PLAYBOY: Do you think of yourself as sexy?

HOUSTON: There are times when I am very sexual, when I'm just hungry, like a lion. But there are times when I can do without it. I don't need it. You know, it's not a necessity in my life. I swear to you, it has a lot to do with when the moon is full. The elements have a real deep effect on me and I respond to them.

PLAYBOY: Over the past few years, there have been innuendoes about your sex life -- that you and Robyn Crawford, your executive assistant, are lovers. Why do you think people are saying that about you?

HOUSTON: How the hell do I know? What people really see is the closeness between Robyn and me. Even when we were kids growing up, people thought we were gay. I think it had a lot to do with Robyn's being athletic and playing basketball and being very much into fitness. Then she got me into it. That has followed us. People were like, "Yeah. Yeah. They're gay. They're lesbos." But I know part of the reason is that most men who say that want to jump into my pants. So they just think, Well, she's gay. She don't want to be bothered. So she must be gay. It's something that happens to people in my position. I don't know why. You're either gay or on drugs.

PLAYBOY: How do you distinguish lust from love?

HOUSTON: Most men who are in lust with me are in awe of me. It's a certain way they talk and act. They ask other people about me and stuff like that. There's very few men I meet who aren't in lust with me. I know the men who truly want to get to know me, who like me genuinely, who really don't have any agendas. Those kinds of men are basically honest and like to laugh. See, the way to really get to me is to have a great sense of humor. You want to get to know me, you have to make me laugh.

In this life, you got to laugh at a lot of stuff that a lot of people don't find funny. You can't take things too seriously. So when I find a man who has a sense of humor, it means that he is sensitive and able not to take things to heart. People got a lot of drama. Oh, please, people got dramas for days.