Avril Haines, who is set to replace outgoing deputy director Michael Morell, opened and co-owned Adrians's Book Cafe two decades ago after dropping out of a graduate program in physics at Johns Hopkins University, The Daily Beast reports.
It was there, in a candle-lit room on the second story, that Haines held monthly readings of erotic literature to a crowd of people 'trying to have sex without having sex' - in her own words - according to a 1995 Baltimore Sun article.
President Barack Obama meets with his National
Security staff in the Oval Office, including Avril Haines (second from
left). From left are: Douglas E. Lute, senior director for Afghanistan
and Pakistan; Jeff Eggers, director for Afghanistan and Central Region;
David Holmes, director for Afghanistan; National Security Adviser Tom
Donilon; Haines; and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough
'Erotica has become more prevalent because people are trying to have sex without having sex,' she told the Sun. 'Others are trying to find new fantasies to make their monogamous relationships more satisfying.
'What the erotic offers is spontaneity, twists and turns. And it affects everyone.'
Haines wasn't the initiator of the steamy evening readings. She told the Sun that a customer came to her with the idea.
'We were terrified who might show up,' she told the newspaper. 'We thought it would be a bunch of dirty old men. And a lot of our friends gave us a hard time. They said, "You just want a mass orgy in your bookstore."'
But the events proved successful, with singles paying $17 and couples paying $30 to attend.
So the second-floor curtains were drawn, the candles were lit, and the readings went on.
CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell is resigning and will be replaced by White House lawyer Avril D. Haines.
News of Haines' past with the bookstore has little relevance to her credentials for the job as deputy director of the CIA.
She is currently deputy assistant to the president and legal adviser to the National Security Council and she has also chaired a legal committee that reviews the CIA's most sensitive activities.
But for an agency that was recently embarrassed by the resignation of its director, David Petraeus, over his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, Haines' bookstore readings start to appear more pertinent.
