Photo by Pegah Farahmand
When I was 11 years old, I was alone in the house when the phone rang. It was a stranger’s voice, an adult man. He said he could see me through the window. He asked me how old I was and what was going on. Then he told me to go to the refrigerator, get out a hot dog, and “stick it in [your] vagina.”
“OK,” I said, and opened the refrigerator up. The only hot dogs we had were frozen solid. I tried to get one up “there” for a while, but it wasn’t happening. The caller asked if we had a dog, because after I inserted the frankfurter, he then wanted me to get our pet to eat it from my crotch.
I could hear electrical noises in the background of wherever he was, like what a computer back then would sound like—it was like something out of Logan’s Run. He said that he was taking a poll. I never found out who he was.
That’s one of my earliest memories involving sex. Now, I don’t ever talk about sex, because then the person I’m talking to would have to put me in their head doing it. And when somebody else talks about it, then I have to picture them doing it. Usually sex doesn’t even enter my mind. Three years or so ago, something clicked, and sex just went away. It isn’t that I’m grossed out by it. I just don’t want anything to do with it. It would be OK if I never have sex again.
Plus, I really like living by myself. I was just watching these old anti-drug school movies from the 70s, things like The Ten Signs of Alcoholism. There’s this lady drinking in one, and her husband busts in the kitchen screaming, “What are you doing?!?” And I was like, “See, that’s why you don’t want to live with anybody.” So it taught me to not get married, as opposed to teaching me to not drink.
I’m into the traditional gender roles. I think my ideal man would be someone I meet in a hardware store. And when male friends tell me about their girlfriends, and these women don’t even know how to pan-fry a steak or pack their boyfriend’s lunch, I’m like, “That’s ridiculous.”
I guess I’m more into hearing about sex crimes than sex anyway. I recently read this old book called Sex Crimes. It’s by Alice Vachess. Most of the people who pull off sex crimes are men, so maybe it’s their dicks that drive them crazy. If I had a dick for a day, I wouldn’t want to go out and rape a bunch of women or have sex with animals. I think I would just try tucking it between my legs to see what it would be like to have a vagina.
AMY SEDARIS AS TOLD TO JESSE PEARSON
The Strangers with Candy movie is out this Spring.
