« Building blocks, activism, and sides of the fence | Main | Little things »
WYSIWYG’s Worst.Sex.Ever
February 16, 2006
So, yesterday I put on my extra-awesome leopard print dress, boots and red lipstick and headed on over to PS 122 to read at the annual anti-Valentine’s Day Worst.Sex.Ever. The WYSIWYG blogger reading series has been hosted for the past two years by Chris Hampton and Andy Horowitz and they do a fabulous job of coming up with different themes and encouraging bloggers to emerge from behind their screens and humiliate themselves live and in the flesh. Jane met Chris at a lesbian knitting circle last spring and subsequently read at the Pride installment of WYSIWYG, at which a good time was had by all and I promised Chris I’d read at some future WYSIWYG. And so: last night.
I was delighted to find cupcakes and a communal bottle of Southern Comfort backstage when I arrived. Right before the show started all the performers passed the bottle around and took some hearty swigs. Very professional-like. I also scarfed down two cupcakes, a decision which I regretted immediately. I didn’t learn my lesson however, because I had another one later. Sigh.
A lot of the stories were told with huge dollops of humor – Greg Walloch kicked things off with a trio of stories about sexual misadventures, including one in which his partner took some condescending pity on him because of his disability, to which Greg could only respond, “Come on, just suck it!” Desiree Burch offered up her entire sexual history to the bad sex gods, Emily Deprang told a story of lesbian whoring for $60, Hanne Blank told a fantastic story about being a phone sex operator and having to take a call from a man who fancied himself to be Jacques Cousteau (though he lost the accent when he got close to coming), The Assimilated Negro read about “The Time I had Sex on Mushrooms,” and Todd Levin presented several short scenes (with scripts and audience volunteers, including my upstairs neighbor) re-enacting the dialogue from his worst sex ever. This leaves me and Fleshbot editor Jonno.
About halfway through the show (I was to read second to last, and Jonno was last), Jonno squeezed my leg and with a panicky look in his eye said, “They’re all funny. Mine’s not funny; I mean parts are, but it’s not really - funny. It’s bad sex.” I whispered back, “It’ll be fine, mine’s only partly funny too.”
It’s an interesting thing actually – when I first sat down to write my piece, I wanted it to be at least a little funny so people would be able to talk afterwards, but the first draft came out more bitter than funny. There’s something to be said for both bitterness and humor (and the combination). Sex and comedy go hand in hand – there’s something inherently funny about sex, or at least there’s something inherently funny about the way our culture deals with sex (titter titter). Humor, after all, is a great coping mechanism. I know that’s reading into things a tiny bit much – being funny, after all, is way more entertaining than being a one-person mopefest (I speak from experience, as an ex-goth and high school poetry writer). But still, even if humor is a preferred mode of entertainment, there’s still something interesting in the choice to make bad shit hilarious, especially when its sex.
The piece I read is one I’ve been working and reworking for the last few months called “Forgiving Myself: Bad Sex Secrets of a Sexpert” (I initially was using the word “sexpert” ironically, because I hate it, but I now I like it in the flow of the title. So shoot me). Yes, I will share it sometime soon, though most likely as a podcast and not ye olde written word. Many of the performances were video taped (mine included), so I’m sure that will be coming soon to an internet near you. The piece has its funny moments – though the parts I thought were funny didn’t get laughs, while others did – but ultimately it’s a kind of sobering and self-reflective piece. (And how’s that for a cock tease? I swear, once I get technology on my side, you’ll be hearing it.)
Jonno closed the show in a really awesome way, with a piece about slightly scary/bad sex with a model who turned out to be a bit strung out, demanding and intense, making a forcible ejection from Jonno’s apartment necessary. Definitely an excellent way to round out the night – there weren’t any curve balls throw in this piece, no ironic little twists. The sex was just bad in a way that perhaps shouldn’t be made funny.
After the show my boyfriend and I headed out to do some celebratory drinking, and I just had to tell him, “Thanks for being a sport and coming to my big show and listening to me read about bad sex with other people.”
He laughed and said, “No problem, it was enlightening. I mean, we don’t really have what you’d call a ‘conventional relationship,’ so its all good.”
I recycled one of his lines back at him, “We’re just two kids who like to fuck, trying to keep it honest.”
[Images from apollonia666’s Flickr page that I’m apparently not smart enough to link to the proper way. Whatever.]
Posted by Dacia at February 16, 2006 01:05 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wakingvixen.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/476
Comments
That sounds like a great evening. Your description makes me want to read all those blog entries the other guys presented, and yours, too. I also wish I had one of those cupcakes.
Posted by: indeterminacy at February 16, 2006 04:29 AM
sigh. Looks like it was great. But, no picturs of Jonno! At least you remembered me to him.
Posted by: Viviane at February 16, 2006 07:23 AM
Oh, a podcast would be excellent!
Posted by: Balthazar B at February 16, 2006 02:09 PM
I was planning to attend, but was told it was sold out. Feh.
Posted by: Josh Jasper at February 16, 2006 04:37 PM
If I hadn’ta been dead broke I would’ve dragged my quirkyalone ass to peep this out. Always next year, yey?
How long did that bottle of Comfort last?
Posted by: Irezumi Kiss at February 16, 2006 07:01 PM
Worst sex ever… I think I’ve had several clients who fit that bill!
But then, I had pretty bad sex with a bf once, too. That was the night we broke up. Yeah, it was bad. Maybe I’ll write about someday when it doesn’t feel so raw.
I bet some southern comfort, cupcakes, and sex workers would have been a great way to spend Valentine’s Day! Instead, I had to be someone’s date and listen to him prattle about his medical career. At least we didn’t have sex. Just dinner and drinks.
Posted by: Melinda at February 17, 2006 06:57 PM
Ah, sorry to have missed it. Got to love the beauty of a women in a leopard print dress and boots, with glasses no less! Wow!
Posted by: mister_pj at February 20, 2006 12:22 AM
You look so infinitely cool. The only things cooler would have been me groveling at your feet while you read. Mmm, perhaps just curled around them adoringly. Yes.
Posted by: Introspectre at February 23, 2006 04:03 PM
You look so infinitely cool. The only thing cooler would have been me groveling at your feet while you read. Mmm, perhaps just curled around them adoringly. Yes.
Posted by: Introspectre at February 23, 2006 04:07 PM
