Vice Mail

Dear

Vice

,

Have you ever run anything on Tibetan thighbone trumpets? They’re a ritualistic instrument made from the thighbone of a dead man and are used in Tibetan ceremonies; purportedly the sound they make is of the suffering of the dead in hell. I have one myself - it’s bedecked in brass and copper and smells a bit musty, like someone might have smoked something out of it long ago.

Also, if you do a piece in the future on sexual dysfunctions, you should talk to me about my never ejaculating during intercourse with anyone ever. There’s a term for it—ejaculatory incompetence—which doesn’t make me feel too groovy to consider. It’s a little like living outside the human sexual experience in its entirety. I’ve had relationships blow out because I “didn’t love them” enough to drop a load somewhere I was “supposed” to have dropped it. You’d think it would be a “plus”! Apparently not.

Sincerely,

DAVID COTNER

Los Angeles, CA

Hi there David Cotner, how are you? Would you give us permission to print the letter that you wrote to us? It is a very… interesting letter! Please let me know, thanks!

Amy, Managing Editor, Vice

Dear Amy:

Hey, you! Long time no hear!

Ha ha ha. Is it so you can make fun of me in the usual incisive

Vice

fashion? Well, sure, go ahead, do what you will.

Respectfully,

DAVID

PS: Did you ever get a copy of that Sonic Arts Network compilation I curated? It has Stockhausen and Eno and Faust and Becky Stark and Lovely Midget on it, all lovingly packaged in illustrations straight out of

Heavy Metal

magazine. Naked chicks at the dawn of time and all that. Just wondering.

Hi David,

Yes, I have your CD and if you give us permission to print this, I will give you a glowing review in our reviews section. Deal? Naw, I’ll give it a good review anyway. But let me know…

Dear Amy:

That is so sweet! Yes, of course.

DAVID

Hiya David,

Great! So, like, you’ve never ever come with another person even in close proximity? How old were you when you discovered this? I’m not making fun, it’s just fascinating. We all have weird sex things, right?

Dear Amy:

I know you’re not teasing. Hmm, let’s see. No, I’ve never come with a person even in close proximity. It all stems from masturbation and never from intercourse. You know that little tickle you feel right before you come? Not even that, not ever. Seeing as it’s a lack of climax, there wasn’t ever one moment at which I discovered I could not—because I thought it would happen ultimately—but it never did. Lost my virginity at age 21 to a 36-year-old woman. I remember, in the middle of it, distinctly thinking, “Is this a system? Is this it?”

DAVID

Dear David,

What about not intercourse, but just jerking off with another person there? Did you ever try to pretend that the other person wasn’t there? What if you were in a closet peeping on someone but she knew you were there? Or what if you had sex with someone and then ran into the next room and finished yourself off alone?

Dear Amy:

Masturbation with the other person present is nice, and always a perk, but essentially it’s still a

ménage à un

. She can whisper all the filthy, depraved codas she wants while I’m stroking off but the orgasm is a very inward, insular thing for me. Usually she’ll stop when the speaking-in-tongues starts. Har. Pretending that she’s not there seems a bit insulting. Voyeurism seems just inherently silly and all those other steps you mention seem more like a MadLibs version of sex than anything else.

DAVID

Dear David,

But you can still get a boner and have “intercourse,” right? So can you just go on forever, or what eventually happens?

PS: Do you ever tell girls about this as a pickup line? Because it makes it, like, a challenge, you know? I bet girls love that!

Dear Amy:

Well, my experimentations mostly manifest themselves as amplifications of my already dominant nature. And believe me, I’ve tried everything. Except homosexuality, in which I have zero interest.

As for “going on forever”—oh, absolutely! I think my record was 12 hours straight. And I do tell women about my condition, but as point-of-fact, not as a come-on. I know it’s a challenge. Of course, when they’re faced with what’s unveiled when the clothes come off, they… Well, they stop and think for a bit.

DAVID

PS: Let me also say that ultimately “what eventually happens” is that the woman is given permission to be greedy with her pleasure; to be selfish with her orgasms. She satisfies me by taking all the pleasure she wants from me. In turn, it arouses me to the point where I’m pleasuring her. It’s a recursive loop. Women aren’t given the capacity or the option to be selfish with their own pleasure with a man, so my not-coming actually becomes a more illuminating sexual experience.

Ew. OK, now I can’t tell if you’re actually troubled by this condition or showing off! I guess I got this picture in my head of you as a sad, tortured soul—and I liked that. But apparently this doesn’t seem to have hindered your “dominant nature” or sex life much! Is it true? Are you just like all the others? And are you insinuating you got a big one?

Dear Amy:

It’s both. By definition, I’m not like other men because the essence of their sexual drives involves their own climax. An end. I don’t know what that’s like.

As for the insinuation, it would be really crass to say that the other day a woman referred to it on first blush as an “anaconda,” so I wouldn’t say that. Although if they say that sex is mainly mental, and you’re thinking it’s big all the way across the country in Brooklyn, that’s a very large one indeed.

DAVID

Oh geesh, now you’re being a show-off.

Dear Amy:

I’m not showing off! I consider myself something akin to “broken sexual chocolate.”

DAVID

David Cotner,

You have revealed so much, yet so little. You remain an enigma. An enigma with a dysfunctional peen and a trumpet made out of the thighbone of a dead man. You’re creepy and I have a slight crush on you.

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