Todd Levin used to work for “The Onion” and is currently writing for Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS. He is also one of the five “sexperts” who poured their collective insight into “Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk,” an uninformative, yet entertaining book on the subject of fornication. Levin, who is based in Brooklyn, NY, was gracious enough to tell the Mass Media about his new book and the challenges of writing comedy. MM: What’s “Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk” all about? TL: The whole point was to parody the authoritative quantification of sex that you get in sex-ed pamphlets. To write about sex in that way is absurd, because it is such a similar yet unique experience for all of us, and you are never going to fully understand it from reading some sort of a how-to manual. So we thought it would be funny to write completely bogus information in the same authoritative and didactic manner as a high school health class handout. MM: Does the book contain any actual information? TL: It does not. It contains some small truths, but these are more about social interactions. There are no truths related to the actual mechanics of sex. MM: What was it like to work so closely with four other writers? TL: Writing as part of a group is something I’ve just recently gotten used to. Fortunately, Mike Sax assembled the team and he is really good at finding likeminded writers. We all have a similar sense of humor. We were able to work a lot faster. One major thing I’m always worried about is maintaining a consistent voice throughout the work, which was especially important to this piece, but it all came together very naturally. MM: What did you guys struggle with? TL: We tried to avoid the easy puns or the overused innuendoes. No dirty Sanchezs. Also, I did feel a little self-conscious about a sex book written by five guys. It sounds gross. Who’s going to want to read that? But we tried to maintain the tone so that it read like an instructive text and not like a conversation out of the boys’ locker room, and because of that it shouldn’t matter what gender you are. We were a little bummed to not have a female writer on staff but it just wasn’t cost effective. We did have some much appreciated female influence from Sara Thyre and Allison Silverman. MM: Did you draw on any personal experiences for inspiration? TL: For the best places to masturbate in public, I just thought of saddest, loneliest places I see or visit in my daily life. For example, the pet section of Walmart, because your initial reaction to that is, “Walmart has a pet section?” And then as you look around at the dead fish floating in their tanks and the malnourished hermit crabs cannibalizing each other, you wonder if anyone else knows or cares that there is a pet section. To find out more about Levin and to listen to his standup comedy, visit www.toddlevin.com.
