Michael, 26

Where are you from?
Texas. I've been in New York for seven years.

What do you do for a living?
Hair. I'm a hairdresser.

Does that get you laid?
Yes and no. I have good hair, so yes. But I work with a lot of gay men, so that doesn't help. But I have gotten laid from my job.

So hooking up must be different in the South, right?
So different! Very different.

What's the craziest thing someone has ever asked you to do in bed?
I'm so private about the boudoir — I don't think I can even answer that question.

Then what's the sexual philosophy of a Texas girl?
Legs crossed, mouth shut. Things are quieter in Texas than they are in New York. I work with whores all day. They just happened to be dressed in business casual.

 

Mordecai, 31

What do you do for a living?
I'm an associate producer and studio manager at a game-developing company. iPhone games, applications, real-world games.

What's a real-world game?
A game where people interact in the real world. Like social games.

LARPing. Live Action Role Playing? You are a LARPer?
Ha, LARPing. Yes, I LARP. What did I say my name was? Mordecai? What I meant was "Sheeba, King of Thisestan."

Now that is sexy.
Not really.

Does your job get you laid?
No, but having a job is more likely to get me laid than not having a job. In New York, there are a lot of attractive people everywhere. But I don't seem to be with them. I'm a good dude, and there are so many attractive people, and I can't believe I'm not with them constantly.

All right, so how are you going to get with all these attractive people?
Be myself, I guess. But that's not really working, so maybe I'll be someone else. One thing that's weird: I am immediately attracted to people I've gotten with in the past. I don't have a type, but maybe my type is "people I've already hooked up with."

That's not very adventurous. What's the craziest thing that's happened to you during sex?
Well, I hooked up with this girl one time, and then I saw her at a party. She came up to me, asked me if I wanted to get out of there, and I said yes. We got a cab, were having a great time in the cab, and we got to her place. It was really getting wonderful, incredibly sexy. We got to her place, I was super excited, I really liked this girl, and we were hooking up in her room. She took her clothes off and said, "Do whatever you want to me." But so, the last time I'd hooked up with this girl, I'd gone down on her, and she'd fallen asleep. Yeah. So this time, in my mind, I was thinking, "I have a wonderful night ahead of me, I can do whatever I want to this girl." So I thought, I want to go down on her. Then when we were done, we were face to face again and she looked at me and says, "I think I need to be alone tonight." It was super fucked-up.

Ouch! Did that make you question your abilities?
No! It made me question her sanity, because I'm wonderful.

Attempt 1: Asleep. Attempt 2?
"Get the fuck out of here!"

Yikes! How do you bounce back from that?
I'm pretty sure I haven't bounced back from that. But you know what my number-one wish is?

What?
To be able to eat anything I want and never get fat. Do you know what my number-two wish is?

No, what?
To sleep with this girl, because we never even got to do it!

 

Jennifer, 25

What do you do for a living?
I'm a teacher right now. I teach Special Ed in a third/fourth grade in the Bronx.

How long have you been a teacher?
Four years now.

Has your job ever gotten you laid?
No way! It's funny because I do art and I have an art degree, and I want to start getting into tattooing, and all the people I work with are pretty much the kids I made fun of when I went to school with them. So we don't get along that well. They're nerdy.

What do you do to get laid?
I was born and raised in the Bronx, but I was always out of place there. When I was in the Bronx, I didn't get a lot of girls at all because they all wanted the girl with the ponytail and the Shape-Up, which is not my style at all. I dated a girl for six years, but she was totally settling.

She settled for six years? That's a long settlement.
Yeah, she was also really neurotic. But when I moved to Brooklyn I realized that I'm hot and I can get girls.

What's the craziest sexual request you've ever gotten?
Actually, I've only been with five girls, so it's been pretty tame. And some of them were straight.

Okay, so how do you nab straight girls?
Oh, I'm always their first. It's funny, because you know when you watch a movie and the guy says all the right things? Well, since I'm a girl, I know the things they want to hear, so I can trick them into sleeping with me. It's more of a conquest that way. It's a challenge so it's more fun.

Clever. What do you tell them?
Tell them they're really beautiful, even if they're butt ugly. Just tell them they're beautiful. They'll eat it up. Compliment their personality and make them feel like a full person who has so much to contribute. It's not an immediate thing — you have to get really close to them and make them feel really warm and comfortable, and since I'm so masculine they start to get really confused and think, "Oh man, I kind of think she's really hot, but maybe I shouldn't." You always plan on that, go for that. Like, I'm going to confuse the shit out of this girl, and then I'm going to screw her!

Bam!
Yeah! No, but really I'm more of a relationship person, because I feel kind of guilty and bad about it. I don't like hurting girls' feelings.

Interviews by Juliet Linderman. Photography by Talisa Chang.