In this chapter, however, we will examine an encounter technique which strikes me as utterly unsound, even as the man whose technique it is impresses me as either a charlatan or a psychopath, or possibly both. His premise is that happiness and emotional satisfaction can best be reached through the explosion of all sexual inhibitions, and he professes to have derived his therapeutic techniques from a study of the work of Wilhelm Reich. (His understanding of Reichean theory is vague at best.)
I first became aware of this man—whom I’ll call Jeremy—by talking with a woman who had attended one of his marathons. I found the whole idea of what he was doing interesting if somewhat appalling, and made an attempt to interview him directly. After he had ignored several letters of mine—nothing personal, as I later learned, since he habitually fails to answer his mail—I reached him by telephone. At first he seemed quite enthusiastic about discussing his program with me. I arranged to call him later and set a time and place for an interview. When I did so, he brushed off the idea of an interview and suggested instead that I attend one of his sessions as a participant.
From my friend’s description, I seriously doubted that I would be able to participate wholeheartedly in a marathon. In addition, I have grown averse to the idea of traveling under false colors, and do not like to pretend to be other than what I am—a writer who intends ultimately to report on what he discovers. Jeremy made it quite clear that he would not welcome my attendance unless I concealed my professional status from the other members of the group, and I found this unacceptable.
I suggested again that he spare me an hour or so for an interview, and he replied that he did not have the time available, that his schedule was impossibly heavy. When I tried to question him over the telephone concerning his previous experience, his qualifications to run a group, etc., he became evasive and rather surly and terminated the conversation almost immediately. Shortly thereafter I learned he had moved to the West Coast, which I believe is where he had come from in the first place.
I then got in touch with my friend and explained that I would like to get a detailed version of her observations of the marathon. Before we could get together she left town to spend the summer at the shore. She suggested that perhaps she could write up some sketchy notes of the session as she recalled it, and I could use the notes to create an interview.
After some thought, I’ve decided I’d rather let her notes stand as written. Any editing I might do (except for the deletion of some extraneous personal material) would only interpose an extra viewpoint between the actuality and the reader. Thus what follows is precisely what I received. I have merely cut a few brief irrelevant passages and corrected some of her unorthodox spelling.
The author of the following is in her mid-thirties, bright, hip, perceptive, and irreverent. She is bisexual and was not involved in a relationship at the time she attended the marathon. She had had some prior experience with group sex. She attended the marathon not in the hope that it would help her emotionally but because what she had heard about Jeremy had led her to suspect it would be an interesting and novel experience.
I’m sure it was.
• • •
As arranged, I get out there noon Saturday. The place, incredibly, is a semi-detached brickfront in Flushing, the epitome of squalid bourgeois respectability. I could accept (a) a clearing in the woods near Big Sur (b) a loft in SoHo (c) a Lower East Side crash pad (d) a split-level in Westchester (e) an old Victorian manse on Staten Island (f) a brownstone anywhere—anything but this tacky row house.
Meet Jeremy at the door. Spoke to him on the phone and now find that his body matches his voice, pear-shaped body and pear-shaped tones. Big man, fat and bald as Buddha. Looks a bit like Buddha, come to think.
I’ve already sent him a check. Ditto everybody else. Cash in advance, not just before you get in the door but before you are told the address. There are an even dozen of us plus Brother Jeremy, each of us having forked over fifty bucks. That’s six hundred dollars for Jeremy and he does this once a week. This is not bad. Howard Hughes would not be impressed. Me, I’m impressed.
• • •
Among those present: three married couples, six of us single folk. (Jeremy tells us later this ratio is by design. Suspicious Me thinks it’s cause that’s who came up with the fifty bucks.) Married couples—Ralph and Sally, he’s an accountant, she apologetically identifies self as housewife, they’re about forty, she’s overweight and looks like it worries her, he’s overweight and looks like it doesn’t. Peter and Linda, he a tax lawyer, she a dancer. Suspicious Me thinks she’s a housewife with delusions of grandeur. Dancer’s body, tho. They’re my age. Ditto Arnie and Marilyn, he’s bald and very sincere, she very Flatbush Refugee, a housewife but less apologetic than Sally. Can’t remember what he does.
Single people: Janine, schoolteacher, about 24, potentially dumpy. Hal, long tall slightly faggy, my age, does something incomprehensible for Lindsay administration. Robert, pudgy myopic late twenties, says he’s in furniture, gather he works for his father. Estelle, another schoolteacher, divorced, ugly, must subscribe to dozens of unreadable magazines. Myron, self-consciously hip appearance, ditto speech, standard ten-dollar haircut, sells life insurance yet. (I don’t want any.) Also Me.
• • •
Immediate reactions—of those present, I would not at all mind balling Linda, Arnie, Hal. Would as soon not ball Robert, Estelle, Myron, Ralph. Neutral about the others.
Whole first floor is one big room. Somebody must have knocked all the walls out. No furniture anywhere, just pillows and mattresses scattered here and there on the wall-to-wall carpet We sit in a circle, all twelve of us plus Jeremy. Before this there has been a half hour of mingling with nauseous small talk and drinks. The drinks are apple juice and Coca-Cola. Not mixed—you choose one or the other. I overhear a spirited discussion, I forget between whom, as to whether or not it’s organic apple juice. No speculation as to whether or not it’s organic Coca-Cola.
Gross Guru Jeremy announces how to begin. We are sitting boy-girl-boy-girl etc. in our circle. We will go around the circle, taking turns giving our names (first names only, he stresses, like it matters) and saying up to a hundred words about ourselves. Then, after delivering our little speech, we are to take off all our clothes and sit down again.
Impression: everyone is so serious about this. Been to swings where you come in and take off your clothes. Not formal, just you notice everybody’s naked so you take off your clothes and join the crowd. But this is structured. And there’s neither embarrassment or joy evident. Astonishing. I have great desire to deflate everything with a smartass line. Can tell right away that this is going to get in my way. 24 hours without a sense of humor a dismal prospect. How to handle it?
Somebody is designated to go first, don’t remember who. A man, I think. Stands up, says something stupidly self-deprecating, then with rare economy takes off clothing. And around and around we go. Perversely, I watch the watchers, wishing someone will get a hard-on. Nobody does. Not that I can tell, anyway. Possibly somebody got a hard-on while dressed, but none of the naked people have hard-ons.
All of this is so exhibitionistic, and most of the people here are not used to it. When a person is on center stage like that and strips you have to look. You can’t look away, it’s too ridiculous a cop-out. By the time we’re halfway around the circle Yours Truly begins to groove on it. Get great pleasure staring at the cocks as they are revealed to my view. Find myself getting off on staring very hard and very obviously at these revelations to blow everybody else’s mind.
Vibes: these people are disrobing apologetically. “I’m sorry (a) my tits aren’t bigger (b) my cock’s not longer (c) I’m fat (d) I’m skinny (e) my tits sag (f) I’m not circumcised (g) I’m circumcised (h) I’ve got too much body hair (i) I’ve got too little body hair (j) none of the above.”
My turn. I’m ninth in a field of twelve, and by the time it gets around to me I’ve managed to become nervous in spite of myse
lf. God knows why. I have undressed in front of enough friends and enemies and strangers so I should be able to be cool about this. Jeremy’s fucking structure fosters uptightness.
Fuck it. I say, “Hello, naked people. My name is Susan and I am gainfully unemployed. I came here because there’s nothing terrific on television over the weekend. Also I want to have a Meaningful Experience as much as the next schmuck. Please remember I didn’t laugh at your bodies so don’t laugh at mine unless you positively can’t help it.”
I shuck my clothes and nobody laughs. Actually I’m fairly confident, because I probably have the best female body there exc. for Linda.
• • •
When we’re all naked, Jeremy stands up and says “My name is Jeremy” and takes his clothes off. He is gross and pale and sloppy but is so completely at ease that his body looks surprisingly together. His penis looks small, probably because it is largely eclipsed by the fat. I still don’t care for him but have to admit the schmuck has presence. He is super-cool. You would have to be to be into this scene.
Jeremy speaks: “See how strong we are, yet see how vulnerable we are. Our nakedness makes us at once stronger and more tender. Clothing is a mask. We have shed that particular mask. By the time we leave tomorrow, we shall have shed several other masks as well. For we are all wearing armor and must remove it to bare our souls.”
• • •
Group exercises, a game of sexual Simple Simon. First all the women turn and play with the cocks of the men on their left. Then the men fondle the tits of the women on their left. Then the women stroke the balls of the men on their right. Then the men finger the girls on their right.
All sorts of little idiot games like this. Up to a point, tho, they work. They are designed to break down barriers, and the barriers are breaking down. At first all of the fondling is done very mechanically and a little defensively. People project an air of Look, I have to do this, he told me to, it’s nothing personal. As the game goes on, familiarity breeds familiarity. Here and there people start responding sexually. Across from me Janine is starting to breathe hard. Some of the men have erections. Some of the eyes are beginning to gleam.
I’m sitting between Myron and Arnie. I play with one, I play with the other, they alternate playing with me according to the dictates of the gross guru. Arnie gets a hard-on early on in the game, but I can’t know whether it’s in my honor or whether the woman on his other side is responsible. Myron gets a soft-on, his organ flushed with blood but not quite rigid yet.
They are both circumcised. Both have nice cocks, Arnie’s a little thicker, Myron’s a little longer. Myron’s hands are very nice, he has a good sense of touch.
The barriers break down. The barriers should yield easily. After all, we all know what we’re here for. Everybody knows that Jeremy’s marathons are light on revelation of self and heavy on sexual content. Everybody fucks everybody else sooner or later, according to my information, so that’s what we’ve all come for.
What I can’t believe: that these people are not all as conscious of the game aspect of this as I am. This overwhelming sincerity everyone’s giving off seems to be honest and true. How come? Do they really believe this is going to turn their heads around and make them better human beings? Do they really think Jeremy is a kind of god?
Me, I’m more detached than the rest of these people. I figure it’s just a good excuse for an orgy.
• • •
After about fifteen minutes of Simon Says, Jeremy calls two people out of the circle, Ralph and Estelle. They were not sitting next to each other. He has them sit on a mattress in the middle of the circle and gives them instructions. He also tells the rest of us to watch them, which was hardly necessary—we were already watching them. He has them kiss and feel each other up, and then tells Ralph to go down on her. Estelle sits back with her arms stretched out behind her and her legs apart. She has a pretty nice bush. Her eyes are closed and her mouth hangs open. Ralph gets on his knees with his ass up in the air and begins eating her out. All I can see is his ass, it’s pointed directly at me, and just above it I can see Estelle’s face, which becomes increasingly expressionless as she gets hotter.
I watch this for a while, then look at some of the other people, then watch Estelle as she starts huffing and puffng.
Is this supposed to be turning us all on? Me, I’m not affected much. I usually enjoy watching, altho it’s rarely a turn-on as such. Just fun, usually. Thing is, maybe this is too structured for me.
Another thing. The rest of the group is just watching. Nobody’s doing anything. Everybody just sits and stares. Some of them seem absorbed in the spectacle of Ralph and Estelle.
Sally, Ralph’s wife, is impossible for me to read. Is she getting anything, pro or con, out of watching her husband give this ugly schoolteacher some head? If so, she hides it pretty well.
At one point, more out of boredom than desire, I reach over absent-mindedly and take hold of Myron by the dork. He’s nice and hard, so I wrap my hand around him and begin tugging him off. I get a few strokes in and then his hand covers mine.
Myron: I don’t think we’re supposed to do that.
Me: Don’t you like it?
Myron: Yes, but I don’t think—
Me: Wouldn’t you like to come?
Myron: Not right now.
I remove my hand. We have been talking in whispers, but people have noticed and are staring at me. Have I committed some great gaffe? I do not terribly care. Thing is, tho, I feel rejected. No one ever stopped me in the middle of a hand job before. I’m supposed to have nice hands.
Came to me then that perhaps he was afraid that if I got him off he wouldn’t be able to get it on again. Had to be in condition for when it was his turn in the barrel, his time to be the center of attraction on the mattress in the middle of the circle.
Thought so at the time. Now not so sure. Think his main reason was he wanted to do what Jeremy told him and nothing else. Hell of a way to open people up and blow their minds, just have them follow instructions.
• • •
The animals come in two by two.
Estelle has a yipping orgasm, comes sounding like a Pekinese. Yip yip yip! Ralph crawls out from between her legs, shiteating grin on his face, cock at half mast. Estelle flashes us a shy smile. They return to their places in the circle and Jeremy calls up another couple and has them warm up with finger exercises, them hump dog-style.
Estelle should have been chosen for the dog-style, yipping like that.
And so it goes. One couple does this, another couple does that, and we all of us take our turns. The couples are boy-girl. I have been given to understand that everything becomes thoroughly bisexual eventually, but I gather that we have to build up to that.
Don’t remember who was with whom or what precisely was done in the six couplings. Who can remember all this? Make up something imaginative when you write this up.
• • •
I was fifth on the agenda. By then I was beginning to feel slightly paranoid. Is he ducking me for a reason? Does he suspect my purpose is not as worthy as the rest of these clowns?
Or is he saving the best for last?
And is it good to be last? By then everyone will be too fucked out to watch. Presumably all of these watchers will be a turn-on.
And what if I really don’t dig it? Do I pretend to? Or am I supposed to be honest?
I wasn’t last, just second-last. Penultimate.
My partner is Robert, who is in furniture, and who could have probably supplied a better mattress than this smarmy come-stained arena on which he and I are supposed to couple. Far as that goes, I could have hoped for something better than Robert, who is soft and plump with a permanently apologetic face. Understandable—he has much to be permanently apologetic about.
Jeremy wants us to fuck with Robert lying on his back and me on top. There’s a problem, tho. Robert’s not hard. We play around and he’s still not hard. Jeremy’s not saying anything, but I sense
that Robert is beginning to get uptight about this. The uptighter he gets, the harder he’s not going to get, so instead of waiting for instructions from Jeremy I crouch over Robert and pop his soft little cock into my mouth.
I like fellatio best when the man is soft at the beginning. It’s nice to be able to get it all in my mouth and cup his nuts in my hand and go gobble-gobble and feel it grow long and hard in my mouth. Gives a wonderful sense of power and accomplishment. Suck suck suck and make it bigger and better.
Except that midway through the process Robert gives a sharp little cry and twitches spasmodically and fills my mouth with unborn children. Poor baby comes before he’s even fully erect. I go on draining him until he stops trembling and wonder what to do with his gift. Spit it on the mattress? Given the condition of our little playground, it’s unlikely anyone would notice.
Decide he’s feeling lousy enough about coming quick, so why add to his sense of rejection? So I swallow it. I’m funny about this. Whether or not I swallow come is a great index of my feelings for a man.
Robert’s tastes good, at least. Why has no one written about the great difference in taste, the variation from man to man? Some salty, some bitter, some burn the back of your throat on the way down. I wonder why. I suppose it must have something to do with diet. The health food people should get into that: Turn to natural foods and your girlfriend will gobble up every last drop. Sounds like a can’t-miss ad pitch to me. If they could get it past the censors.
• • •
Robert feels bad, apologizes. I tell him to forget it.
Robert: I don’t usually have that problem.
Me: Look, it’s an unnatural situation, all that pressure. Forget it.
Robert: I’m sorry I didn’t satisfy you.
The Sex Therapists: What They Can Do and How They Do It (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Book 15) Page 12