There’s more to fellatio than just a climax. It’s absolutely frightening, holding something that fragile in between your teeth, and hoping, wishing, praying that you’re perfecting the act— the duty of the illustrious blow job.
Comedian and author Jacqueline Novak dives right into those anxieties in her one-woman show, Get on Your Knees. The salaciousness, the stress, and the humor are all wrapped up in the award-winning show that Novak will be performing for four nights at the Den Theatre.
Novak’s coming-of-age performance looks at the philosophy of oral sex, of how getting on your knees can be an act of awe and an act of service. I hopped on Zoom with Novak last week where we discussed the ins and outs of holding your own on stage, the relationship between performer and audience, and the terror of the blow job.
S. Nicole Lane: I’m a journalist who writes about sex. And art. So this is a blending of two of my interests.
Jacqueline Novak: That’s wonderful! It’s perfect.
I want to start off by talking about your one-woman show. Obviously you have, you know, enough experience, but are there still significant challenges in terms of carrying the entirety of the performance?
Oh, sure. Yeah. I would say probably one of the biggest challenges in what I have to do, or what I have the glorious opportunity to do, is two shows in a night. That’s probably the most challenging for me just because I have this feeling of like, “Did I just say this? Am I repeating myself?” I’m in some crazy loop where I don’t realize that I’ve skipped something cause I feel like I already said it, because I said it earlier that evening. That’s a very specific challenge.
Otherwise, being on stage alone is stand-up. So, it doesn’t feel weird to me in that sense, it feels very natural to me in that sense. Natural, because I’ve been doing this for a long time, you know. It’s not a showcase show. I’ve put my name and my title on the whole show. I’ve said I’m the whole show. It’s inherently not casual. The framing of it as a show is the bigger challenge.
And then, I would say, just because I’m a constant tinkerer—I always look to change and improve stuff and the current hour and a half show has just so much there that I could endlessly improve. That’s probably the biggest challenge for me. Me being aware that I have the power to change the words because I wrote them. There’s a freedom and a challenge. I could change it at any moment. It’s an option that I wouldn’t have if I was performing someone else’s words, right. So, it’s like, the stress of being able to infinitely change it. Or the temptation to.
Get on Your Knees
11/4-11/7: Thu 7 PM, Fri-Sat 7 and 9:30 PM, Sun 4 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee, 773-697-3830, thedentheatre.com, $25-$49 (two-drink minimum).
The show will be at the Den Theatre here in Chicago. I’m curious how performances in theater spaces differ from other types of spaces. Is it more intimate? Are the crowds different?
Totally. I think venues can have a significant effect both on me and the audience. Particularly initially. What I like to feel is that the way the show is, that once it gets going, once it’s really in motion, and certainly hopefully by the end, the hope is that it no longer matters where we are. That’s the goal. When it’s presented as theater the audience is a little more reserved. (Laughs.) People will cover their mouth as if they aren’t supposed to laugh, and literally stifle it, and I’m like, “Please. Let it free.” I think that’s an inherent thing of theatrical presentation. Even a theater area that’s a comedy venue or has a lot of comedy, or alternative spaces like a rock club, it’s a looser feel.
Different elements of the show are based on the context, which is fun. What’s the ultimate space for it? And that’s still open for interpretation. And also, a lot of venues, I don’t know the vibe of that theater or what it means to the people who go there. I don’t have that context the way I may have in New York. I’ve done shows and been to shows at certain places for many years and I know what this means to get on stage here versus here. That’s one of the fun things about the touring aspect. It’s kind of like setting up my circus.
When did you begin working on Get on Your Knees?
Well, you know, it’s the intersection of two things. It’s the intersection of my stand-up and ideas that have been in my stand-up forever and then this long path of this blow job narrative that started in college when I wrote an essay. I always wanted to do a thread for a book, like a memoir. So these two long roads intersected in doing the show and really took form when I wanted to go to Edinburgh for the Fringe Fest to work on my hour, so to speak. It was kind of the spirit of “OK, no one’s asking me to do an hour. No one’s like, ‘Hey, can we have your hour special?’” and so I just have to make something that stands on its own. I was like, “OK, I’m gonna take a big swing.” That’s really what it felt like. I’m gonna take a big swing, I’m gonna make something. I’m gonna make it as good as I can and ignore the thinking of trying to sell myself or get certain people to notice it. The typical stand-up career thinking. Put that aside and make something as absolutely as good as I can, then I’ll go from there. The “make it first” kind of idea versus “get approval to make it.” Then it was like, how can I get the most stage time? OK, Edinburgh. I can do 26 shows in a row. I went to Texas and I did a two-week residency at a theater there and I was like OK, anywhere where I can go and I can work on this thing. That was the process.
As a sex writer, I never tire talking about blow jobs or oral sex. And so I’m interested in how oral sex, and blow jobs, can be this degrading act but also this powerful act. Can you expand on how blow jobs are intriguing enough to have a whole show about?
Yeah. Totally. Well, a couple of things. Of course, we sort of say, “This show is about blow jobs,” and I say, “I’m gonna talk about blow jobs a lot tonight.” At the same time, to me, it’s weird I don’t even think about it like the show is about blow jobs. The blow job as a concept, it’s sorta interesting, for the reason you said, it contains these dualities. Those different dualities move. It has different kinds of shadow sides and light sides. Power versus degradation, like you said. Getting on your knees, like the title, it’s like we get on our knees, or we fall to our knees, in spiritual awe or in prayer, or—in theory—in the blow job. The other thing is that the blow job, of course in one sense it’s natural and it’s bodies and it’s bodies doing things. But it’s also an idea that could have not been invented or could have not been thought up.
So in that way, it is a human invention. I’m not saying that in a place of any academic realness. In my mind, it’s like the blow job could have never existed and yet it does. It’s this idea and we have all of these ideas about it. It’s this intersection of primal and contrived. Natural and something that’s an art, in a way. To me, it’s really on that level that it becomes interesting. That’s the space that I’m interested in. Like language, ideas, what they mean to different people, looking at one thing one way and considering another way to look at it. Playing with the dualities is what I enjoy.
The detail that the show gets into isn’t really the details of . . . like, you aren’t gonna learn anything about a blow job from my show. (Laughs) You’re gonna learn about the interior of my mind. The context is the blow job. And that’s the other interesting thing. All the other things that are occurring in the moment of, not the blow job itself, but conquering the task, you know, the achievement of doing it for the first time. Or in my case, this belief that it was something that I believed I needed to do. And how would I do it? And would I be able to do it? And the blow job is the ultimate challenge for me as an adolescent. The idea of having to do that challenges every neurosis I have, like perfectly. It was like discovering your foe. This shall be my foe and I shall take you down. It’s abstract in all of those ways. It’s abstract but my personal experience is what grounds it.
Around when I was doing my show, I agreed to write something about anti-technique. I’m writing a show about blow jobs but it’s not about technique; I don’t even subscribe to the idea of technique or being “good” at sex.
When I was reading about the show I was thinking about how I was 14 in 2004 and I was on the Internet and I was so terrified of giving a blow job. It was like, scarier to me than having sex. It was just so scary. I think I had sex before I gave a blow job. I was just terrified.
Me too! I mention that in the show. The joke is almost in the fact that when I do have sex, in the show, it’s nothing. It’s like you’ve heard me analyze my fear around the blow job to such an extreme and then the idea of having sex is just like, “Oh yeah!” It doesn’t challenge all those neuroses to me in the way that the blow job does. It just doesn’t.
Right! Which I think is so interesting because not everyone was scared of giving a blow job.
Amazing. Incredible.
I was so scared. I remember Googling “How to Give a Blow Job” and then the first time I did it I was like, “Oh this isn’t that scary,” but every time I’m with a new person, I do have that fear again.
It reawakens.
And it’s something different with every single person obviously. Everyone likes things differently.
Totally. I think this is also another key to the show is that, the fear around the blow job and arguably, the penis, it wasn’t the fear of some object, right? It was always about the person’s experience. I joke about this in the show but the fear of hurting the penis was a big part of it. I could screw it up and screw it up majorly. It’s a key difference for me. It was never like the penis as some sword or something that I was afraid to face. It was more like those dreams you have—I don’t know if you have these—but they are common for some. You accidentally crush a little squirrel or something like that and you’re trying to put it back together. Destroying something or killing something small or realizing “I zipped my cat into a bag and it doesn’t have air,” whatever. It’s the same fear of when I was babysitting. I was scared to babysit baby-babies. They are so vulnerable. I was like, I only wanna babysit six-year-olds-and-above kids. I was 12 but whatever. It’s that specific. I’m afraid of babies the same way I’m afraid of a penis. I don’t want to hurt it.
Totally. I’m also afraid of babies. Maybe there is something there. I don’t know how to hold a baby.
Everyone’s like begging to hold the baby. The bobbling head. At least the head of the penis doesn’t bobble around.
Thank God!
If it had a neck! I guess the neck is arguably the hinge on which it attaches to the rest of the body. Nonetheless, if the head bobbled, it would be really unacceptable.
Absolutely not. Yeah, so I don’t know if there is any answer to this, but is there a target audience in mind for the show? Like the giver or the receiver, or both?
Right. Really interesting question. My initial thought was, “Well, probably the most important target would be the adolescent.” Or the young blow job-giver. Anyone who is considering the prospect of giving a blow job or intends to or might have some of those fears or concerns. That’s probably my initial thought. That’s the core—who might this show be comforting to. But then I also think, for grown people it’s hopefully giving them some kind of peace around their experiences. That’s my natural answer.
But when I’m on stage, what I’m actually experiencing, inherently the nature of stand-up—to me—is that I’m trying to convince and win an argument. The argument is the point I’m making and sometimes it’s “I’m funny!” Because of that convincing, and approaching the audience that they are doubters, of me, of what I have to say, that is so ingrained in me that I think I inherently project on to the audience what I imagine is the worst receiver. I place on them—not always—the person who would most be offended. In that way, when I go out there and say these words, I am in some ways picturing this male gaze. That’s almost the artistic target versus what effect the show has. If I was an actor and it was a play and it was like, “Who am I talking to? Who is the absent other character?,” it’s probably that. That’s who I’m talking to in my own little play.
I appreciate you letting me ramble because I’m coming to realizations.
I have one more question. How does it feel to be back performing after COVID? I know it’s an annoying COVID question. And not just being back in these performance spaces again but also talking about oral sex in this time when people are feeling a little strange about physical touch.
Oh yeah! Totally. Well it’s really interesting because this show is so memoir-esque and playing out on this level of ideas and thinking about my adolescence that in this one way, I’m always shocked or surprised when someone says anything at the merch table like, “I’m gonna think about you later tonight when I give a blow job.” I’m like, “Oh my God.” These people are experiencing this in this very present way. Yes, I’m talking about my adolescence but they are very much thinking about their life right now. For me, it’s so memoir to me in this one way that those things don’t even occur to me.
Because it is a memoir, there is nothing in the show that truly references anything current. That’s the good thing about it. The show is the same before and after because it’s highly personal and it’s something I’ve been thinking about forever.