I'm the One That I Want by Margaret Cho Page A

great time and was looking forward to the next one. San Francisco is such a great place for sexual exploration. There are so many things to do, so many closets to come out of. It’s not just a gay-straight-bi question. It really is multiple choice. The attitude is so playful and friendly, more like a sexy theme park than perversion.
    I didn’t get another opportunity to go to a sex party for many years. My career started to move and I was scared that these forays into alternative sexuality would somehow catch up with me. That was such a stupid idea, especially because I was talking about it on stage.
    Much later in my career, when I was in the middle of All-American Girl , the tabloids went and took a picture of Stormy Leather’s signage and told idiot readers that I had worked in a “steamy sex job,” but they never explained what it was.
    After my TV show was over, and I was spending a lot of time drinking and doing drugs and playing comedy clubs, I went to see a friend of mine perform in a production put on by the Til Eugelspiegel Society, New York’s oldest SM organization. The theater wasn’t opened up yet when I got there, so quite a few people were milling about in the lobby. I sat down on a hard bench, and soon an older woman dressed in a leather corset and very high heels teetered over to me and bent over. She got uncomfortably close to me, and I wanted to move, but I didn’t want to be rude. Her lover, a gruff mature man wearing a menacing-looking bullwhip on his hip, snapped a wooden cane over the woman’s rear, just barely missing my face.
    I decided to move. Obviously they didn’t care about my feelings, so why should I worry about theirs?
    The theater finally opened, and we all filed in. The audience was instructed to stand in a circle and the performers walked into the center. There was a rather large assortment of characters, almost as many as were watching. There were women wearing large head-dresses made of tree branches. A man and a woman, both naked, stood with their long hair woven together so they were hair Siamese twins attached at the braid. There was some chanting, and then some holding of hands and walking in a circle, and then all hell broke loose. The inner circle began to attack the outer circle. A bald man who looked just like Anthony Edwards dressed in a diaper grabbed me and demanded to see my underwear. I was so scared but didn’t want to appear to be, so I remained as calm as I could, even though my period had spontaneously started and the exit sign was nowhere to be found.
    I bled and bled and ran away from the ER diaper man. The emcee, a tall, striking-looking man in a top hat and fishnet tights, emerged from the crowd. He started to make loud demands on the inner circle. “I want a cowardly man! Bring unto me a lily-livered coward.” A nerdy guy clutching a Tower Records bag was snatched up by a girl with antlers and brought to the center of the room.
    “Bring me a pair of young lovers!” My two friends from the lobby were thrown into the center of the room. I bled and bled, but things started to get fun. It was kind of hilarious, all of this posturing, this pagan ritual with a bunch of art students, career nerds, and bridge-and-tunnel swingers. I pulled away slightly from the circles and leaned against the wall.
    Suddenly, the emcee screamed, “Bring me a fat woman! I want a fat woman now!!!!!”
    It was as if everything stopped, and the entire room turned to face me.
    “Who—me? No no no no!!!”
    The ER diaper man grabbed me and dragged me over to the emcee, who was wearing a lipstick smile from ear to ear. I was horrified, and bleeding harder than ever and yelling, “But I’m not fat! Hey!!! I am not fat!!!!!”
    The emcee tossed his head back and cackled like a scary witch. “No. She’s not fat. Just a little bit chubby!” With that he grabbed a handful of my stomach and shook it. I would have started crying, but the lights suddenly came up, and all the players