"Stripped" is not a traditional comedy show. Rather it's a storytelling show, in which comics, writers and other artsy types get on-stage and tell true stories about their sex lives. In less capable hands, the show might be vulgar, tasteless and horribly uncomfortable to watch. But Rozzi and Leitman are both elegant, highly skilled performers. Dressed to the nines, they begin each show by declaring the space "a safe room" where people can talk openly and honestly, without fear of judgment or reprisal. The crowd accepts this unconditionally, and the ensuing stories feel less like "performances" than uninhibited, intimate sharing among close friends. It's a truly loving experience, and one of the greatest times I've ever had on-stage.
Giulia & Margot, making themselves wet.
The theme last night was "parties," so I wrote a story called "My Coming Out Party." It was about how I went from being a self-identified "straight guy" to one who could finally, at the age of 21, declare himself gay. I'd never told this story on-stage, and I worried that people would find it neither funny nor interesting.
In fact, I sort of killed.
So I thought I'd share it with you, my blog readers, along with some SERIOUS caveats that I hope you'll consider before reading it:
I have never blogged about my sex life before. It's just not my style, and I also don't want to gross out any of my regular readers, including Mom, Granny or my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Paulmenn.
But this story includes graphic sexual content. It is definitely not intended for anyone under 18, and reader discretion is advised.
While you mull over whether you want to keep reading or not, here are some recent photos of a non-pornographic nature:
My sister Anna, me, Stephanie Schwartz,
and Julie Jacobs at Julie's 40th birthday
at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, NY.
June 8, 2008.
Cooking dinner for Boy Wonder.
May 26, 2008.
"Sex and the City" trivia contest at Therapy.
"Sex and the City" trivia contest at Therapy.
May 25, 2008.
OK, ready? Here comes the story. Consider yourself warned.
And one style note: It's written as an oral monologue (so to speak), meant to be delivered in my voice, so it won't read as smoothly in print.
My Coming Out Party
(Performed in “Stripped Stories” at Comix, June 10, 2008)
I call this story my “Coming Out Party.”
Growing up, I never thought I was gay. I’ve talked to a lot of other gay guys, and they say they always knew. But I didn’t. I knew I wanted to suck dick, but I didn’t think that made me gay. I thought every guy wanted to suck dick! I thought it was this secret thing that everyone desired, but no one talked about.
Like, you know – all guys jerk off, and all guys fantasize that they’re blowing other guys while they do it. This seemed totally logical to me.
And I even had hard evidence to prove it, so to speak. From the time I was 13 to the time I was 18, I messed around with a lot of my guy friends. And we all had girlfriends, we all looked at Playboy and talked about tits. The only difference between me and them was that their favorite albums were by Def Leppard and Bon Jovi, while my favorite albums were “Sweeney Todd” and “Evita.” Which, again, didn’t seem gay to me in the least.
Anyway, this went on until I was a senior in high school. And one day, I remember I was just lying on the sofa watching TV, and it occurred to me: “Maybe I am gay.” And I got really depressed. Because this was 1989; the most famous gay men in the world at that time were Liberace, Rock Hudson and Freddy Mercury. And we all knew how things turned out for them. There was no “Will & Grace.” All the hot movie stars at that time were straight guys. Like Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
So I made up my mind at that moment: No more dick-sucking. I was about to leave for college at the University Michigan, Ann Arbor. And I made a vow to myself that I would not engage in any sexual activity with boys ever again. It was OK to think about it. But when it came to actual sex, I was not going to leave Vaginaville.
And I kept that vow for two years. As soon as I got to Michigan, I did the straightest thing I could think of: I joined a fraternity. And I purposefully did not join one of those hot-guy fraternities where all the guys look like Abercrombie & Fitch models, because I knew nothing good would come of that. Instead I joined Chi Psi, which was filled with skinny, homely engineering geeks. There was no one I wanted to blow.
Except there was one incredibly hot guy named Will. And he was the only person besides me who was Jewish and also from New Jersey. And he was hot. He was like a big ripped muscle guy. But I didn’t worry about being attracted to him, because he hated me. In fact, when I first rushed Chi Psi, every time he saw me, he would leave the room. I was like, this guy’s a dick!
Meanwhile, I fooled around exclusively with females. Lots of them. In the course of two years, I had sex with 10 different women. Like, actual intercourse. And my Vietnamese girlfriend, Chau, thought she might be pregnant with my baby, and I almost figured out where the clitoris was. I was like, “I am so straight.”
The only kind-of gay thing I did during this period was: There was a building at Michigan called “Angell Hall.” And it had a men’s room with like 40 stalls, all painted white. Which meant, they were a magnet for graffiti. And the graffiti was really gay, and really graphic.
Also, there were gay pictures that someone had drawn on the walls. There were drawings of dicks going into asses, and guys mounting other guys. And I don’t know who the artist was, but he was really gifted! I often wonder where he is today. Either he’s got his own exhibit at the MOMA… or he’s an animator for Disney.
They were basically like gay pornographic cave drawings. And remember, this was before Al Gore invented the Internet. There was no online porn. I had no other way of seeing anything like this.
But I could see it in the bathroom, so anytime I was working on a paper, I’d take a break, and go into one of the stalls. And I’d read all the graffiti and look at the drawings, and just jerk myself into a frenzy.
And one day, toward the end of my sophomore year, I couldn’t take it anymore; I left my own graffito in a bathroom stall. I was like “Hot straight frat guy wants to blow another hot straight frat guy. Meet me here tomorrow at 4 p.m. I’ll be wearing jeans.” But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to fool around with someone in the bathroom. That seemed scary to me and also gross. So I wrote, “Meet me here at 4, and if we both like what we see, we’ll go someplace else and talk.”
So anyway, I walk in to the bathroom the next day at the appointed time, and of course there are like 10 nelly queens lined up at the sinks, waiting to meet this allegedly hot straight frat guy. And they’re all like [effeminate voice] “Hi!” And I’m like, “Yech.”
So I leave immediately, and this guy follows me out. And he actually looks kind of cute and normal and “straight-looking” but I’m totally freaked out by the fact that I’ve even attempted this gay rendez-vous. And now this guy is following me, and I don’t want to walk back to my dorm, because then he’ll know where I live, and what if he’s a serial killer?
So I walk to this coffee shop called “Expresso Royale,” which at the time didn’t sound as gay to me as it does now. And I get a coffee, and I see the guy kind of loitering on the other side of the coffee shop, and he’s writing something on a napkin, and I just bolt. And I’m running across the diag as fast as I can back to my dorm, and this dude is in hot pursuit behind me holding the napkin. So finally, I’m like fuck it. And I let him catch up to me, and he hands me the napkin, and then he bolts.
And written on the napkin it says. “Hi. I believe it was I with whom you planned to meet this afternoon at 4 o’clock.”
Very Oscar Wilde, right?
“My name is Joe. Call me sometime.”
And it had his phone number.
So I did nothing for about a week, and then finally I broke down and called him. And he picked me up one night in his car, and drove me to his filthy apartment off-campus. And we talked for like three hours. And then we went into his bedroom. And we got undressed. And he had the biggest dick I had ever seen. In fact, it was so big that his hard-on was sticking out the flap of his tighty whiteys, and it went past his waist-band, so he couldn’t get his underwear off.
Some of you women may not understand what I’m talking about, so let me draw you a picture: Imagine a giraffe with its neck sticking out of the sunroof of a compact car. No matter how you wiggle that giraffe, you’re not getting his head inside that car.
And I hadn’t seen a real live hard dick in two years, and I had never seen one like this, so I made a bee-line for it.
And Joe was like, “Whoah! Actually, I don’t really enjoy getting blown.”
And I was like “Wha?”
And he was like, “Yeah, I prefer to service someone more than getting serviced.”
And that was my first encounter with the human tragedy known as a “well-hung bottom.”
It would not be my last.
But Joe and I played around, and we became really good friends, as well as fuck buddies. And he was gay. He was out. He didn’t pretend to like women, he didn’t call himself “bi.” He didn’t talk about tits. He was like, “I am gay.”
And I still wasn’t there. Joe was my big secret; I didn’t introduce him to any of my friends, and I made sure no one ever saw us together. And I still had a girlfriend. The most I could do was admit that I was “bi-curious.” So bi-curious. But not bi-curious enough to go inside a gay bar. That was still too scary for me.
And summertime came, and it was almost July 4th weekend, and Joe said to me, “I really want you to come with me to Saugatuck.” Which is this resort town on Lake Michigan about 175 miles from U. of M. And it’s nicknamed “Fag-a-Suck,” because during the summer, and especially July 4th weekend, it becomes this huge gay party. And gay guys from all over the Midwest travel there. And I was like, “I don’t know, what if someone spots me there, and thinks I’m gay, and I’m not gay, I’m only bi-curious.” And so forth.
But Joe convinced me that no one would know me this far from campus. So I very nervously accompanied him to Saugatuck for this big gay party weekend. And the very first night, we went to the local gay bar, which was called “The Douglas Dunes.” So butch, isn’t it? So I’m freaking out and hyperventilating, like, “Ohmigod, I can’t believe I’m going to go into a gay bar.”
And we walk in. And I look over at the bar area, and there’s this really hot muscular Jewish-looking guy drinking and laughing with a bunch of other really cute guys. And I go, “Joe, my fraternity brother is here.” And he was like, “No way!” And I’m like, “No that’s him. That’s Will. And he hates me. But he’s here, so… maybe he’s gay.”
And I suddenly felt this wave of bravado come over me. And I walked right over to Will, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turns around and he looks at me and goes, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
And I go, “Uh, I’m here with a friend for the weekend.”
And he goes, “Oh. You’re not gay, are you?”
And I go, “I don’t know. Are you?”
And he goes, “Yeah.”
And I said, “I’m gay, too.” Because at that moment, I knew that I was, and I knew that it was OK. Because if Will could be gay, and be totally honest about it, then I could, too.
And I introduced him to Joe, and the three of us hung out together all weekend. And at one point, Will said to me: “You know, when you first rushed Chi Psi, I was so attracted to you that I had to leave the room every time you walked in.”
And I was like, “Well then we should have sex.” And we eventually did, and it was great. And he’s still one of my best friends. And I’ve been sucking dick with wild abandon every since.
Thank you.
(Performed in “Stripped Stories” at Comix, June 10, 2008)
I call this story my “Coming Out Party.”
Growing up, I never thought I was gay. I’ve talked to a lot of other gay guys, and they say they always knew. But I didn’t. I knew I wanted to suck dick, but I didn’t think that made me gay. I thought every guy wanted to suck dick! I thought it was this secret thing that everyone desired, but no one talked about.
Like, you know – all guys jerk off, and all guys fantasize that they’re blowing other guys while they do it. This seemed totally logical to me.
And I even had hard evidence to prove it, so to speak. From the time I was 13 to the time I was 18, I messed around with a lot of my guy friends. And we all had girlfriends, we all looked at Playboy and talked about tits. The only difference between me and them was that their favorite albums were by Def Leppard and Bon Jovi, while my favorite albums were “Sweeney Todd” and “Evita.” Which, again, didn’t seem gay to me in the least.
Anyway, this went on until I was a senior in high school. And one day, I remember I was just lying on the sofa watching TV, and it occurred to me: “Maybe I am gay.” And I got really depressed. Because this was 1989; the most famous gay men in the world at that time were Liberace, Rock Hudson and Freddy Mercury. And we all knew how things turned out for them. There was no “Will & Grace.” All the hot movie stars at that time were straight guys. Like Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
So I made up my mind at that moment: No more dick-sucking. I was about to leave for college at the University Michigan, Ann Arbor. And I made a vow to myself that I would not engage in any sexual activity with boys ever again. It was OK to think about it. But when it came to actual sex, I was not going to leave Vaginaville.
And I kept that vow for two years. As soon as I got to Michigan, I did the straightest thing I could think of: I joined a fraternity. And I purposefully did not join one of those hot-guy fraternities where all the guys look like Abercrombie & Fitch models, because I knew nothing good would come of that. Instead I joined Chi Psi, which was filled with skinny, homely engineering geeks. There was no one I wanted to blow.
Except there was one incredibly hot guy named Will. And he was the only person besides me who was Jewish and also from New Jersey. And he was hot. He was like a big ripped muscle guy. But I didn’t worry about being attracted to him, because he hated me. In fact, when I first rushed Chi Psi, every time he saw me, he would leave the room. I was like, this guy’s a dick!
Meanwhile, I fooled around exclusively with females. Lots of them. In the course of two years, I had sex with 10 different women. Like, actual intercourse. And my Vietnamese girlfriend, Chau, thought she might be pregnant with my baby, and I almost figured out where the clitoris was. I was like, “I am so straight.”
The only kind-of gay thing I did during this period was: There was a building at Michigan called “Angell Hall.” And it had a men’s room with like 40 stalls, all painted white. Which meant, they were a magnet for graffiti. And the graffiti was really gay, and really graphic.
Also, there were gay pictures that someone had drawn on the walls. There were drawings of dicks going into asses, and guys mounting other guys. And I don’t know who the artist was, but he was really gifted! I often wonder where he is today. Either he’s got his own exhibit at the MOMA… or he’s an animator for Disney.
They were basically like gay pornographic cave drawings. And remember, this was before Al Gore invented the Internet. There was no online porn. I had no other way of seeing anything like this.
But I could see it in the bathroom, so anytime I was working on a paper, I’d take a break, and go into one of the stalls. And I’d read all the graffiti and look at the drawings, and just jerk myself into a frenzy.
And one day, toward the end of my sophomore year, I couldn’t take it anymore; I left my own graffito in a bathroom stall. I was like “Hot straight frat guy wants to blow another hot straight frat guy. Meet me here tomorrow at 4 p.m. I’ll be wearing jeans.” But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to fool around with someone in the bathroom. That seemed scary to me and also gross. So I wrote, “Meet me here at 4, and if we both like what we see, we’ll go someplace else and talk.”
So anyway, I walk in to the bathroom the next day at the appointed time, and of course there are like 10 nelly queens lined up at the sinks, waiting to meet this allegedly hot straight frat guy. And they’re all like [effeminate voice] “Hi!” And I’m like, “Yech.”
So I leave immediately, and this guy follows me out. And he actually looks kind of cute and normal and “straight-looking” but I’m totally freaked out by the fact that I’ve even attempted this gay rendez-vous. And now this guy is following me, and I don’t want to walk back to my dorm, because then he’ll know where I live, and what if he’s a serial killer?
So I walk to this coffee shop called “Expresso Royale,” which at the time didn’t sound as gay to me as it does now. And I get a coffee, and I see the guy kind of loitering on the other side of the coffee shop, and he’s writing something on a napkin, and I just bolt. And I’m running across the diag as fast as I can back to my dorm, and this dude is in hot pursuit behind me holding the napkin. So finally, I’m like fuck it. And I let him catch up to me, and he hands me the napkin, and then he bolts.
And written on the napkin it says. “Hi. I believe it was I with whom you planned to meet this afternoon at 4 o’clock.”
Very Oscar Wilde, right?
“My name is Joe. Call me sometime.”
And it had his phone number.
So I did nothing for about a week, and then finally I broke down and called him. And he picked me up one night in his car, and drove me to his filthy apartment off-campus. And we talked for like three hours. And then we went into his bedroom. And we got undressed. And he had the biggest dick I had ever seen. In fact, it was so big that his hard-on was sticking out the flap of his tighty whiteys, and it went past his waist-band, so he couldn’t get his underwear off.
Some of you women may not understand what I’m talking about, so let me draw you a picture: Imagine a giraffe with its neck sticking out of the sunroof of a compact car. No matter how you wiggle that giraffe, you’re not getting his head inside that car.
And I hadn’t seen a real live hard dick in two years, and I had never seen one like this, so I made a bee-line for it.
And Joe was like, “Whoah! Actually, I don’t really enjoy getting blown.”
And I was like “Wha?”
And he was like, “Yeah, I prefer to service someone more than getting serviced.”
And that was my first encounter with the human tragedy known as a “well-hung bottom.”
It would not be my last.
But Joe and I played around, and we became really good friends, as well as fuck buddies. And he was gay. He was out. He didn’t pretend to like women, he didn’t call himself “bi.” He didn’t talk about tits. He was like, “I am gay.”
And I still wasn’t there. Joe was my big secret; I didn’t introduce him to any of my friends, and I made sure no one ever saw us together. And I still had a girlfriend. The most I could do was admit that I was “bi-curious.” So bi-curious. But not bi-curious enough to go inside a gay bar. That was still too scary for me.
And summertime came, and it was almost July 4th weekend, and Joe said to me, “I really want you to come with me to Saugatuck.” Which is this resort town on Lake Michigan about 175 miles from U. of M. And it’s nicknamed “Fag-a-Suck,” because during the summer, and especially July 4th weekend, it becomes this huge gay party. And gay guys from all over the Midwest travel there. And I was like, “I don’t know, what if someone spots me there, and thinks I’m gay, and I’m not gay, I’m only bi-curious.” And so forth.
But Joe convinced me that no one would know me this far from campus. So I very nervously accompanied him to Saugatuck for this big gay party weekend. And the very first night, we went to the local gay bar, which was called “The Douglas Dunes.” So butch, isn’t it? So I’m freaking out and hyperventilating, like, “Ohmigod, I can’t believe I’m going to go into a gay bar.”
And we walk in. And I look over at the bar area, and there’s this really hot muscular Jewish-looking guy drinking and laughing with a bunch of other really cute guys. And I go, “Joe, my fraternity brother is here.” And he was like, “No way!” And I’m like, “No that’s him. That’s Will. And he hates me. But he’s here, so… maybe he’s gay.”
And I suddenly felt this wave of bravado come over me. And I walked right over to Will, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turns around and he looks at me and goes, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
And I go, “Uh, I’m here with a friend for the weekend.”
And he goes, “Oh. You’re not gay, are you?”
And I go, “I don’t know. Are you?”
And he goes, “Yeah.”
And I said, “I’m gay, too.” Because at that moment, I knew that I was, and I knew that it was OK. Because if Will could be gay, and be totally honest about it, then I could, too.
And I introduced him to Joe, and the three of us hung out together all weekend. And at one point, Will said to me: “You know, when you first rushed Chi Psi, I was so attracted to you that I had to leave the room every time you walked in.”
And I was like, “Well then we should have sex.” And we eventually did, and it was great. And he’s still one of my best friends. And I’ve been sucking dick with wild abandon every since.
Thank you.
Homo out. ♥
Come see me at this show Friday night!
P.S. Spellcheck thinks "Vaginaville" should be "Bougainvillea." Hee hee.
4 comments:
Adam-tisha, my, but you've come a LONG way. ;-)
LOL! I remember all of this. But do you remember the guy you dropped a note to in the bathroom from computer lab?
Who the hell are you?!
Nicely done, and dead on...
Reading back, San Diego? Born there, done that.
Looking forward to the new read!
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