Carrie Jones has never had an orgasm while having sex—and not for lack of trying...
Despite countless attempts over three decades with twenty-three different men, Jones’ sexual exploits have always failed to bring her to that toe-curling place of ecstatic release hyped in Cosmo articles, erotic novels, pop songs, and television shows like Sex and the City. The sad reality is that Jones’ story, which she tells in the recently published Cutting Up Playgirl: A Memoir of Sexual Disappointment, is anything but unique—and therein lies its beauty.
Contradicting the sensationalized, inauthentic, pop-culture-driven version of female sexuality that has become a media staple, Jones presents a wholly different account of women’s intimate encounters. The book is not simply a recounting of sexual escapades or romantic (mis)adventures (á là Bridget Jones); the book much smarter than that. Although these kinds of amusing tales make up a large part of her story, Jones presents a deeply personal, at times uncomfortably forthcoming, yet enormously comical journey through the embarrassing naïveté of youth, botched attempts to transgress emotional hindrance to bodily desire, and disappointment in not being able to adhere to a fantastical norm. This gratifying read is about coming to terms with sexual disenchantment and claiming one’s own messy truth.
When did it occur to you to write a book about your intimate history?
It took me a relatively long time to get it together to write this book, and it happened when three things came together at once: my lifelong love of books, writing as a part of therapy, and a heightened sense of what it meant to have your words made public that came from working in publishing. I didn’t want to stay solely on the consumer side of the creative divide, and I needed to have my own story consumed by other people, even if only in a modest way. So I came to write the book largely as a way of working through the tumult of things I was feeling and experiencing, or had experienced in the past, but also to fulfil a desire to put something out there.
Your writing is so thorough and introspective. What did you draw from to capture so much detail?
I have very vivid memories of all the stories. I also kept a diary, and for many years my writing impulses were channeled into letters I wrote at great length and in great number, the majority of them to my mum. Some years ago she gave the letters back, which I took as both a generous gesture since she knew I was interested to see them again, but one tinged with a slight resentment on my part because she was so willing to part with them. When I was able to re-read them, I was taken aback by the phoniness of the letters—their shallow tone and false sugariness—and it seemed extraordinary that I had put so much time into sending them. I wondered, what on earth was the point? Then when I was in my thirties, they stopped.
What shifted for you?
This was when I began going to therapy and also met my husband. I had a lot of insights into my relationship with my mother then, and I saw how the relationship was serving her interests, rather than my own. She and I had been in a bubble that was holding me back from forming satisfying intimate relationships (or even having satisfying sex), and at that point the bubble popped. I left out a lot about my parents’ behavior towards me, partly because the book wasn’t primarily about them, partly because it would have been extremely awkward if they’d found out about the book, and partly because I only understood their significance after the book was finished.
Your parents weren’t anti-sex, but their peculiar asexuality is reflected in your own sexual reticence. What taboos did you inherit from your parents?
Where to start? At one point I talk about my mum not having embraced the modern age and living in exactly the same way she had as a child—shopping for fresh food every day, using ancient implements for the washing and so on. The same is true of her attitudes toward sex and love. More than most people, I think she was frozen in adolescence. She always loved to see men’s genitals in tight outfits (ballet dancers, for instance), and this would both embarrass and amuse her. She was extremely hung up about men, afraid of yet fascinated by them. She’s nearly 80 now and she is just the same. She passed some of this on to me, although not to such an extreme degree.
My inability to talk about sex with partners is another inheritance, especially the inability to admit when sex isn’t enjoyable and having no sense of entitlement to sexual satisfaction. I’ve dealt with these taboos in that I’ve become aware of them and sidestepped them, at least for now, by exiting sexual involvement. I do have some kind of sexual satisfaction and sexual arousal, but none of it directly involves another human being. That makes me sad, but it’s a tolerable reality.
The need for safety and control, particularly through denying yourself pleasure, are recurring themes that dampen your ability to be fully present and engaged in sexual liaisons. What effect has this had on your enjoyment of sex?
This is, of course, the profoundly depressing heart of the matter. We all learn that attraction can and probably will lead to sex, and we look forward to it, but when it actually happens I inevitably find myself in a dissociated state, effectively absent from what’s going on. Dissociation is generally understood as a defence against trauma, so at some point, sex must have been coded as traumatic for me. I’m not a sex expert, and although a psychologist could possibly use my story as a case study, I can’t necessarily understand my own hang-ups.
What I do know is that the flipside of safety and control is an intense curiosity about what loss of control, and even danger, is like. I try to imagine what it is like to be the sort of person who doesn’t hold back, who’ll try anything. And I wonder, If I want to do it, why don’t I? The sensation of, “No, I’d better not,” or “No, I can’t,” is physical, like a board in my stomach. It may keep me safe, but it also disappoints and frustrates me. If I took drugs or drank to excess I might sidestep the board, but knowing that is the very thing that stops me from drinking and taking drugs. So, you see, the control is very much in place. I feel like it’s a handicap that has rendered an important area of life completely grey and silent. It’s made me quite voyeuristic as well.
For a book about female sexuality, cunnilingus is practically absent.
This isn’t a reflection of my own experience. I’ve had plenty ‘administered’ to me in my time. Alas, I’ve never really enjoyed it. I just can’t relax. In sex, my head is always busy thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to make the guy enjoy it. That’s the least I can do.” And although I know a lot of men do enjoy giving oral sex, I guess deep down, I think I’m ‘dirty’ and wonder why they would want to do that. On the other hand, my fantasies are quite focused on my giving men oral sex, so maybe that’s just the other side of the coin: wanting to be humiliated and dirtied? I don’t really think oral sex is dirty, not consciously, and I don’t disapprove of it. I’m just trying to express what my subconscious may think.
Common tropes for women are the desire to be desired and wanting to be sexy without having sex. You became adept at both of these things and yet still felt insecure and inauthentic. How does this manifest in women’s sexuality?
Feelings of insecurity come early in life, even in the womb, and are compounded by society. Society is only the personal en masse, after all. The worst thing is when society—perhaps we can crudely characterize the media as the voice of society—mythologizes something in order to disguise the true, flawed nature of it. So with sex, you have the myth of the pneumatic, sexually available woman who is gratified to screaming point by male attention. Real women have to compete with that image, but, by the same token, if they disguise themselves in that image by using make-up, jewelry, high heels, plastic surgery, and the like, then they’ll be safely subsumed into the image and can pass for it. Men will want them and, for many, that seems to be enough. Men being attracted to you is highly gratifying and makes you feel good about yourself. If you don’t usually feel good about yourself, the effect is even stronger.
Cutting Up Playgirl is written in a wry, comedic style. Was this your way of creating distance for yourself while exploring difficult memories?
If the book had been written in a somber tone, it would have been terribly tedious! I wanted to entertain with my unhappinesses. My stories are funny because they’re so pathetic, misguided, and humiliating. And if I didn’t laugh at myself, I’d be so depressed. That comic voice is my natural voice. I love telling stories against myself, and I love making people laugh.
How’s your sex life now?
It’s very weird for me at the moment. I’m in a phase where it seems as though my sexual life might be over (in terms of having intimate relationships with other people). Logically I know this may not turn out to be the case, but it feels rather terminal for now. I’m older and in the invisible phase of life, so my sex life is suddenly in the past and no longer about me in the present. That’s quite a new sensation, and it takes some getting used to.