, Wilkinson wanted to study sexuality. "But they didn't have any courses in what I wanted to learn. I wanted better sexual skills. I wanted coaching in how to eat pussy and how to have anal sex without hurting the woman."

Then Wilkinson read Dodson's "Sex for One." "I'd read dozens of sex books. I'd reached the point where I didn't think I could learn any more from books. Betty's was the best book I'd read by far. It had such great information." He wrote her in care of her publisher.

By the time Wilkinson's letter arrived in 1999, Dodson had received tons of mail from people who'd read her book or seen her videos. She usually sent form-letter replies. "Eric's letter was different. He asked questions I'd never heard from a young man. He was well-informed about sex, more reflective than most, and curious about sex in the same way I've always been. He was this odd combination of the eager student and a remarkably self-assured man. I was intrigued. I remember thinking: This kid is something else."

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