Maybe you lost it on a heavenly hotel room duvet sprinkled with silk rose petals, covered in droplets of spilled champagne and sweat reeking of romance. Perhaps it was in the backseat of a ’96 Toyota Camry surrounded by empty water bottles, fast-food containers, and promises.
Heck, maybe you awoke covered in body paint and vomit, wrapped in the arms of a person you only met hours prior! Despite how you bid good riddance to your virginity, I’m sure that we can collectively agree that it was super awkward, exhilarating, messy, adorable, and — most importantly — hilarious.
Recognizing this, comedians Brent Constantine and Stefan MacNeil have joined forces to create what is sure to be a memorable comedic storytelling event. How I Lost It will feature Constantine and MacNeil (along with other renowned stand up comics in Vancouver) talking about how they lost their virginities, making sure to cover every uncomfortable, exciting, disgusting detail along the way.
I sat down with these two masterminds, and this conversation alone should make you nostalgic for the moment that you lost your virginity.
The Peak: You’re both talented comedians who perform regularly in Vancouver. Is this the first show you two have worked on together?
Brent: Yeah, this is the first show we’ve put on together. Stefan was running a regular monthly room at the Railway, and I’ve done a bunch of stuff around the city as well since I’ve been here [Brent is from Edmonton], but yeah this is the first thing that we’ve done together. We’ve wanted to do something for a little while.
Stefan: I don’t know how it came up, but we were just talking about it one day, and it was like — hey! This could be a great show.
Brent: We were talking about our personal, terrible experiences with sex and just thought ‘This is awful, and we should just tell everybody about this and have them also share in on how disgusting our lives are!’
P: So, essentially, the concept of the show came up when you guys were talking about having shitty sex?
Brent: Yeah. I think we were at [Stefan’s] house when we were just talking about our different attitudes towards sex.
P: How did you choose the [other] comedians?
Stefan: Most of them are just friends of ours. We asked a bunch of people if they wanted to do the show, but it’s a very uncomfortable question. You don’t even realize how weird of a question it is. It’s one thing when you’re asking your friends, but then asking people that you just know from around the comedy scene to do this thing . . . you’re like, ‘Hey, you wanna talk about this thing?’ And then as soon as you hit send on Facebook, it’s like, ‘Hmm that’s kind of a weird message . . .’
Brent: I asked a couple of people, and pretty much everyone is like, ‘I have the best story for you!’ Only one or two people were like, ‘My story is not funny, it’s very romantic.’ But by and large, everyone has an awful experience that they want to share. Or maybe it’s just comedians, I don’t know.
Stefan: Also when you go see most stand-ups, most people are talking about their sex lives. And not just their sex lives, but it comes up a lot in stand up. So it’s not a hard topic for them to talk about.
Brent: Boom. Is that a pun? But yeah, people like to talk about that kind of stuff, and I really like doing shows where you get people who you know are funny, and they’re doing stuff that’s not in their regular routine. The majority of people are gonna be [doing new material] — well probably all of them because I don’t know of anybody on the show that has material that they already do about their virginity.
Stefan: That was the thing. I like doing storytelling shows. It kind of changes it up from stand up. It’s a lot more interesting and more like an exercise. We tried to shy away from old material ‘cause some people do have bits and you think that they would work out perfectly. But, for this kind of show, what we really wanted was for people to write a story specifically for this.
Brent: One person was chosen because I truly believe they are disgusting, and I think that his story would be the grossest story in the world . . .
Stefan: See, I thought he was a virgin! That’s why we held off on him . . .
P: So is it just virginity that you will be focusing on, or is it gonna end up being weird sex stories in general?
Brent: Well Stefan and I will be hosting, so we might talk about sex in general, but everyone on the show is going to be doing a virginity show.
Stefan: We want it to be about virginity [. . .] that “losing your virginity” story. I think that one’s more interesting, and that’s the one that everybody can relate to.
P: Is that why you think the virginity concept is going to work?
Stefan: Your virginity story is so embarrassing, so it would make you feel so much better going to a show where a bunch of people are making fun of themselves while sharing that part, and most people in their 20s can relate to that moment. You can tell one story and people are just gonna be receptive to it. It doesn’t have to hit hard as long as it’s interesting.
How I Lost It will take place on June 24 at 8:00 p.m. at the Cottage Bistro at 4468 Main Street.
