I'm Andrea Askowitz. And this is Writing Class Radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which is equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing, no matter what's going on in our lives. Writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. Sheeeit! There's no place in the world like writing class, and we want to bring you in.
Today on our show, we're bringing you a story by Jenny Powers. Jenny is a New York based freelance reporter, she writes for HuffPost, The Cut Business Insider, Fortune, and more. She is working on a memoir called Smooth Operator, Confessions of an Accidental Phone Sex Vixen. You can see more of her work at clippings.me/jaypowers. And we'll have a link to that in our show notes.
So the story we bring you today was originally published in The Cut, in New York Magazine's The Cut. I am so excited for our listeners to hear this story. It's a great example of a promise fulfilled. Does that make sense?
Yeah. She made a promise and fulfilled her promise.
Yeah, I think you'll understand it when you when you hear it. And it's also a great example of showing us the trajectory of a narrator. And it's a great example of a narrator knowing herself- a reliable, knowing narrator.
Yeah, she uses all sorts of good stuff, and especially how to turn a situation into a story. So back with Jenny Powers after the break.
We're back. This is Andrea Askowitz, and you're listening to Writing Class Radio. Up next is Jenny Powers reading her story, Outsourcing My Orgasm.
It seemed cruel to be released directly back onto the city streets at rush hour, and in midtown Manhattan, after what had just happened. I'd imagined lounging in a cozy waiting room while I sipped tea and relished in the afterglow. Instead, I dressed in a hurry, exchanged an awkward hug, and stood in a daze as the apartment door closed in my face. I just experienced one of the most mind-blowing, toe-curling orgasms of my life.
On the train home to Brooklyn, I tried to recount the days events but everything was a bit hazy. I'd put myself in someone else's hands, literally. I've given a stranger, a woman, $270 for an erotic massage, in a last ditch attempt to find pleasure in my body. The same body that had given me so much displeasure in recent years. As I stood wedged between strangers on the subway, I smiled. When I walked in the door, my husband looked up from his computer with a perfunctory, "Hey, how was your day?" My usual response was, "Fine." But today I was on a different plane. We'd been together for 14 years. And for the first five of those, we couldn't keep our hands off each other. Our morning sex resulted in frequently showing up late for work. And our evenings and weekends were mostly spent between the sheets. My lingerie collection took up two dresser drawers. Our relationship began aboard the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on a sweltering July evening, at what had been touted as New York's largest singles event of the summer. Neither of us was there to meet the one. I worked for the company producing the event, and he worked for one of the beverage sponsors. One of his team members introduced me as the woman who saved their asses. Then the overzealous photographer asked us to move a little closer for a photo. My now husband casually tossed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in. It felt like we'd been together forever. We shared a cab home and exchanged numbers. Within two months of dating, we were practically living together. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, something's changed: my body. The trifecta of childbirth, nearing the half century mark, and a metabolism rate that has slowed to a crawl has caused me to gain weight. Up until that point, I was a size two, despite never exercising and a diet a vending machine cuisine. First my clothes started to feel a bit snug. Then I began to struggle with zippers and buttons. I tried cleanses and meal plans, counting points and intermittent fasting. I hired personal trainers, nutritionists and Park Avenue weight loss specialists. At the end of the day, nothing worked. Because the cold hard truth was I didn't do the work. I was in an ugly state of limbo between what I wanted and what I was willing to do to actually get there. It all made my sex drive weaker than a dial up modem. My husband, on the other hand, maintained the sex drive of a frat boy. He'd routinely press up against me after turning off our bedroom lights. And I'd say I had a headache or cramps or some other excuse. One fed-up sigh later, he'd turn over, giving me his back. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy sex with him. When we actually had it, it was great. But somewhere along the line, I'd let the thoughts in my head take over. And it's hard to have an orgasm when you're too busy wondering if you're positioned in the least fat way possible. Even when masturbating, I couldn't control the strength of my self-degrading thoughts. So I gave up on that too. Some girlfriends swore by libido-boosting prescription meds. Another raved about the results from a vaginal injection known as the O shot. One friend joked if I were a man, I could engage the services of an escort. Or at the very least, find a massage parlor with someone willing to give me a happy ending. It's not that much of a stretch when you think about it. I'd already outsourced everything else: a TaskRabbit to install the allegedly DIY Peel and Stick wallpaper, a glam squad to give me a smoky-but-not-too-smoky eye for the annual private school Gala. A DoorDasher to turn a food craving into dinner. I googled erotic massage and happy ending massage for women, and found a New York magazine story about a guy, Dr. M., who gives women erotic massages from his apartment. The only hitch? Potential clients were required to submit a photo in advance. Maybe it's a safety thing, maybe it's a vanity thing. Either way, considering that my self image was already in the toilet, I ruled him out. That and something about outsourcing this to a guy felt like crossing a line into infidelity. I came across listings for tantric therapists offering sensual massages for women and couples. Their websites all look the same. A smattering of stock photo images showcasing flickering candles and statues draped in spiritual BS. The therapists were referred to as healers, priestesses and guides. As I read I learned that Yoni massage was named for the Sanskrit word for Lady Parts, and roughly translated to sacred space or cave. Seeing that my own sacred space felt like an abandoned storage unit, I continued scrolling. Every 20-something white female featured on the site appeared to have an identical bio. So I picked the one with the earliest availability and completed the new client intake form, which required my LinkedIn profile and a photo of my driver's license or passport to verify it was really me. Within an hour, I received an email for a woman named Shanti, confirming my appointment for the next day, and clarifying that the donation for the hour long massage would be $270 in cash. Her only instructions for the next day were to go to 59th Street and Eighth Avenue and text her once I arrived for the exact building and apartment number. I was afraid this might be a scam, but I went about the rest of my day, which now included getting a Brazilian wax. I intended to tell my husband about my plans, but everything happened so fast. And now I wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject. Then, as I stepped out of the shower that night, my husband barged into the bathroom and spotted my newly waxed and barely their landing strip and raised an eyebrow. The jig was up. As I towelled off, and he stood flossing, I confessed. I told him I'd been making up excuses to avoid sex because of my weight, and that this session was something I needed to do for myself. I also promised to text him my whereabouts the next day. He tried to mask his surprise that I'd gone to these lengths, but he didn't try to change my mind. Having been married to me for more than a decade, he knew better. The next morning I put on the nicest pair of underwear I owned and headed to meet Shanti. As instructed, I arrived at the designated corner and texted her. She responded less than a minute later. I texted my husband the exact location, and once he replied with a thumbs up, I took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer outside a nondescript three story walk up. The apartment was on the ground floor and the door was ajar. Shanti, a brunette with the body of a ballerina, peeked out and greeted me in a hushed tone. She was barefoot and wearing a paper thin sundress. Leading me inside a dimly lit room that smelled of sage, with Enya playing softly, she invited me to sit down alongside her on a nearby Warren loveseat. She wasted no time looking directly into my eyes and asking, "What brings you here today, Jenny?" My eyes welled up with tears. "Well, I've gained a lot of weight, and I no longer feel comfortable having sex because I'm self-conscious. But I still want to... Um..." I fiddled with my wedding band. "Feel good?" I nodded. "Well, you're in the right place," she said, and took my hand, explaining that the purpose of the Yoni massage was to help people feel more comfortable by exploring their relationship with their bodies, and releasing any tension. She led me to a brightly lit bathroom filled with a variety of bath products, turned on the shower, instructed me to rinse off and left. It wasn't until I stepped out that I realized there were no towels, leaving me no choice but to call out to her. When the door open, Shanti was holding open an oversized white towel. In an effort to hide my body, I beelined into her arms. She took my hand and guided me into a small room with massage table. Incense burned on a shelf next to an empty ceramic tray, which she informed me was for my donation. When she excused herself, I placed the cash onto the tray and slid onto the table covering my body with the towel. She returned with a smile and removed the towel, motioning for me to sit up. Then she climbed onto the table, so we were facing each other. She took my hand and guided it to my heart, and told me to take several deep breaths. We sat staring into each other's eyes, breathing in sync. When she stood up, she lifted a decanter from the floor, and I watched as she slowly poured its oil into her palm, and rubbed her hands together, gesturing for me to lie down. I closed my eyes. She started kneading my shoulders, working her way down the front of my body. I emitted a tiny gasp. I was torn between wanting to remain present and watch her every move, and the natural impulse to close my eyes. Her fingers moved down past my belly, and she gently spread my legs apart, stroking my inner thigh and making her way up to my pubic area. Maybe it was her delicate manner, or perhaps it was because I'd never been touched by a woman. But every scintilla of my body felt alive, as if an electric pulse was pumping through my veins. At some point, I thought I heard someone moaning nearby. It was me. The sounds were coming from somewhere deep inside me. When I climaxed, my entire body shuddered, and though my eyes were shut, I swore I saw a vibrant display of colors beneath my lids. It was the most powerful and freeing feeling in the world. I uttered, "I want to stay here forever," before catching myself and nearly dying of embarrassment. She grinned and continued caressing me as my body trembled. Soon I came again. Every part of me was tingling, and it was beautiful. At that moment, I loved every inch of myself. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was grateful for the body I inhabited, because it allowed me to feel such pleasure.
When I walked through our apartment door later that evening, I was still tingling from the aftershock. "Fine" no longer seemed like an acceptable response to my husband's inquiry, when it had in fact seemed monumental. "Don't you remember what today was?" I responded, unable to contain my joy. For a moment he panicked, as if he'd missed school pickup or an anniversary. "Hello, it's not every day your wife gets an erotic massage. Do I look any different?" I headed to the bathroom to inspect my face. I smiled at myself and gently touched my face and neck, and mouthed the word, "Wow." It wasn't just about the orgasm. It was about my body cooperating and allowing me to once again feel unadulterated pleasure, in a way I thought might have been gone forever. For once, my mind and my body were on the same page. That night in bed, I did not pretend I was asleep. I was more awake than ever. For the first time in years, I was the one to initiate sex. There are times in our lives that we are bound to feel like a car stuck in the mud, waiting for assistance. Shanti arrived on the scene when I needed her most, and gave me the push I needed to get me out of my rut. Better than the orgasm itself was this giant sense of relief, in knowing I was still very capable of embracing intimacy. It's been nearly four years since my appointment with Shanti, and I still battle with my weight. But what I've gained is the notion that I am still worthy of enjoying pleasure in the body I have. Now, I focus on how my clothes fit, instead of what size is marked on the label. I no longer rely on a revolving door of neutral tones to camouflage my shape, leaning instead toward cheery colors, funky patterns, even sequins. I've invested in a vibrator strong enough to drown out any negative noise in the back of my head. And I've stopped taking efforts to cover up my body in my husband's presence. And to his surprise, I don't always insist the lights be turned off during sex.
Are we on? Oh my god. I am in love with this story. I feel like she did this thing that's so hard to do. Which is like, Oh my god, I'm going to tell you this, like, she, she made like a huge promise at the beginning as if she were saying, like, I'm going to tell you this crazy, crazy thing that happened to me. You know? Like just the name of her story. I outsourced my orgasm is such a like, huge promise. But then, for me, she delivered.
There was a lot of things I really liked. I will say, though, that the whole time she was with Shanti, I was like, is she enjoying this so much because it's sort of like taboo, it's with a woman instead, or it's somebody different. And then I was worried like, she was going to want to- like it was gonna break up her marriage. And so there was tension for me, like, Oh, God, yeah, yeah, totally 100% Because I was like, Oh, my gosh, she's, you know- anyway, so then, but when she gets home, and she tells us at the end, and this is what stories often are missing. And in this story. It's not missing at all, is that it's not just this cool, funky, unique situation, or maybe not so unique. I don't know. But she tells us-
I've never heard it before with a woman. So I think it's pretty unique. But yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, it wasn't just about the orgasm it was about- and then she tells us, you know, enjoying- learning to enjoy pleasure, getting in touch with her mind and body, like all that stuff that she said. And then she goes into, there are times in our lives, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Shanti pushed her out of the rut and gave her relief that she was now capable and embracing intimacy. So we trust her now, because we've seen this whole thing that she's now an expert in this. So that's what the higher register situation is. We talk about that a lot.
But wait, explain it. Explain it. Let's, let's explain it here.
Well, now she's the expert.
What does that mean?
So we talk about higher register a lot. And sometimes, if it's done in the beginning, before we sort of hear the story and hear what the narrator has gone through, it feels preachy. But when we hear it later, we're like, oh, this lady knows, she can tell us about orgasms, she can tell us about outsourcing them or her husband or the marriage or her body or her weight, because she's going through it. And she's already shared all that very vulnerable information with us. So we trust her as the expert.
And in this case, this narrator spoke directly to us, and even spoke sort of in the third person, she said, there are times in our lives that we are bound to feel like a car stuck in the mud, waiting for assistance. So she's like talking to the general, everybody with this authority. And that's what the higher register is, is talking directly to the reader with authority. And I trusted her, because she'd already- Yeah, because she'd been through this whole thing. And Shanti arrived on the scene when she needed her most.
And then she also tells us, she sort of closes up the arcs of like, she's still battling her weight. But she is able to enjoy pleasure, she sort of views her body in a different way that's able to enjoy this pleasure instead of the size that the clothing says, which I think that is important to know, that she hasn't miraculously changed because of it, but that she's still working towards it. But that also, we get a little glimpse that she's not, you know, turning off all the lights at night, and she stopped covering up her body so much when she's with her husband. She's proud of it. And that's beautiful.
Yeah, because the outsourcing actually changed her in a profound way. I thought, I don't know, I just- I am so in love with this story. I mean, basically like her trajectory. Well, one of the things that I love so much is that she knows herself really well. So she goes there. And when Shanti is asking her like, why are you here? She- she's like- she knows that she's gained weight. She knows that she doesn't feel good about herself anymore. And Shanti says you want- I think it- think it was Shanti who said, you want to feel pleasure or something. I don't remember exactly how she said it.
She asked her, why are you here, and she babbles like, ahlalala, and she's like I want, and she's like, to feel pleasure. Shanti helps her out.
Yeah, right. So Shanti just like, turned her around. What about the line where she said, It's been a decade and a half and something's changed: my body. That's where I really felt like this narrator was a knowing narrator. And then she gives us evidence about how it's changed. She also gave us backstory right before that, about how sexual she and her husband were. She had two drawers filled with lingerie. Yeah. And they- and they were always late to stuff like, ugh. So, so good. Oh, I want to ask you a question about the very, very, very beginning. So we know it's called outsource- I outsourced my orgasm. And then the first line is, it seemed cruel to be released directly back onto the city streets at rush hour, and in midtown Manhattan, after what just happened. So it's kind of like- it's vague. It's so interesting. I mean, I was into it. I was drawn in. But usually we talk about like, why- why be so mysterious?
I got it, 100%.
Oh, you did?
She's in like this euphoric stage and she's out there and everybody's doing their thing. And she's just experienced like, LAAAAAA!
Yeah, but it takes it- Okay, so then there's one, two full sentences before she says, I just experienced one of the most mind-blowing toe-curling orgasms of my life. Takes a little bit of time to get to it.
But I feel like she told us when she was going through it, one, and the next, and she was like, really enjoying it. So she showed us and then she told us. That's why it didn't bother me.
No, but that's at the very, very beginning. I'm just saying it took- it's- she leads- she starts the story with this.
Oh, this is before she shows us that?
That's like the fourth fifth sentence in. She just started the story in a way that was a little bit mysterious. And we sometimes say, why start a story with a mystery when you know, you're not writing a mystery? But she did. But she captured me.
Yeah, me too.
But I think it was because of the promise that we talked about earlier. The promise of, this is going to be about outsourcing my orgasm. So I was like, Okay, you have my attention. When she positions herself in the least fat way possible? Ah, heartbreaking. She made a really good case for outsourcing even this, like, the TaskRabbit like all the other things that she outsources, like, why not this?
I love her. She's genius.
Do you know any other women who've ever done this?
Not anyone who's told me this. But when they were talking about Yoni massages, it reminded me of a story you wrote about going to a massage- Yoni massage place with your wife.
Yes, but I was the one who was doing the Yoni massage on my wife. So it wasn't like, you know, everyone. Who wants to do the Yoni massage? Yoni, it's the lady parts as she said it, her Yoni was an abandoned storage unit.
I loved it. Cave. I hear- I'm with her. I hear you, Jenny Powers.
Here was another thing that I thought was great. I was like, What about the husband? What's the husband saying? Like I'm thinking, and then right as I'm like, really starting to worry, the husband catches her. So funny. I mean it's really- Seriously. I love this husband. He sees the landing strip, like wait, what? And then she tells him. And there when she's telling him, it's like, I need this for myself. I thought that was also so beautiful and so knowing. Wait, one other thing. I just want to- I'm sorry. I know I've been talking too much, but one other thing. When she says this was the most powerful and freeing feeling in the world. That language is so simple, and so perfect. Like, I feel like sometimes we try too hard to explain something. And that- basically, she just said it was the most powerful and freeing feeling in the world. I loved every inch of myself. I mean, she's not- She's just direct and clear and simple. Excellent. Like, I thought the stakes are- Yeah, huge stakes. Total change. Excellent. Thank you, Jenny Powers, for sharing this story. And thank you for listening.
Writing class radio is hosted by me Andrea Askowitz.
And me! Alison Langer.
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