Monica Heisey just published her first book, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better: A Woman’s Guide To Coping With Life” (Red Deer Press). Heisey’s book is near 300 pages of unpretentious reveals about her life; everything from how to cry in public to “The Factual and Emotional History of the Burrito”to a poem about shopping with big tits (“I’m fucking never trying on a wrap dress, so just let it go, Mandy”).
Heisey is a Canadian comedian and sex writer whosework has appeared in VICE, Playboy, The Guardian, Cosmopolitan and many more. Although Heisey and I have never locked eyes IRL despite writing for many of the same magazines, we became connected in the “real, REAL”world: Twitter. Our relationship quickly progressed from Skype to emails and texts, so I didn’t feel invasive asking her to talk about her open-marriage, putting strange things in her vagina and sex toys.
As a sex writer, you have to deal with Internet trolls. You refer to them as "the herpes of humanity". Why do you think people are so freaked out when it comes to public sex writing?
I mean, people get pretty psychotic about anything women write online. Writing about sex sort of does some of the work for them, because trolls are really into bringing things back to getting raped or having AIDS or being a slut. The presumption is that writing about sex and sexuality is something you do for attention, instead of, you know, something you’re interested in that people might want to read about. There’s still a lot of societal weirdness attached to being a woman who isn’t embarrassed about her body or her sexuality, or I guess sexuality in general, even.
You do a lot of quizzes in the book. It reminds me of the quizzes in Seventeen and YM my friends and I trusted like our bible when we were teens. Why the quizzes?
The quizzes are intended, as you described, as homage, a nostalgic callback to the days when I really thought finding out that I was a Josh Hartnett girl was really Important Information About Me. Imagine? Like, “I know myself. I’m the Chandler of my group and if I was a shoe I’d be a funky sneaker.”
What was the most memorable dick pic you have ever received? Describe in detail, please.
My husband and I were long distance for almost four years…I’ve received a LOT of dick pics. I thing the best dick media I have on my phone is a video of my husband bouncing his around in time with Desmond Dekker's "Israelites." Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I think we need more flaccid dick pics.
I have written so many sex/relationship articles telling people exactly how NOT to act, but many times I have abandoned my own rules by being a psycho hose beast. What do you do when this happens to you?
It's important to be forgiving to yourself, because we are all psycho hose beast sometimes. It's obviously much, much easier to dish out advice than to take it. Just because I'm all "don't worry about it! You're doing fine, probably!" in the book doesn't mean I think I have it all figured out, or that I don't experience insecurity or awkwardness or stress about what to text back to someone I think is cute, or whatever else. The book is really based on the premise that we're all just doing our best, and that doesn't mean anyone is getting it right 100 or even 70 per cent of the time. Everyone's a fuck up.
What are your basic rules of maintaining a stress(less) open marriage?
Everyone thinks open marriages are about wild orgies or whatever but it's mostly just about being very dedicated to talking about your feelings (and then going to a wild orgy, kidding…kind of!). Sorry for blowing your cover, open marriage people. Really the main thing is to be open to sharing and communicating with your partner. Whether it's like, "Oh, I think this person is very attractive" or "When you said that the other day I was jealous" or "Should we just focus on each other right now," you have to really try to hear what the other person is saying... to be honest the rules are almost exactly like a regular marriage, you just get to have a boyfriend too.
What's the strangest thing you have put in your vagina?
I did put a clove of garlic up there once—an organic, herb-y witch friend recommended it as a yeast infection cure. It did not work, but it did make my mouth taste like garlic, which was interesting and low-key upsetting.
What's your opinion on butt holes?
Enthusiastically supportive from a distance. Everyone should be able to do with theirs what they please, obviously, but it's not really my thing.
How do you really feel about sex toys? Like, how often do you really make use of the gifted sample collection in your house?
I think they're like hats: I don’t wear one everyday, but some occasions really call for it. My husband recently bought us a Hitachi magic wand. I’d never had one before but of course heard about them on every women's blog in the world in the mid-2000s. I thought of it as my aunt's vibrator, or something. But then I got one and honestly, it's amazing. All my Internet Aunts were right.
When did you get over the whole "I haven't trimmed in a while" body shame excuse bullshit during sex? Do you remember the moment you put pleasure over posing?
I think the more times you take your clothes off without shaving your legs and the person you’re naked in front of doesn’t recoil in horror (see: all times, literally no one cares about leg hair or any other hair), you just start to realize it’s not a big deal. There certainly wasn’t some kind of Sasquatch turning point, but as I've gotten older and become more aware of what I'm into, and been with people who are more aware of their own shit too, it just really faded into the background as an issue. It's like if you're answering the question, "What is the best thing we can do to each other right now," with "Be kind of a dick about your pubes," you are doing it wrong.
What makes you an expert to write a guide for women's lives?
Oh, I make no claims to expert status. I’m just trying to tell people how I do it, and hopefully making them feel better about how they do.
