“There’s nothing sadder than the tears of a clown,” sang Smokey Robinson back in 1967. Some, including myself, tend to disagree. While the sight of a clown crying is indeed sad, news of a young fit guy being unable to have sexual intercourse is infinitely sadder. It is especially sad when, in the case of 26 year old North Londoner Doug Weiss, the absence of sex comes not from a physical problem, but from a psychologically crippling episode.
It’s just gone 11 o’clock on a Saturday morning when I sit down with Doug at a well-known Irish pub in Shinjuku. I order an orange juice, but Doug orders a pint of Guinness with a double whiskey. Throughout our conversation, I notice that due to his chain smoking and drinking, Doug rarely has both hands free. I also notice that Doug is a nice guy, a great guy in fact. He gives off an aura of warmth and intimacy. He has a good job, a cool pad just outside the Yamanote Line, and what some would call dashing looks. But he wants to tell me a story, to warn others. He doesn’t want others to experience what he is going through.
Sure, she’s hot. But what if her name were Mami?
How about this bikini clad lass?
“She said, ‘Just call me Ma-chan, like you’ve been doing. Everything’s cool.’ But I knew that I had shagged her for the last time. Ma-chan? Why couldn’t that have been short for Mayumi or Manami. I know that in-house relationships can be rather broad-minded in Japan. However, I’ve never been one for incest. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to start getting it on with a girl who I now knew as Mami.”
Sure, she`s sophisticated and beautiful. But what if her name were Mami?
Since the big split, Doug hasn’t looked for a new girlfriend. He says that he is not yet emotionally prepared for a new relationship. His counselor, the renowned Singaporean Dr Cho Ben Pi, advised him against it for the time being. “What Doug is experiencing is not Erectile Disfunction per se,” explained Dr Pi as he lightly pressed the tips of his left hand fingers and right hand fingers together, “Instead he is going through what I like to call ‘Anti-Oedipus Reaction’. This is a condition usually brought on by seeing one’s mother or father nude or hearing one’s parents engaging in sexual intercourse. Discovering that the woman whose rectum you’ve been attending to orally has a name which is a homophone for an endearing term for ‘mother’ would also come under this umbrella.”
What if her name were Mami? (ok – we get it – you’d still say “yes” to all these young ladies, right?)
Dr Pi refused to speak in more depth about Weiss’s condition (he had already gone way over the line in breaching confidentiality), but his secretary said indications were that Weiss is improving, and should be able to achieve an erection before the end of summer.
Oh man, I have a similar story in my solo play. My first girl in japan, when I arrived back in 01, was called Mami. I thought it quite odd, that name. But yo, didn’t stop me from getting down and writing about her in my book.