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Tonight belongs to Yvonne K. Fulbright, the scholar, the "sexpert," the scribe who melts pages with words. Her first book, The Hot Guide to Safer Sex (Hunter House, 2003), has just been published, and some 200 people are gathered at Sugar, a chic lounge in Tribeca, to toast the author. It's a release party, in honor of release.
The guests, most in their 20s and 30s, are dressed for the late- June heat. Collars are open, shoulders are bare. One woman sports a black blazer over a leopard-print bra, attached to which are two vintage 45 records.
Sugar was built to seduce. Its teak wood darkens in the candlelight. African fertility masks on a wall gaze down at soft orange-leather banquettes. The bartender's pour is as smooth as the black stones piled near the taps. Martinis here run $10, though select drinks are free for Ms. Fulbright's guests.
After 8, everyone's sipping a second cocktail except the author, who must set down her drink to shake hands and trade hugs and pose for photographs. Her glass, almost full, sits on the bar for half an hour before she's free to pick it up again. Such are the duties of ascending stars.
Media pundits like to call Ms. Fulbright, 27, the "Dr. Ruth of Generation Y." Since she started writing her "Sexpert Tells All" column for New York University's student newspaper, the Washington Square News, two years ago, she has been featured in the pages of Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and The New York Times, among others. She has made guest appearances on Inside Edition, Naked NY, and NBC's Today.
Ms. Fulbright is not the only campus sex writer to light the media's libidinal lamp recently, but she has what most others lack - - credentials. She received her master's degree in human sexuality from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998, and is now a third- year doctoral student in NYU's international community health program, focusing on sexual health.
And she is probably on the verge of national name recognition. Her publicist, Tina Mosetis, predicts that in the next six months, Ms. Fulbright, newly an author, will become a television celebrity, too. There are plans for Ms. Fulbright and...