I think that, for the most part, we tend to be more sexual with somebody we feel comfortable with. First of all, I don't believe that the zipless 'bleep' actually exists. I don't have that illusion, or delusion, anymore. It was a way of solving my problems and learning about myself. And I think that, in my 20s and early 30s, an existential journey appealed to me. I mean, the arc of the book is a picaresque journey - a woman going, leaving her husband and taking off with a very sexy British psychoanalyst, and they're traveling across Europe. I doubt that I would write the story today, of Isadora. On how she doesn't actually believe in the 'zipless f - ' But for the most part, when you fall into bed with a total stranger, it's a great disappointment. I don't believe that the zipless 'bleep' actually exists. One man said to me, 'Whenever I saw that book on a woman's night table, I knew I was gonna get lucky.' Over the 40 years, I've heard all kinds of things about the book.

In the beginning, they were very threatened. On the effect of Fear of Flying on her male readers Scared to death, but also laughing hysterically and having a ball. And I was scared to death writing the book. When I read these books, I thought: But where are we? Why are we not writing about our feelings? I thought it was time to claim that territory for women. On Fear of Flying being billed as a feminine version of Philip Roth's 1969 Portnoy's Complaint You know, hippies were not invented in 1969. My parents were very sexual, and there was absolutely no question, in the household I grew up in, that sex was fun. But I have to say that I grew up in a very hip family. I married the man who I lost my virginity with. Michael Childers/Courtesy of Henry Holt and Co.

In addition to her novels and books of poetry, Erica Jong has written two memoirs and edited an anthology of essays on sex written by women.

Erica jong's fear of flying