Jonathan Ames

WHAT: Ames’s new book of fiction and nonfiction, The Double Life Is Twice as Good, which includes the story below
WHEN: July 14

“We’re Not All Some Cindy!”

A number of years ago, I gave one of my books the subtitle “The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer” and ever since then I’ve been the recipient of quite a few interesting invitations. I am no longer young, but I am still mildly perverted, though with less energy. Most recently, I got an invitation from a company called “Metro Event Planners” to attend, for free, a class they were offering called Sex Tips to Drive Women Wild.

Jonathan Ames annotation: Subtitling my memoir from 2000, What's Not to Love?, with the "The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer" was, perhaps, a marketing mistake. For the next several years, every review of a new book of mine began with something like, "Perverted writer Jonathan Ames..." But this is actually par for the course: Whenever I hear unfortunate gossip about myself–like being labeled perverted–I'm usually the source of it.

I decided to take up this offer, thinking that I might learn once and for all where the clitoris is, was, and has been located since I first lost my virginity twenty-five years ago on December 31, 1981. Of course, I’ll also learn where the clitoris has been located since long before 1981, if I’m to regard the history of female genitalia from a less self-centered point of demarcation.

Jonathan Ames annotation: It's bad form to compliment one's self, but I highly doubt that For Yourself and Flowers for Algernon have ever been thematically linked or even mentioned in the same paragraph before.

There was a brief period in 1990, when I was twenty-six and read a book on the female orgasm called For Yourself, that I had, momentarily, a firm idea where the clitoris is, but it was some kind of high-math and my mind could not hold onto the information for long. I was like that character, Charlie, in Flowers for Algernon, possessed with great knowledge, but only for a limited time.

Jonathan Ames annotation: My loss of virginity was not a heroic moment. I prematurely ejaculated after about thiert-five seconds. Life is strange. When I was at my most potent, I couldn't control myself. Now when I can control myself, I'm not that potent. I'm good for one erection a night and that's about it. Maybe two, if I've had some watermelon, which is supposed to act like a natural Viagra.

So for years, I’ve been pretty sure that the clitoris is this bump I feel at the top, and it seems to please women when I stroke it, but I’m never fully confident that I’m in the exact right place. It’s kind of like that F. Scott Fitzgerald notion that there’s always a better party than the one you’re presently attending. Thus, I often wonder if I’m touching the urethra or a swelling in the labia and just by chance happen to be brushing the clitoris and that’s why the young lady feels good. Who knows? Also, whenever I perform oral sex it’s usually quite dark and I can never see what the hell is going on down there. And then when the lights are on, which is rare, I tend to close my eyes and just let my tongue communicate my ardor.

Jonathan Ames annotation: Going down on a woman is great compensation for loss of potency as one ages. I highly recommend it to Time Out's younger male readers. Start practicing now!

You see, I’m something of a gentleman, even if I once labeled myself perverted, and it never seems quite proper to stare, like a stamp collector, at your lover’s vagina. Somehow it’s not respectful. So I sort of treat the vagina like a solar eclipse and just try to glimpse it from an angle. I do like unabashedly gazing at a woman’s bush when she’s standing up and we’re getting dressed in the morning. I’ve always been more of a Playboy kind of guy as opposed to being a Hustler sort of fellow. Unfortunately, almost all bushes seem to have disappeared. I don’t know if it’s Chernobyl or what, but I haven’t seen pubic hair on a woman in years. There’s been a complete deforestation. Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a few bushes left, but not many…

This essay will be continued in my forthcoming book, The Double Life Is Twice as Good. The collection of fiction and nonfiction will also feature, to mention a few chapters, profiles I did of Marilyn Manson and Lenny Kravitz, as well as my short story “Bored to Death,” which is the basis for the television show of the same title that I’ve created for HBO. The show will air this coming fall and stars Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis.

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