When it comes time for the pic exchange during the getting-to-know-you emails (or, more precisely: the what-are-you-into-and-where-do-you-live emails), the pic I usually send is something from a gig I did at a comedy club. So: me being size/weight proportionate at a microphone in fairly dreadful light. (In my experience the lighting people at comedy clubs don’t take kindly to gel requests. They seem to think everyone’s funnier if they’re just a little orange.) No real reason I use this pic except that it’s about the only one I have. I’m fortunate enough not to have a headshot, and I’m blessed with a circle of friends none of whom has any interest in recording our friendship. I have one other performance pic, but it’s me as a Barbie doll, not really the sort of thing I’d send for a hookup. I used it a couple times just to get rid of guys—and it worked. I suppose I could take my own; I know I’ve got a camera around here somewhere. And actually, those are just about my favorite pics online: the ones where the guy just takes his picture in the mirror and you can see the flash. It’s so low-rent, so punk, so, I don’t know: Soviet Union.

Some guys, of course, have no interest in the performance aspect or, as it turns out, the size/weight. But celebrity has fallen on such hard times these days that to some other guys the thought of someone, anyone, willing to stand in orange light before a room full of drunks is intriguing: “u n acter?” “u famus?” I tell them I’m a writer/occasional performer, and that while I’m by no means famous, I do enjoy a local cult following. So I make it quite clear from the beginning that if you do decide to come over it’ll be a cult blowjob, not a celebrity.

But even the cult thing, the comic thing, can get in the way. Some guys come over expecting me to be all quippy and “on,” and I’m just like: “Undress.” I’m there for the sex; I’m not trying out new material. Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, I should probably also say that this has nothing to do with wanting to be loved for who I really am. If I wanted to be loved for who I really am I’d fill out the “Favorite Movies” section of my Facebook page.

I also told guys about the book when I was working on it, that it was about online hookups, and while I wasn’t trying out new material, I was certainly looking for it, and that our encounter could well become part of the book. Discretion, of course, would be honored. “I change names and occupations,” I’d tell them, “but not sizes.” And most guys were into it. Some were, in fact, fairly excited at the thought that their cock might become part of a minor cult. My mentor Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Someone recently reconfigured that for the internet and said that in the future everyone will be famous to fifteen people. And if my book takes off, I’ll be famous for fifteen blowjobs.

So let’s call this guy Number Sixteen. He was totally into it. Totally. As soon as he came in he wanted to know about the book, about the other guys in it, what the stories were like. So I told him about the story I was working on at the time—I think it was the ménage à trois—and as I went on I looked  down at his lap and noticed there was growing interest in my attention to detail. I unzipped and pulled myself out, and then reached over to extend the same courtesy to him. As soon as I unzipped him, he wedged out of his jeans and briefs in one tug and his cock flopped heavy on his lower abdomen. First impressions are important, and as soon as I saw his cock the expression that flashed through my mind was “healthy American male.” There is of course the question as to whether there actually is such a thing as a healthy American male, but I’m talking biology here, not philosophy. This was the cock of a healthy American male—and it was getting visibly healthier by the second. I reached over and wrapped my hand around it and was just tightening my grip for the first downstroke when he looked at me funny and said, “Aren’t you going to take notes?” I didn’t understand what he meant at first, and then it hit me: the book! He wanted to make sure I got it down right for the book! “I have a real good memory,” I said, “and I’m good at description.” He said okay, but I could feel in my hand that my apparent lack of research skills were making him soft. So I said, “You know, you’re right: I should write this down. Good idea.” His eyes heaved a sigh of relief, and his cock heaved a sigh of renewed muscle in my fist. I went to my desk and got a notepad and a pen, and by the time I got back to the couch he was turgid. I realized that we—or at least he—had just stumbled into some variation on the Doctor’s Office Scene and I was doing advanced erection research or something. Okay. So, for the record:

Subject was a healthy American male whose cock, when fully engorged, ranged from 7.5 to 7.75 inches. Subject, of course, insists on the latter number, but the discrepancy arose from the fact that the 7.5 measurement was taken with a plastic ruler, the 7.75 with a cloth measuring tape from a sewing kit. Researcher claims that the extra length is attributable to the fact that the measuring tape follows the contours of the cock more while the ruler measures pure distance. Notable features: a strikingly firm glans, generous self-lubrication, and an extremely prominent vein zigzagging the length of the engorged cock, a fleshy ridge that pushed back against researcher’s thumb each time he time he pumped it, particularly sensitive on the downstroke with simultaneous stimulation of the scrotum. It should also be noted that subject was extremely excited by the measurement process itself, and that by the time of actual ejaculation the cock may have been at 8.0 or more. (At time of ejaculation everything went all Heisenberg and measurement became irrelevant.) It should be further noted that ejaculation was brought on by wrapping the measuring tape around the entire length of the cock like the strip on a barber’s pole (I think I said something like, “Let’s check the diameter…”), an action that caused such a sudden thickening of the shaft that the numbers on the tape shifted in their respective rows. Researcher also wrapped the head of the cock, so that in the end it looked like a tough little mummy throbbing on subject’s stomach, a mummy whose lifegiving juices were rapidly restored—and ruined a perfectly good measuring tape.

Recommendation: Inclusion in the book could place the subject in a state of near-constant arousal, which is bad for the heart and just not cool on job interviews. Save him for the blog.

A few years later I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to write another play again. I was about eighty pages into a new one, but it lacked energy. I shifted over to essays for a while, which I enjoy, but I enjoy essays because they’re quick—at least compared to writing a play. Writing a play takes forever. Writing a play is like taking tiny sips every night from an aged liqueur. Essays are like amyl nitrate. So I enjoy them for the rush, but still: I wanted something I could sink my teeth into, something new. But I had no idea what. I put the word out to the universe that I needed a little guidance here, I needed to know what to write next. I needed a little help. I was frustrated. I was confused.

And, I guess, horny. I was cruising Craig’s List one day, not looking for anything in particular, just bopping around the postings, seeing what caught my fancy, when I saw a header that said “Tell Your Story” or “Write for Us” or something like that. It was posted by the Fanny Press folks and led, as can be seen, to the publication of my first book—and my first sex writing. Baby’s first porn. I asked the universe what to do next, and it said, “Write something really filthy.” And so I did.

And I love sex writing. I love writing porn. It actually wasn’t any big shift at all. Writing to me is a lot like music, and the same way a composer would shift from symphonies to chamber music to choral works, I shifted from plays and essays into porn. It’s just another way of writing, another form. It has its own problems—in this case, to find some kind of arc in the material to keep it from just being a list of fucks—and, obviously, its own pleasures. I like to think I solved some of the problems; I also like to think I conveyed some of the pleasure.

At any rate, I did what was next. And just as I finished the book and wondered what I’d do next after that, I got a gig translating a German sex guide on anal sex. (The vocabulary part of my brain is like: buzzing.) And I’ve gone back to the play. I’m rewriting a lot of it. It has more energy now. It has more sex.

Fanny Press

Life on the List: Assorted Sordid Tales and Unsavory Revelations is an episodic account of the author’s experience with online sex hookups.  The author is a well-known comedian and performance artist on the New York downtown scene, and the heat of these stories is frequently equaled by their humor. There’s also a bit of literary daredevilry here, and aficionados of erotica will notice sly nods to the fragmentation of the Satyricon, the size obsession and attention to phallic detail of Fanny Hill, and the sex spiritualism of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. But the nods stay sly and never get in the way of the (very hot) sex: the humor’s just an aid to arousal.  The effect is like having a stand-up comic at a circle jerk.

Rainbow Reviews has this to say:

“The various stories offer numerous insights into Essmann’s experiences and these range from raunchy and educational to humorous and outrageous. This collection could easily serve as a guide to those new to the List hookups. If even half of all these encounters are true, then Essmann has lived a fascinating and varied life. The humorous touches and obsession with phallic size offer delightful details in between explicit and repeated sex escapades. Although there is more sexual content than anything in the collection, the wry wit of the narrative comes through to break up the potential repetitive nature.

Those looking to read a set of entertaining, irreverent, and delightful encounters from the vast world of The List will enjoy this sexy, often hilarious collection. Be sure to pick up a copy and see for yourself, you won’t want to miss it.”

Jeffrey Essmann was a fixture on the New York downtown performance scene in the 80s and early 90s. His one-man show Artificial Reality was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and he was featured in the video New Wave Comedy. His cult hit Triplets in Uniform at La MaMa marked his transition to playwriting. In the early 90s, Essmann left New York for Chicago, where he was a featured performer in a performance series at Steppenwolf and became a regular contributor to the Chicago NPR affiliate. 2005 saw the production of his short piece Johannes, Pyotr & Marge at the Humana Festival, as well as his return to New York. His one-man show Skin Deep was commissioned for the 2006 HOT! Festival, which, along with The Usual Freak Show at La MaMa a year later, marked his successful return to the New York theater scene. He is currently working on a new play, The Indifferent Narrator. Life on the List is his first book.