Bash Compactor: First Time’s No Charm

Sex
was the topic on everyone’s lips at The Village Pourhouse last week during the book launch for Shawn
Wickens’ How to Lose Your
Virginity (…and how not to). But
they weren’t talking about just any sex: the chatter, like the book, was about
the generally labeled “awkward” First Time.

After
the 1,000 face-to-face interviews he conducted for his book, Wickens, a
self-proclaimed “late bloomer,” is pretty much the authority on virginity and
first-time experiences. “[When I interviewed,] I pretty much just said, well,
everybody’s first time had sort of a nervous quality toward it, but I’m
interested in everybody’s story.” He’s a heavy hitter in the improv comedy
scene, and the material from his interviews has served him well there. “I did
these things where I dressed up like Abraham Lincoln, and I called them Lincoln
Logs. I just told Vagina Monologue-esque stories, and one of the stories
was inspired by interviews that I did,” he said.

David
Levin, an actor who resembles a
bald Zach Galifianakis, went on the northeast leg of the trip with
Wickens. I challenged him to describe his first time in five words or
less, which was apropos, since the general consensus is that first times last
five minutes or less. He rose to the occasion immediately—probably not unlike
on that special day: “Could’ve happened sooner.”

A
survey of the room revealed a variety of under-five-word responses: “Mom found
red pubes. Grounded,” said raven-haired Mausumi. “She did all the work,” declared Magnet
Theater improv comedian Eden Gauteron. “Dark, fumbling, unsatisfying miserable ordeal,” said Andre
Perkowski, who had accompanied How
to Lose Your Virginity’s
photographer Emily Bryan to the
party.

After
I collected his five-worder (“In Barcelona, as a favor”), former Wall Street
Journal staffer Keith Huang drank a beer and joked—I hope—about the moral fiber
of pesky reporters. “I’ve never met a journalist who, at their core, wasn’t a
degenerate.”

Levin
stepped in just then, flashing his smartphone. “I’m playing Uniwar, and
this lady just rejected my peace offering,” he said. “So I schooled her, and
now she’s begging for mercy.”

Wickens
didn’t quite meet the five-word quota, but his response should encourage his
fellow late-blooming brethren. “Gets better as time goes by.”