by Tucker Max
2.) I’m a creative writing major (yes, I am aware I will die penniless and alone on the streets), and I wrote a short story that is being adapted into a play. It’s loosely about a girl in high school who loses her virginity to a man she meets on the internet named Tucker Max and then has a pregnancy test that comes out positive (if you remember that happening… it was just a fabulous time). Clearly it’s a dark comedy. Anyway, I didn’t think you’d care, it’s just for community theater at my old high school, but I didn’t want to use your name if you didn’t want me to for some reason. (everyone at my high school knows who you are of course.)
Anyway this email sounded bitter and stupid but really I just wanted to I guess let you know that that was happening and check to see if it was okay with you, and if it’s not I can change some small details and your name.
Hope all is well with you and LA isn’t pissing you off too much,
Sharon
PS—Your book is at Urban Outfitters, and I dragged my boyfriend in there yesterday to go shopping. Needless to say he was less than thrilled to see your book there. He was a fan of yours though until he learned of my past involvements.
Whatever, everyone else thinks it’s cool.
That’s not all. I emailed another virgin I’d slept with and asked her if she wanted to write anything about her experience, what it was like and why she did it. Here is her take, again completely unedited:
“There are a lot of reasons why it makes no sense that I wrote Tucker Max to take my virginity. I am routinely teased for being a Good Girl; I’m usually the one who is the first to quit drinking for the night; I stress out on everything; I’m oversensitive to everyone’s feelings; I hate it when friends make our upcoming plans public on my private Facebook wall. Tucker Max on the other hand has openly declared in print that he’s an Asshole, drinks like a fish, acts impulsively, has no problem dishing out sharp-tongued insults, and gleefully documents his doings for the entire world to read. So, why did I write him of all people to take my virginity? A few reasons. I mean, besides being 30. 30 years old. For fuck’s sake.
Why did I wait so long?
Before you ask, no, I wasn’t abused. To make a long story short, I blame a friendship with a poacher “best friend” that lasted from the 4th grade to Junior year of college. Back then, I didn’t know she was an idiot savant in the “purposefully stealing guys to feel self worth” department. Instead, I thought that consistently losing guys to her meant that I was man-repellent (I look back at my photos, and I can honestly say I wasn’t). Instead of speaking to someone who might have wisdom on the subject and could have clued me into what was actually going on, I gave up and adopted a lazy method of pursuing guys. Somehow, declaring my interest to everyone but the guy in question never worked out. Imagine that.
In the meantime, I was already in self-image hell without her help. I had to wear a back brace for scoliosis from 5th to 9th grade, which of course is every adolescent girl’s dream come true. Teenagers automatically feel completely awkward all the time anyway, so you can imagine how psyched I was to add that thing into the mix. If I could go back in time, I would have told myself “Look. It’s a piece of plastic. Big fucking deal. It’ll be out of your life in 4 years.” Even after I was liberated from the brace and my physical imperfections were unnoticeable, I still felt like a circus freak.
To make matters worse, any last shred of confidence I had left was annihilated through my own fault during my college years. Let’s just say that although Taco Bell Value Meals and Grand Slam Breakfasts are not meant to be diet staples, they were for me. “So what? Heavy girls get action too!” you say. Well, yes even though I wasn’t an appropriate weight for my height, a handful of opportunities still came up. But these guys were of your average bar sleaze variety. I wasn’t going to fuck some gold toothed random who looked alright through 3am beer goggles just so I could check this off my bucket list. I wanted to at least be attracted to the guy! Eventually I formed a relationship with the elliptical at the gym and cut down on the junk food with the hope I would attract male attention that I would actually welcome. Mission accomplished.
By 30, I had just about enough of being the only virgin in my circle of friends. They would go out for the night and come back with tales of debauchery while I sat on the sidelines jealous. By that time I had hooked up, but still hadn’t had actual sex. I’m not saying I wanted to go out and slut it up every weekend, but I did have biological needs that I wanted to act on and was extremely frustrated. Something had to be done before Judd Apatow got ahold of my life story and made a movie out of it.
Why Tucker?
There are various people out there who’ve addressed this question. They’ve all come up with the same basic answer: Tucker’s the quintessential Alpha Male. Well duh. Glad to see you paid attention in your Psych 101 class. But in my case, there was a bit more to it than that.
I am known for having a weakness for hot guys with substance abuse and/or personality problems. So my attraction to Tucker after reading I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell was surprising to no one. Personally, I blame Charlie Sheen’s character in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for making 10-year-old me believe that hot drugged out jailbirds were not only ready to make out at any given time, but would also understand me on a meaningful level that no one else could.
Over time I’ve found that I’m better off keeping those types of guys to my pre-bedtime fantasies and have learned to stay away from them in reality. But since IHTSBIH vaguely hinted that there might be more depth to Tucker than the hellraiser that’s mostly represented in the book, I went to his website to see what else I could learn about him. After reading present-day stuff from Tucker, I found that besides being hilarious and intelligent, he had drive, honesty and self-awareness on a level I hadn’t yet seen among my own peers. All that plus the whole cliche bad boy thing, and how could I not be attracted? Oh and blahblah Alpha Male blahblah.
So, fine. Like tons of other females who’ve read his writing, I had an attraction to Tucker. So why didn’t I just leave it at that, put a photo up on AdultFriendFinder.com and get it crackin’ with a stranger? Well, I’ll tell you. While wading through the stories on his site, I read one of the Book Tour updates from his stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he talked about meeting up with virgins. The way he described their point of view about how they’d like their first time to go mirrored my own thoughts exactly: “…they want to lose their virginity to someone who knows what he is doing, who won’t fall in love with them and who she wouldn’t fall in love with, and they want to do it in a controlled situation under her terms, and not in a random or haphazard way.” For a control freak like me, this sounded like a dream scenario. Besides understanding the emotional needs of the girl, he seemed so matter of fact about the role of being The First. Other guys I had tested the waters with before Tucker were up for sex, but had an irrational fear that being my first was going to wreak emotional carnage on both our lives, so it never happened. The fact that Tucker seemed so at ease with the responsibility made him even more of a prospect.
Going into this, the only real worry I had was being written about. In fact, I was almost hoping I was going to be completely unmemorable so that I would be left out of the blog. Tucker holds nothing back when it comes to his opinion, and this is especially true when it comes to women. I was worried that I’d log on to the message board later that night and see a virgin-hating blog directed at me or be greeted with a paragraph dedicated to how much I sucked at life in his next book. But the thing is, I often agreed with his evaluations of people. If he had something to say about me, I figured I might want to give his thoughts at least a little bit of consideration. However, if I escaped a post-sex trashing, my self esteem would shoot through the roof. I know I should have a high opinion of myself on my own, but right before writing Tucker I had just had my heart broken. I was in the middle of dealing with what I like to call “The Summer My Soul Was Murdered.” So of course I was feeling like shit and needed an ego boost
at the time.
After re-reading that paragraph, I feel a little gross that validation from Tucker had anything to do with motivating me. But I’ve heard Dave Grohl gush over Bob Dylan using “Everlong,” Howard Stern fawn over Steve Martin, and I’m willing to bet that 100% of American Idol contestants really care what Simon thinks. So, I guess I’m not so much pathetic as I am human. If it wasn’t in our nature to want approval, especially from people who are notorious for their low tolerance for bullshit, Simon Cowell would be out of a job. Wow. Did I just compare me and my sex life to American Idol, and Tucker to Simon Cowell? I guess I know what my next therapy session will be about.
Now that I think about it, besides wanting to give my recent Heartbreaker a big “Fuck you, I’m moving on,” I actually think I was telling myself to fuck off as well. It was like I had a self-intervention. A voice that had been hiding inside for years finally showed up and kicked my ass: “Enough is enough. Stop being so fucking safe and do something adventurous. Fuck the Heartbreaker and fuck everything else that has kept you from doing this until now. Nobody puts baby in the corner!” Um, you get the idea. Basically, it was time to make a move and I knew it. Were there other ways I could have sought adventure? Of course. Did I mention I was 30?
Since Tucker made himself easily accessible to everyone, lived within a reasonable travel distance, and I was definitely attracted to him, I figured why the hell not. After sending photos and talking on the phone, successfully hurdling the obstacles of “Will he even think I’m cute?” and “Will we get along?” we made plans to meet up for a late lunch that weekend.
So how did it go?
Knowing how I am, and even how I was then, I still can’t believe I didn’t have a full blown anxiety attack on the way to see him. But like anything in life—a job, a relationship, or evidently a hookup with someone you’ve never met—when something’s right, there’s nothing to analyze or freak out about. You want to do it and it feels natural, like it’s exactly what you are supposed to be doing right at that time. All that’s left to do is let it happen and enjoy it.
It’s funny. When someone complains to me that they’re not getting any or they’re having post-hookup drama, my response is: “I find that e-mailing someone and simply asking them if they want to fuck seems to work out pretty well.” People think I’m joking, but I’m being serious. The experience really couldn’t have gone better.
Offline, Tucker wasn’t much different than what I expected, except that he was nicer and a bit more chill than I imagined he would be. And for all my worrying about facing decimation via blog, I actually ended up feeling pretty comfortable once I was with him and forgot all about the impending threat.
I remember when my chicken sandwich arrived at the lunch table. I was nervous there’d be some kind of freak disaster and everything between the bread would shoot out and hit Tucker in the face. I tried to be Miss Dainty and started to use my utensils to cut it in half instead. Tucker shot me a look as if I had two heads and asked “Are you actually going to cut your sandwich up with a fork and knife right now?!” I blushed and told him that normally I rip apart the sandwich with my hands like a neanderthal, but I didn’t want to look nuts. “That would have been awesome!” he laughed. Sensing he’d rather I be myself than try too hard to be perfect, I put the utensils down and broke up the sandwich like I normally do. That was precisely the moment where I relaxed and the vibe changed from “interview” to “hang out with a guy I’m into.”
After we finished lunch, we headed to his place. I sat on the edge of his bed while I watched him do a quick e-mail check. I was way too shy to make the first move and didn’t know what to do. Should I lean back, motion to my lap with my hands as if I’m a Price is Right Girl presenting my virginity as a prize and say “I’m ready for you now”? Needless to say, I silently prayed that he would be the one to initiate.
When he was done on the computer, he turned around to face me and asked me about the first time I had been naked with a guy. While I babbled about that, he leaned back in his chair and rested his leg by my side. He slid the tip of his foot under my shirt and lightly grazed my hip as I continued to talk. I remember feeling the right corner of my mouth uncontrollably form a sly grin. It was such a random action, but it was enough to flip the “Oh it’s ON NOW” switch in my head. Right after that discussion ended, Tucker thankfully released me from my initiation nerves and joined me on the bed to get things going.
I was happy with how things went in and out of the bedroom. Tucker showed an amazing amount of sensitivity towards me and respected the whole situation, even reassuring me on the phone that it was completely understandable if I wanted to back out at the last minute. When he gave me a heads up about what to physically expect during the event and the following day or two, I joked that I felt like I was at an appointment with the Virgin Doctor. But honestly, I appreciated it. He made the whole thing way less scarier than it would have been had I jumped in the sack as a high schooler with a clueless teenage boy, or if I had gotten drunk in college and let a party hookup get off and go home.
Any regrets?
A tiny part of me wishes I still waited for The One, just for the sake of adding some romance to the whole thing. But other than that, I don’t have any regrets. I made the right decision for myself at the time, which is all anyone can really do in this life. I’m glad I can look back at my first experience with a smile. Partially because it’s hilarious to me that I got the nerve to do that at all. But also because it went off without a hitch, which was all thanks to Tucker being a gentleman about the whole thing. There are a lot of people who can’t believe that I can truthfully use the words “gentleman,” “sensitivity,” “respect” and “Tucker Max” in the same sentence. I don’t know what to tell them. Maybe I caught Tucker on a good day.
Would I ever write an internet stranger for sex now? Definitely not. Back then I had different priorities: I hated feeling like the circus freak for the second time in my life, I needed to know what sex was like, I was at a low point because of a recent heartbreak, and well, I just wanted to bang Tucker. Now, my overall self esteem is in a different place. Hooking up, especially for self esteem reasons, isn’t an urgent need. If I meet a guy at a party or wherever, and I feel like messing around with him, then I will. But as far as actual sex, believe it or not, Tucker was the last person. It’s not that he ruined me for other men or anything like that. It’s just that I place a higher value of intimacy on that particular act than I did then. So for now I’m fine to wait it out for The One. Unless of course Tucker calls. Because you know us ladies and our need for the Alpha Male.”
I FUCKED TUCKER MAX!
I didn’t put the story about all these girls coming out to fuck me and then writing about it in the first draft. When Bunny finished proofing it for me, she asked where it was.
Tucker “I don’t know… I don’t want to put it in.”
Bunny “How could you possibly leave that story out of a section that is specifically about your POST-FAME sex life?”
Tucker “I don’t know… I don’t want to deal with everything surrounding those stories of girls writing about fucking me.”
Bunny “That is STUPID! You put those stories in that book this minute!”
Still waffling, I asked Nils what he thought about putting these stories in the book, and as usual, he perceptively and accurately summed up all the issues:
“AHAHHAHAHAHAH, you are realizing this stuff is “kinda starting” to change your behavior?!!? Glad to see it’s taken only five years of emotionally vacant sexual encounters to move the needle… kinda.
I am not at all worried that this story would take on a braggart’s tone. I’m more interested to see what insights you have and what conclusions you’ve drawn from it all. Because to me, more than “this is what happens when you get everything you want,” it’s a cautionary tale about reaping what you sow. When you spend 6–7 years cultivating a culture that promotes and celebrates meaningless, emotionless sex for
sex’s sake between consenting adults who, ideally, want nothing from the other person besides the sex, it’s going to come full circle when you have moved forward and realized there is something better than random sex while a whole generation of young people are coming fresh to your material as this static piece of biblical philosophy divorced from time and place. It’s no coincidence that these stories affected you in a way that you describe as feeling used (even if you are being partly tongue-in-cheek), and all three happened post-HotNurse.
You can do this story without the HotNurse angle if you talk about these things in a way that doesn’t deal with feeling used but rather how strange it all is seeing things come full circle (i.e., you used to say random crazy shit to girls to see what you could get away with all for the story. Now, because of the fame that lifestyle has brought you, girls are trying to fuck you for the story… but they’re not actually doing anything other than making the first move and consenting… which I guess is the female equivalent of doing crazy shit to see what they can get away with).
What’s so fucked up about this is that to the casual observer, the whole idea of YOU talking about being used for sex is just dripping with irony when the reality is that over the last four years or so, you never actually sought out one single girl for ANYTHING, let alone to use her for sex. The reality is that you have been getting used for sex for years. You made yourself openly available to all comers, and as your fame and notoriety grew, more and more of those comers had selfish motives unrelated to sexual gratification and a good time.
And the more important issue (at least personally and emotionally) related to that whole idea is that it profoundly affected how you viewed and related to women. I can say from firsthand experience that it jaundiced you toward women for a significant period of time to the point where you nearly became the woman-hating person critics made you out to be based on the book/site when, in fact, you weren’t that person at all when you wrote it. Which, of course, is yet another irony to pile onto the other ironies.”